The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the first of many remakes by Platinum Dunes. While I feel it is better than most of their others, I still question the need of making any sequel, remake or otherwise to the original.
In this “chapter,” we are taken to August 18, 1973, two days before the police archive video we watch takes place, complimented with narration by, once again, John Larroquette. 5 young people are travelling to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in a van all stoned and having a good time. The driver, Kemper (Eric Balfour), almost hits a girl wandering in the middle of the rural road they are travelling. They pick her up, only to be subjected to her ramblings about a “bad man” and eventually her suicide, via a handgun produced from her crotch. Traumatized they attempt to find local law enforcement in the backwoods that they are travelling in and come across a gas station. The old lady working there says that the sheriff is at the mill but he will be there in 2 hours. Not wanting to haul around a carcass, the group of young people seek out the mill, with the hitchhiker’s body in tow. They come across a young boy, who tells them that the sheriff is at home getting drunk. Erin (Jessica Biel) and Kemper go the house, which merely produces an amputee in a wheelchair, who states that the sheriff does not live there, but Erin, and only Erin may go in to use the phone to call the sheriff. She is told that he will be there in 30 minutes, but he (R. Lee Ermey) actually shows up at the mill, “investigates,” and wraps up the hitchhiker’s body in cling wrap, stuffs her in the trunk and drives off. While this is going on, Kemper is killed by Leatherface (now called Thomas Hewitt, as opposed to just Leatherface, or Leatherface “Bubba” Sawyer, Leatherface ”Junior” Sawyer or Leatherface Slaughter as he has been up to this point) unbeknown to Erin as she makes her way back to the mill. Guess what? More chainsaw massacre!
I am really over this shit. Not only does the bizarrely weird timeline of this franchise bother me, I just don’t get the point of going on. I mean, I can buy that this one could be an attempt to redeem the series from where it went awry, but even so I can’t help but compare it to the original from which it is a supposed remake. If I do that, it sucks. Indeed, there are not many films (of any genre) if any at all, that compare to such a film as the 1974 original.
As an autonomous horror film, it isn’t bad. Jessica Biel, and everyone else is good. I mean it doesn’t stand out, but it plays the formula well. False scares, gruesome murders. But, the original is special (at least to me). Why keep attaching its name? Oh, I see. Because Leatherface is in every one. Doesn’t matter that he seems to float through time and end up with different families. Doesn’t matter that the story may change or stay the same or even be nonlinear; as long as his name is on it, who gives a shit? Well, it bothers me. And as each one applies the TCM name, it just angers me more that it is related to such a perfect film as the original.
I mean, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th (both remade by Platinum Dunes) were not aesthetically great films, but their sequels were in kind. The original Chainsaw was a brilliant vision. Years ahead of the aforementioned less quality sequelheads, and it just seems to be an insult a chapter.
You could definitely do worse as a horror film in general, but this remake only serves to show the gore that the original did not (and incidentally was so successful for not showing) in quite a less tension filled execution. It really feels like we are getting robbed more, each film after another.
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