The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Movie & DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

Early in Marcus Nispel’s remake of Tobe Hooper’s low-budget, 1974 cult classic horror film, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” a dazed young woman--beaten, bloody and bruised--sits in the back of a van, mumbling about the horror she’s just witnessed and endured to the five sweaty hippies surrounding her.

When she stops suddenly to pull a gun from between her bloody thighs and blow her head off, the camera, seeking inspiration, follows the bullet—and her scattered brains--through the back of her head, through the van’s rear window, and into the heavy open air.

This is one of the film’s lighter moments.

What ensues turns increasingly harsh, ugly, and wearying. It’s an exploitative gorefest, a slasher flick that’s merciless in its bloodletting, bile, dripping entrails and buzzing flies, slaughtered limbs and severed torsos.

Currently, it’s the number one movie in America.

Based on a script by Kim Henkel, Hooper and Scott Kosar, this new “Massacre” is right up there with the “Faces of Death” series in the punch of nausea it likely will generate in some viewers.

Since its only goal seems to be to test one’s limits and not to entertain, some will assume that it must be a success. Armed with that logic, perhaps it is, but to what end? It’s a complete misreading of what made the original film such a powerful hit. That film’s blood violence was mostly implied; inspired by real-life Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, the movie shook you with what it didn’t show. The remake, on the other hand, wants to bludgeon you with everything it shows. The result is slick tripe that’s stomach-turning.

The plot isn’t as literal as Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” another movie inspired by the life of Gein, but it does follow the bones of its inspiration: It’s 1973, five twentysomethings are returning from Mexico with a piñata full of pot, and they stumble upon the aforementioned lass with the dead eyes who eats her gun.

Her suicide creates a nasty ripple that leads these kids--Erin (Jessica Biel), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Pepper (Erica Leerhsen) and Andy (Mike Vogel)--deep into the ugly heart of an inbred Texas town. There, nobody wants to help them deal with the dead girl because, frankly, they’d rather be dealing in a little death themselves.

Leading the charge is the sadistic sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey)--a real pill with eyebrows the size of shrubs--and the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface, this time played by Andrew Bryniarski (the original, Gunnar Hansen, lives in Northeast Harbor), a mute with no nose and diseased skin who fillets his victims to create his patchwork face.

A sideshow of doughy, dirty hillbillies fills out the film’s periphery, adding surreal interest but no psychological depth; they’re here to be ridiculed, not feared. Technically, the film is solid, some of the ensuing chase scenes are well done and the movie does offer one sufficient jolt, but with so much of it such a pointlessly grotesque wallow, it can’t help but offend and numb.

What’s more interesting than the movie itself is the underlying irony the accompanies it: The first “Chainsaw” was an original, so influential, it spawned 30 years of slasher films; Michael, Jason, and Freddy wouldn’t have existed without Leatherface. But now, after years of box-office one-upmanship, the slasher film has become a parody of itself. Instead of taking a new direction, Nispel’s remake joins the chorus, noisily cutting its own throat in a desperate effort to be heard above the fray.

Grade: D+