TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) - REVIEW

Oh dear...

I don't know what annoys me most, that this movie was ever made or that people actually really like it and even go as far as saying it surpasses the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre sometimes!

Let's call it a draw.

Both statements annoy me equally.

Michael Bay once again gets one of his music video director friends onboard and, once again, they royally screw it up. Hey, how about getting a real FILM director next time? With all these awful horror remakes, Bay really has revealed himself to be an incompetent producer as well as an incompetent director. The first Friday The 13th I could see being remade so that didn't bother me too much, A Nightmare On Elm Street didn't need a remake, especially a dull one, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of those classic horror films you just don't remake. There's just no point. It's like that remake of Psycho or that Stephen King The Shining TV movie.

Who asked for THOSE?!

Anyway, here we have a remake that seems to willingly miss the entire point of the film it's based on. The teenagers in the original film weren't exactly loveable, actually they were assholes, but when shit went down you didn't feel like they deserved what happened to them. By the end you were legitimately rooting for the sole survivor. Here, these guys are insufferable. Especially Jessica Biel whom, despite being irritatingly gorgeous, really is quite terrible. Frankly, I wanted the nerdy guy with glasses to make it through to the end (and not just because I myself am a nerdy guy with glasses, promise). Biel's character does every single stupid horror victim error in the book including trusting clear psychos, running away instead of helping someone she could actually save, going to a SLAUGHTERHOUSE after a victim told her not to go there and after seeing a guy hanging from a meat hook... the list goes on. No one would ever act like the people in this movie and the fact that the film thinks we like these guys, want to see them throughout the entire movie AND want to see them have overblown emotional moments is laughable.

The whole thing is directed like a standard music video, as ever, with bland but slick visuals, focus pulls every 2 seconds and lighting set-ups you'd expect in The NeverEnding Story, certainly not in something that's meant to be based on a true story! Speaking of which, this film is set in the 70's like I'm the king of Denmark. None of the characters look like they belong in that time frame or speak like they belong in the 70's for a second, it's a lazy period piece to say the least. Starsky & Hutch was more convincing. Numerous scenes and/or ideas from the original film are reworked and, of course, made worse. The way the "family" comes together honestly doesn't work. In the original, you meet these guys one by one and you're not really sure what to make of 'em: the hitchhiker's clearly nuts but the sheriff could almost be normal so when it turns out he's part of that cannibal bunch, it's a genuine shock. This fake-hope character has been attempted in every Texas Chainsaw Massacre film since the original and it's never worked quite as poorly as it does here. That sheriff is obviously a freak, so are those women in that trailer.

There's no surprise.

I could go on forever but basically, this is, without a doubt, the worst Chainsaw Massacre film to date. Even that Renee Zelwegger one was GOLD next to this. It works even less than the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake, and that was not a good movie. Say what you will about the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre: it's a classic. A well-made, clever, scary, funny, strange little film that paved the way for many horror films after that. No sequel has ever matched the original quality-wise and this recent effort is no exception. Even Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was much better, I'd actually almost recommend that one to the fans. It doesn't bring anything new to the table but at least it's watchable and feels like a Chainsaw Massacre film. It didn't piss me off, at least!

You know, I don't think I like this movie...

Avoid.