The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

The 2003 remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was the first movie to be made by Michael Bay’s production company with Radar Pictures. At first, it looked promising, but viewers find out fast that it’s just a retelling of the large effective horror classic. Scott Foundas from Variety stated in his review, “Ultimately another subscriber to the bigger-is-better, too-much-is-never-enough mentality of contemporary horror filmmakers. Short-term B.O. prospects look strong, given lack of any significant genre competition between now and Halloween.”

Foundas went on to say, “In the press notes, one of the exec producers cavalierly notes admits that the idea for the remake stemmed from research showing that 90% of the film’s core, males-under-25 audience knew the title of Hooper’s film, but had never seen it.” Few will figure out that screenwriter Scott Kosar and Director Marcus Nispel begin this movie with a shocking loyalty to the original. To start off, John Larroquette is now the narrator to the person who read the credits from the 1974 film, telling the viewers this movie is based on a true story. (This franchise is loosely based on Ed Gein, which also was the inspiration for Robert Bloch to write “Psycho.”)

Next it cuts to the similar van which occupies the five friends taking a road trip through the hot Texas, which Foundas noted, “Photographed in extreme long shot and framed near the bottom of the screen in a precise duplication of one of the original “Massacre’s” most memorably askew images. (To accomplish the trick, Nispel employed cinematographer Daniel C. Pearl, who was Hooper’s d.p. 29 years ago.)”

The teenagers in the van look a little more blended and ready for anything scary than ever. First you got the drug-addict clown Kemper (Eric Balfour), his tomboy girlfriend Erin (the hot Jessica Biel from “7^th Heaven”), narcissist Andy (Mike Vogel), the glasses wearing smarty Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), and the hitchhiker Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), who was already there when the film started.

The beginning of the film is true to the non-complaints visuals of 1970s independent filmmaking, and lacks the look of a postmodern hilarity that took away horror movies of their main mission to scare.

Foundas mentioned that, “A large part of what made the first “Massacre” so indelible was its stark, evocative atmosphere — the slow encroachment of the chainsaw splatter on a placid, Georgia O’Keefe landscape. And when it begins, Nispel’s “Massacre” likewise suggests a picture-postcard pregnant with dread.”

All of that starts when the friends pick up another hitchhiker – a severely beaten teenage girl, played by Lauren German, walking on the road – when things start to go bad, both for the characters and the movie. Rather than simply giving the main characters a scare (the way the original 1974 movie did with the male hitchhiker), this hitchhiker shoots herself in the head with a gun. This part is where Nispel’s camera zooms into the gunshot in her head and out through the big one in the rear window of the van.

When the notice this, it causes these kids to get help at an innocuous farmhouse where they meet the deadly Leatherface, played by Andrew Bryniarski. The suicide is also more obvious than anything in the original, and turns Nispel’s film into the very predictable and “know what’s going to happen” fact – a movie with more gore than the original, but only a part of its filmmaking creativity.

Foundas admitted, “A large part of what made the first “Massacre” so indelible was its stark, evocative atmosphere — the slow encroachment of the chainsaw splatter on a placid, Georgia O’Keefe landscape. And when it begins, Nispel’s “Massacre” likewise suggests a picture-postcard pregnant with dread.”

In a superfluous part, R. Lee Ermey (who you might remember from the classic “Full Metal Jacket”) plays the local sheriff so much dramatic enjoyment that you must wonder why Leatherface didn’t already lock him up in the freezer. Also, Leatherface’s entire clan (David Dorfman, Lauren German, Terrence Evans, Marietta Marich and Heather Kafka) – always the weakest part of the movie – is described by Foundas as “fleshed-out, suggesting a citywide, pod-people-esque conspiracy.”

Foundas mentioned that, “Pic then falls into a “Scream”-like self-referential abyss as Internet geek Harry Knowles shows up as one of the decapitated heads decorating Leatherface’s workspace. In the end, the cumulative effect is that everything that was abstract and nightmarish in the original is crudely literalized here.”

In a small credit on a role made by Marilyn Burns, Biel is hot and interesting, despite the filmmakers attempt to make her a lot like one of the strong female characters in a horror movie, straight to the fight with Leatherface that looks like it was there just to promote feminist power.

My thoughts are that this is better than the second and fourth installments, but it’s still a weak remake. I just don’t see a point in making all of these installments this way when there were plenty of opportunities and ideas open for anything. However, the makers think that the film should just be rebooted each time, and I have never heard of a horror film that got remade “this” many times. Just don’t see it, in my opinion.

This film actually had a prequel, which I thought was actually better. If you want to know why, you will find out tomorrow in the next installment of “Halloween Month.”