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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 40%
Worth A Look: 22.45%
Average: 6.94%
Pretty Bad: 11.84%
Total Crap: 18.78%
6 reviews, 209 user ratings
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| Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (2003) |
by Dennis Swennumson
"A remake of a horror classic that would make Gus Van Sant proud."
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Considering the best of the genre, Scream or the first Halloween, slasher flicks have an undeniable entertainment value. Released in 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was one of the first movies featuring a group of teens stranded in an unfamiliar setting, stalked and maimed one by one. This set up has been rehashed and reincarnated so many times that new ideas have run dry, a remake of the 30-year-old original was unfortunately inevitable. The 2003 version has some of the elements that made the first a cult classic, but generally feels like another imitator.We are introduced to the main characters/future victims, two couples and a nerdy cynic, roaring along desolate Texan roads. These scenes get the movie off to a slow start, inspiring little no care or interest for who they are. One character, Kemper, with his name on his shirt and a K on his hat really makes us hope that he gets it first. They make the requisite moronic choices, like picking up a supposed hitchhiker. After a disturbing death in their van, the group expects to get help from the numerous local oddities. They split up, some meet the sadistic butcher named Leatherface and the others are left to the mercy of the local sheriff.
Director Marcus Nispel, who previously made music videos, has traded the low-budget grit of the original for gothic slickness. The style works, but the brilliance of the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre is its ability to create dread and angst with purely the situation on screen, not elaborate props or nice use of surround sound. Jessica Biel has the screaming talents of Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis in the main role, but her performance is hindered by her TV personality. We don't see the character of Erin being chased around by a chainsaw wielding madman, we see Mary Camden from 7th Heaven being pursued.
Texas Chainsaw Massacreis the third film released this year about hapless travelers clashing with the residents of a strange, isolated household. There was Rob Zombie's self-indulgent House of 1000 Corpses, which basically was a remake of the 1974 Massacre itself. Wrong Turn, about cannibalistic mountain men hunting down stranded campers was surprisingly entertaining. The similarities between these three films simultaneously show the lack of originality in contemporary slasher flicks and how influential Texas Chainsaw Massacre really was.Those with queasy stomachs proceed with caution, the film is a gauntlet of disgusting characters and disturbing visuals. The film isn't necessarily gory, just plain gruesome. The movie seems to aspire to make the audience squirm as much as possible. What makes the content somewhat forgivable is the timeframe it was released, before Halloween when certain people are just in a mood to be horrified, shocked and somewhat repulsed at the movies. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a hellacious nightmare; the remake is just a hellacious impersonation lacking improvement.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8259&reviewer=338
originally posted: 10/27/03 17:12:30
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Horror Remakes: For more in the Horror Remakes series, click here.
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USA
17-Oct-2003 (R)
DVD: 30-Mar-2004
UK
31-Oct-2003 (18)
Australia
20-Nov-2003 (MA)
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