SPOILERS (not many)
Good news: The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a chainsaw massacre, and yes, it is in Texas.
Bad news: It's boring.
Gore belongs in horror movies! But excessive gore? That is harder to pull off. Comically camp horrors such as, say, Braindead, The Evil Dead series, and the three TCM sequels get away with gore because theirs is so excessive as to be absurd. But for a serious horror, gore has to serve its story, not the other way round. Used excessively, played too fast and too loose, gore is exhibitionist, immature, and downright boring.
The story of TCM the Original (1974) is simple and straightforward: some dumb kids pick up a loony hitchhiker, visit his loony home, meet his loony family, and wind up at their loony dinner table--some of them as dinner. The violence of the story is mostly implied, occurring off-screen. There is no gore. Had there been gore, TCMtO would have been little more than a snuff film, its audience a passive witness. But horror thrives on an active, not a passive, imagination. By tickling our worst imaginations, the lack of gore only reinforces the horror of the film.
The problem with TCM the Remake is not that it is gory (and it is--far moreso than the original, if not the sequels), but that its gore does not serve the story, instead only underscoring its weaknesses, namely a meandering, cruelly confusing plot with characters and scenes that are at once too many and too similar. While the original is admittedly episodic, the remake is all over the place, rushing from scene to repetitive scene, bouncing from character to competing character.
Just try to digest this indigestible plot: A group of kids are rude to each other on a road trip; then they are rude to a girl they pick up from the side of the road. Moseying on over to a derelict barbecue joint, they are rude to a little old lady. Then it's off to a derelict mill/junkyard/installation art gallery-cum-sculpture garden to be rude to the banjo kid from Deliverance! They split up, rudely, and one group ends up at the derelict Family House (which, with its plantation architecture, is creepier than the original's), where they are rude to a little old man. After several more scene hops and some judicious dispatching of the cast courtesy our old pal Leatherface (who at 260-odd pounds should cut down on his red meats; I don't know how he keeps up with those kids), a lone survivor escapes into the woods to a derelict trailer, is restored to the derelict Family House, escapes again to a derelict shack, hides in a derelict (or at any rate USDA unapproved) slaughterhouse, and finally ends up back at the derelict barbecue joint. All this, while the white trash Family (here inexplicably surnamed Hewitt) behave very rudely to her indeed.
Meanwhile there are subplots afoot!--baby snatching, incest, genetic disease, police conspiracy. The only thing that's missing is the Illuminati. Oh, yeah, and the cannibalism. YES: IN THIS REMAKE OF TCM, THERE IS NO CANNIBALISM. (It's still implied, what with the meat hooks and the slaughterhouse (a nice touch, that, but unfortunately it just meshes together with the other innumerable hide-and-go-seek scenes), but without the original's critical barbecue pit and dinner table scenes the nastiest bit of the horror is lost.)
Confused yet? Bored, even?
I sure was. For as many changes of scenery as TCMtR has, all of them look the same. I understand how that might be intentional--that's part of the horror, right? that there's no escape?--but how many near-identical shots of Jessica Biel running and hiding and shivering and sucking in her breath in terror are necessary to tell the story?
Some of the plot is left unsatisfactorily unexplained, and even more is just plum illogical. For instance, immediately before pulling a gun from--of all places--her bloodied crotch and blowing her brains out in the van, the girl-from-the-roadside tells the kids they're all gonna die. This is what a plucky survivor does when she at long last has a shot to escape her tormentors? Okay, then why not do it earlier, or why not stop the van and do it outside, so she doesn't endanger the kids' lives? Yeah, I know she's supposed to be suffering a breakdown, but her prediction would not have come true had she, herself, not set up the domino effect that made it happen.
The rest of TCMtR is pure Hollywood contrivance. There is the requisite musical score overkill and the squelchy sound effects (remember the creepy, constant drill of the generator from the original? that was rad). There is the snappish MTV editing and direction (compare to the amateurish documentary look and feel of the original). There is the government anti-drug/anti-sex message, and good grief, it is set to "Sweet Home Alabama"!! There is also Jessica Biel in a cowboy hat. Jessica Biel in a wet tee-shirt. Jessica Biel with her head cradled in R. Lee Ermey's naked crotch. (Sheriff Ermey gets to play the best character, a Real Texan who yells and swears and scares the bejesus out of those of us terrified of the South and her reputation for vigilante 'justice' and lynching parties.)
Altogether TCMtR comes across as a well-above-average made-for-HBO movie--it's not bad, really, and often it's entertaining; ultimately, though, it sucks on account of sacrificing story to gore. After two solid hours of nonstop jump scenes and bloody murder, of heaping on the bodies and the body parts and the body fluids, we simply acclimate to the violence. The audience become passive witnesses, and the movie becomes predictable, unscary, and boring.
Also there's no cannibalism. AND DID I MENTION THERE'S NO CANNIBALISM?!
