The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) New Line/Horror RT: 98 minutes Rated R (strong graphic violence and gore, language, drug content/use) Director: Marcus Nispel Screenplay: Scott Kosar Music: Steve Jablonsky Cinematography: Daniel Pearl Release date: October 17, 2003 (US) Cast: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour, R. Lee Ermey, Andrew Bryniarski, Lauren German, David Dorfman, Marietta Marich, Terrence Evans, Heather Kafka, John Larroquette (narrator). Box Office: $80.1 million (US)/$107 million (World)
Rating: ** ½
As far as remakes go, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t too bad. It definitely won’t make you forget the 1974 original anytime soon, but it holds up reasonably well against other (often inferior) horror remakes. Oddly enough, this one eschews most of the rules of the genre as laid out in my review of the original movie. In fact, the only ones that seem to apply to the new version of TCM are the ones about picking up weird hitchhikers and everybody in a small remote town being related.
TCM is a remake in the sense that the filmmakers have retained the same basic premise as the original. The story still involves five teenagers travelling through Texas in a van on a hot August day. They still encounter a masked, chainsaw-wielding homicidal maniac commonly known to horror fans as Leatherface. The similarities stop there and that’s where the TCM remake runs into trouble.
As a fan of Tobe Hooper’s horror essential, I would have liked to have seen certain things not left out. For example, the main female character does not end up as the guest-of-honor/potential main course at the family dinner table in the new version. WHAT?! Come on, that scene is classic! You can’t leave that out! On the other hand, do we really want to see any filmmaker mess with it? I guess not since it’s always a losing battle trying to top perfection. The other aspect of the story that director Marcus Nispel drops is the whole cannibalism angle. Instead, there’s a psychological explanation behind Leatherface’s homicidal tendencies. When you think about it, this TCM is actually more of a reimagining than a remake. Either way, it falls far short of the raw power of Hooper’s classic (and prototypical) mad slasher flick.
One thing I’m glad to see retained is actor John Larroquette’s (Night Court) now-classic opening monologue explaining to audiences that the story they’re about to see is both shocking and true. TCM then briefly kicks into found footage mode as we see black-and-white footage of investigators at the crime scene. The story picks up on August 18, 1973 as five teenagers make their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after spending a few days in Mexico, during which the guys picked up a large quantity of weed. They are Erin (Biel, 7th Heaven) and her boyfriend Kemper (Balfour, Skyline), Morgan (Tucker, The Ruins), Andy (Vogel, The Help) and his new girlfriend Pepper (Leerhsen, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2). They spot a distraught-looking young woman (German, Hostel: Part II) walking along the road and the girls coax her into the van. She babbles incoherently about “a bad man” before pulling out a pistol and shooting herself in the mouth.
The teens stop at a roadside store where they try to report the incident to the local sheriff (Ermey, Full Metal Jacket) who tells them to meet him at a nearby mill. They show up and find a young boy (Dorfman, The Ring) instead of the lawman. The boy directs Erin and Kemper to the sheriff’s house. They have to walk through the woods to get there. The couple comes to an old plantation house where they’re greeted by amputee Monty (Evans, Chain Letter) who allows only Erin inside to use the phone. Kemper comes inside looking for her when she doesn’t return right away. Leatherface (Bryniarski, Batman Returns) appears behind him and hits him in the head with a small sledgehammer. Meanwhile, the sheriff finally arrives at the mill to take charge of the hitchhiker’s corpse. It’s at this point the nightmare really begins. It’s not long after this that the movie starts to lose steam.
I’m a bit disappointed by TCM seeing as though it got off to a pretty good start. I started to think that it would be one of those rare instances where the remake (or re-imagining) might actually be pretty decent. In all fairness, it’s not all that bad. It’s just that Nispel doesn’t do anything interesting with the pre-existing material. But you see, I suspect this is a case where any filmmaker would be damned regardless of what direction they take with the story. An exact remake would bring on complaints about lack of creativity; changing the story (as they’ve done here) would have viewers saying not to fix what isn’t broken. It’s really a no-win situation, but I think Nispel does okay under the circumstances.
TCM is definitely the best of his three remakes, the others being the dull Friday the 13th (2009) and the abysmal Conan the Barbarian (2011). On the positive side, the cast does a pretty good job. Biel makes a pretty good Scream Queen. She has the same blend of toughness and vulnerability that catapulted Jamie Lee Curtis to the top when she bore the Scream Queen crown more than 30 years ago. Leerhsen is very easy on the eyes which is a good thing since the screenplay doesn’t give her much else to do. Ermey turns in another great over the top performance as the sheriff who’s most assuredly not playing with a full deck. Again, remember the rule about everybody being related in such a small town.
TCM has a fair amount of gore and the effects are pretty cool, but I would have liked to have seen Nispel go more over the top with the blood and guts. His version lacks the sense of claustrophobia and unease that defined Hooper’s movie. It doesn’t have the same disturbing quality of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At least the first two sequels to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre attempted to duplicate this with varying degrees of success. Nispel can’t seem to capture this tone and TCM ultimately becomes just like any other slasher movie with the sole survivor trying to elude the homicidal maniac. All things considered, this movie could have turned out a hell of a lot worse. The very fact that it’s at least watchable is a definite plus. It’s a little better than okay, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.
