It will be difficult for me to review "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" -- difficult because I spent a large portion of the film hidden under my jacket. The portions I did see were only because my little brother kept yanking the jacket off my face and saying, "Look, you gotta see this!He's gonna chop off his leg!AHHH!That was GREAT!" Pretty sick stuff.
I agreed to see this movie for several reasons. First of all, I love scary movies. Secondly, my brother assured me that this would not be a "slasher movie." I do not enjoy slasher movies. I like psychological thrillers, like "Silence of the Lambs" and "The Ring." He promised me that if this remake were anything like the original, it wouldn't be overly bloody.
Finally, I always like to see movie remakes. It's interesting to see how badly the new guys butcher a perfectly fine film. Besides, this wasn't just any remake.This is the remake of one of the most famous cult-classic movies out there.
The story begins in 1973 with five teenagers traveling in a van en route to Dallas for a Lynard Skynard concert. Erin (Jessica Biel) immediately establishes herself as the most mature of the group, a classic scary movie foreshadowing of the survivor/hero of the film. After traveling down a deserted Texas highway for a while, passing the time by singing and smoking marijuana (illegal drugs --- another horror movie no-no), they come across a lone girl walking along the side of the road. They stop to pick her up, and something is obviously wrong with this girl. She is covered in blood and practically catatonic. Not long after the good-samaritan teenagers put her in the van, she pulls a gun out from between her legs and shoots herself in the mouth.
This sudden suicide is fairly disturbing to the other passengers of the van. They search for a place to pull over and put a call into the police. They see a sign for gas and barbeque and pull over. The lady behind the counter, eerily undisturbed by the news of the suicide, puts a call in to the sheriff (R. Lee Ermey). She relays to the teenagers that the sheriff wants them to meet him at the old Crawford Mill.
The old Crawford Mill? Let the killing begin! From this point on, this movie is a regular blood bath. Everyone the kids encounter from now on is part of this huge murderous family. The sheriff, the woman behind the counter, the man with no legs in a wheelchair and, most importantly, Leatherface.
Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) is a chainsaw-wielding killing machine, hunting the skins of others in order to make himself a mask. All the fresh, wrinkle-free skin of the youngsters looks good to Leatherface, and he goes after them one by one. These killings are less than clean. Leatherface doesn't mind keeping his victims alive for quite sometime, torturing them by removing limbs or hanging them on meat hooks.
Ok, so it's obvious that this movie wasn't exactly up my alley. But I can't criticize it too harshly. It is scary. It is very scary. And I think it remains fairly true to the original, if not in plot context (there are many discrepancies) then in spirit. This new versions isn't "modernized." It still takes place in the seventies, still focuses on a group of teenagers in the middle of nowhere, at the complete mercy of an insane and murderous family. There are no overly fancy special effects -- nothing to make this anti-cult classic.
The acting is great. I say great because the kids that are supposed to scream and run crazily through the woods do just that. The inbred family members are supposed to be disgusting and creepy, and believe me, they are. And Jessica Biel, our mature, anti-marijuana heroine, is supposed to survive and save the day, and she does.
If you have a strong stomach, go see this movie. Scary movies are worth seeing on the big screen with surround sound, with the company of dozens of screaming audience members.
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