Good news: The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a chainsaw massacre, and yes, it is in Texas.
Bad news: It's boring.
Gore belongs in horror movies! But excessive gore? That is harder to pull off. Comically camp horrors such as, say, Braindead, The Evil Dead series, and the three TCM sequels get away with gore because theirs is so excessive as to be absurd. But for a serious horror, gore has to serve its story, not the other way round. Used excessively, played too fast and too loose, gore is exhibitionist, immature, and downright boring.
The story of TCM the Original (1974) is simple and straightforward: some dumb kids pick up a loony hitchhiker, visit his loony home, meet his loony family, and wind up at their loony dinner table--some of them as dinner. The violence of the story is mostly implied, occurring off-screen. There is no gore. Had there been gore, TCMtO would have been little more than a snuff film, its audience a passive witness. But horror thrives on an active, not a passive, imagination. By tickling our worst imaginations, the lack of gore only reinforces the horror of the film.
The problem with TCM the Remake is not that it is gory (and it is--far moreso than the original, if not the sequels), but that its gore does not serve the story, instead only underscoring its weaknesses, namely a meandering, cruelly confusing plot with characters and scenes that are at once too many and too similar. While the original is admittedly episodic, the remake is all over the place, rushing from scene to repetitive scene, bouncing from character to competing character.
Just try to digest this indigestible plot: A group of kids are rude to each other on a road trip; then they are rude to a girl they pick up from the side of the road. Moseying on over to a derelict barbecue joint, they are rude to a little old lady. Then it's off to a derelict mill/junkyard/installation art gallery-cum-sculpture garden to be rude to the banjo kid from Deliverance! They split up, rudely, and one group ends up at the derelict Family House (which, with its plantation architecture, is creepier than the original's), where they are rude to a little old man. After several more scene hops and some judicious dispatching of the cast courtesy our old pal Leatherface (who at 260-odd pounds should cut down on his red meats; I don't know how he keeps up with those kids), a lone survivor escapes into the woods to a derelict trailer, is restored to the derelict Family House, escapes again to a derelict shack, hides in a derelict (or at any rate USDA unapproved) slaughterhouse, and finally ends up back at the derelict barbecue joint. All this, while the white trash Family (here inexplicably surnamed Hewitt) behave very rudely to her indeed.
Meanwhile there are subplots afoot!--baby snatching, incest, genetic disease, police conspiracy. The only thing that's missing is the Illuminati. Oh, yeah, and the cannibalism. YES: IN THIS REMAKE OF TCM, THERE IS NO CANNIBALISM. (It's still implied, what with the meat hooks and the slaughterhouse (a nice touch, that, but unfortunately it just meshes together with the other innumerable hide-and-go-seek scenes), but without the original's critical barbecue pit and dinner table scenes the nastiest bit of the horror is lost.)
Confused yet? Bored, even?
I sure was. For as many changes of scenery as TCMtR has, all of them look the same. I understand how that might be intentional--that's part of the horror, right? that there's no escape?--but how many near-identical shots of Jessica Biel running and hiding and shivering and sucking in her breath in terror are necessary to tell the story?
Some of the plot is left unsatisfactorily unexplained, and even more is just plum illogical. For instance, immediately before pulling a gun from--of all places--her bloodied crotch and blowing her brains out in the van, the girl-from-the-roadside tells the kids they're all gonna die. This is what a plucky survivor does when she at long last has a shot to escape her tormentors? Okay, then why not do it earlier, or why not stop the van and do it outside, so she doesn't endanger the kids' lives? Yeah, I know she's supposed to be suffering a breakdown, but her prediction would not have come true had she, herself, not set up the domino effect that made it happen.
The rest of TCMtR is pure Hollywood contrivance. There is the requisite musical score overkill and the squelchy sound effects (remember the creepy, constant drill of the generator from the original? that was rad). There is the snappish MTV editing and direction (compare to the amateurish documentary look and feel of the original). There is the government anti-drug/anti-sex message, and good grief, it is set to "Sweet Home Alabama"!! There is also Jessica Biel in a cowboy hat. Jessica Biel in a wet tee-shirt. Jessica Biel with her head cradled in R. Lee Ermey's naked crotch. (Sheriff Ermey gets to play the best character, a Real Texan who yells and swears and scares the bejesus out of those of us terrified of the South and her reputation for vigilante 'justice' and lynching parties.)
Altogether TCMtR comes across as a well-above-average made-for-HBO movie--it's not bad, really, and often it's entertaining; ultimately, though, it sucks on account of sacrificing story to gore. After two solid hours of nonstop jump scenes and bloody murder, of heaping on the bodies and the body parts and the body fluids, we simply acclimate to the violence. The audience become passive witnesses, and the movie becomes predictable, unscary, and boring.
Also there's no cannibalism. AND DID I MENTION THERE'S NO CANNIBALISM?!