Movie Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
One thing I definitely appreciate about this movie is its attempt to recreate the gritty look of the original film. It’s obviously much more produced, with nearly a $10 million budget, but it still is pretty muted in its color temperature, and everyone is so sweaty and disgusting looking. Even Jessica Biel, who’s obviously gorgeous as hell, doesn’t look incredibly glamorous here.
Interestingly, the movie has the same cinematographer in Daniel Pearl as the original film. Also from the first movie, Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper served as producers, though I always assume that’s an in-name-only kind of thing when it comes to a remake. Maybe not, though.
I like that they chose to have so much of the movie and the horror take place during the day. That was something that was so incredibly unique about the original movie, and it is unsettling. You associate things like killers chasing you with the night, and I greatly prefer the more daytime setting to the night of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. It doesn’t all take place during the day, of course, but basically the first half does, and I’ll take it.
Like with any other remake, you do have to wonder what the point is. Though I do think the original can be improved on in some ways. It’s not a perfect movie. In some ways, it’s a perfect horror movie, but it got so much mileage out of the fact that it was so cinema verite looking that you might easily forget that the film doesn’t really have any interesting characters.
Now the original movie is one I’ve come to appreciate a lot since the first time I saw it. When I first saw it, I didn’t like it. I felt like the film’s low budget sort of hindered my enjoyment, and I certainly felt like it ended right when it was getting interesting.
Now, I have a lot more appreciation for its nihilistic ending, and just the sense of dread it creates. This movie doesn’t have that same feel to it of course, and it should be noted that this is definitely a slasher movie.
The original Texas Chainsaw series had always been peripherally slasher cinema, with the original basically existing before the genre did, and therefore being referred to as a proto-slasher, and the low body counts of really all of the first three films sort of kept them from fully embracing the genre. The fourth one sort of took a turn, with the main characters being just dumb teens. This one kind of follows up on that.
Not with its characters necessarily. Sure, they’re flat and all that, but you don’t watch them wanting them to die, like you often do with some obnoxious characters in other slasher movies.
But with the genre come the cliches, nonetheless. You get the false jump scares, the pot. It feels like something you’ve seen before.
Still, it feels much more grounded and realistic than the original film’s sequels. So I guess it cleared a very low bar.
A couple of the new additions/changes that I like are the way the hitchhiker situation is handled as the initial incident in this movie. To be honest, I never liked the hitchhiker being one of the Sawyers/Slaughters/Hewitts because like why was he just out there wandering around. It makes more sense that they’d find a traumatized woman trying to escape. And her freaking out when she realizes they’re driving near the farm, and eventually committing suicide is actually pretty creepy.
R. Lee Ermey is also pretty great as Sheriff Hoyt, who of course turns out to be working with the Hewitt family. Why do they keep changing the last name of these guys? What’s with that? Sawyer was fine.
In the franchise’s long list of psychotic villains, I find him to be one of the most compelling, and certainly one of the more realistic.
I also like the idea of Leatherface wearing the mask of a character that we see earlier. It seems like something that should have happened already in the series, and it just adds to some dread for the movie’s heroine.
The main character is of course Jessica Biel, playing Erin. She’s sort of ordained as the final girl early on, when she turns down some pot. Again, an example of the cliche that comes with the genre. Anyways, she’s solid in the role. There’s not a lot to her character of course, other than being in terror for basically the entirety of the movie, but she does that well.
The movie definitely has a few decent scares, and it actually makes the chainsaw scary. Again, this was something missing from the original’s sequels.
All in all, this movie’s okay. It’s definitely not great, and it has its own trappings with its status as a remake. But the performances are solid, and enough of the scares work to make this probably worth watching, if you’re curious.
Rating: 5/10
