MOVIE REVIEW

Texas Chainsaw Massacre  (2003)

Starring: Jessica Biel, Eric Balfour, Andrew Bryniarski
Director: Marcus Nispel

Rating: R

Studio: New Line Cinema

Release Date: 10.17.03

Review Posted: 10.17.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

"Chainsaw" Serviceable Horror Tale, Lacks Kinetic Ferocity of Hooper Original

As far as pointless things go, items that come to mind include those annoying AT&T commercials with Carrot Top, people who start smoking and actually believe it won’t kill them, the Bush Administration’s economic policy and the enduring popularity of professional wrestling. Another thing that could be on that list: remaking Tobe Hooper’s 1974 cult horror classic “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Yet that is exactly what producer Michael Bay and New Line Cinema do, and big surprise of all gosh darn big surprises, it’s not half bad.

Loosely inspired by the grotesque story of serial killer Ed Gein, Hooper’s fictionalized original surmised there was an entire family of inbred Texas cannibals nefariously picking off road weary travelers unlucky enough to come across their dilapidated abode. A bit dated, there are still numerous flashes of grotesque genius and moments of sheer visceral terror that rightly keep the film high in the pantheon of cult horror classics. And while the acting and production values are strictly second rate, Hooper’s skill behind the camera is not, the director setting up a Grand Guignol of the repellant that holds up even today.

Bay, a director whom may be the antichrist of all that is decent and good in American film after bludgeoning “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Bad Boys II” on unsuspecting audiences, definitely makes sure this remake is not short in either funding or acting. In fact, not one, but four, promising young talents; Jessica Biel of the WB’s “Seventh Heaven,” Erica Leershen of “Anything Else” and “Hollywood Ending,” Mike Vogel of “Grind,” Eric Balfour of “Six Feet Under” and “24;” get a chance to scream their guts out this time around. The best the original could boast is actress Marilyn Burns, and if anyone can remember any of her other work where her clothes remained on than they really take the Quentin Tarantino prize for worthless movie trivia knowledge.

The basic story remains the same, however. In 1973 five young college-age kids are driving through Texas and pickup a strange hitchhiker. Through this hitchhiker’s actions, they are led to a run down house populated by a surreal clan of deformed crazies. One by one, each of them is murdered in brutal, viscous fashion, their flesh to be used in all manners of monstrous ways. In the end, only one of these five can survive, pitted in a battle of survival against the most brutal member of the family, the chainsaw wielding Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski).

Technically, this incarnation of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” more than gets the job done. It is shot in elegant, twisty fashion by cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and composer’s Steve Jablonsky and Mel Wasson – the latter responsible for the movie’s eerie ambient music – make good use out of Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper’s seminal score. In fact, if anything this version of the film is a true triumph of dank and menacing production design, guaranteed to send at least one shiver down even the most jaded horror veteran’s spine. I also loved that the team behind the movie reused the unhinging wheezy-thwack transition/dissolve sound effect from Hooper’s film, it enough on its own to get goose pimples running all over my skin.

Unfortunately, as good as all of this is, all this technical proficiency is also part of the problem. Director Marc Nispel isn’t a slouch behind the camera and it is clear that he’s done his homework, so much so a lot of what goes on can’t but feel just a wee bit routine. Sure, scenes of nubile young bodies unceremoniously slammed upon hanging meat hooks is more than enough to get anyone’s heart all a flutter, but it takes more than eviscerated flesh to generate real scares or sleepless nightmares. Tobe Hooper may not have had the budget to completely pull off all he set out to do in the 1974 original, but there is such a pervasive feel of wild abandon going on and a take-no-prisoners moxie that the movie is nothing less than kinetically intoxicating in its terror.

If anything, Nispel and Bay have studied the first film too closely. Scenes are lifted wholesale, and while I’m sure they are presented here more in tribute than in anything else, that doesn’t mean they are at all scary. It is also quite evident that the director has picked up Bay’s tendency to show off, a truly tense and horrific moment detailing a young girl’s suicide wasted because of an obscene camera trick that takes the audience right through the backside of the dead woman’s freshly blown-off skull. Instead of staying still, letting the audience feel the full magnitude of what has happened, we’re instead left pondering just how Nispel managed the nifty move, effectively taking us all out of the moment and the movie.

Don’t get me wrong. There is much this new version gets right. The great R. Lee Ermey (“Full Metal Jacket”) may be typecast as the sadistic Sheriff Hoyt, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t get under your skin all the same. His interrogation of one of the scared travelers borders on being unbearably unsettling, while a more tender scene ogling the scantily clad Biel is certified to set teeth on edge throughout the theater.

On top of that, Nispel has obviously gone to the John Carpenter school of producing a jumpy audience, showing a slight of hand and a gift for misdirection to produce the wanted “eeks!” and “acks!” Carpenter – even in his worst films – is the undisputed master at getting. I also liked how screenwriter Scott Kosar so cleverly uses facets of all four “Chainsaw” films – not just relying upon the Hooper/Kim Henkel original for inspiration – melding them into a ghoulish stew of gory homage. Heck, John Larroqutte even returns as the unseen narrator, coldly recounting the sanguinary tale as if reading off a nightly news teleprompter.

It’s still almost too hard to really get worked up about this remake, though. For those unfamiliar with the original, or too young to appreciate how far ahead of its time it really was, this movie will still work scaring, however. Like the original, exposition is thankfully left to a minimum as bloodshed and carnage with no explanation to set it free is by far the rule of the day. That is how it should be, for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was never about explaining the nature of evil. No, it only wanted – wants – you to look evil square in the face to see how long it takes you to flinch. For most people, my bet that flinching will happen long before the first chainsaw howls.

Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)

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