The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

(2003) ****

On Thursday I watched the Chainsaw remake and then went out an hour later to catch the Chainsaw prequel.  I am officially burned out on the Mad Hillbilly genre for the rest of the ‘thon.  I just took Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek and the Rob Zombie movies off my Netflix queue.  I can’t take any more road trips gone bad.
 
Remember in 1999 when I said that, just as Empire Strikes Back spawned a tsumani of sequels, Phantom Menace would do the same thing for prequels?  No?  Damn, I should’ve written it down.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the first movie to have a remake AND a prequel made of it, which makes it the vanguard of 21st Century Hollywood.  Of course, the prequel is based on the world of the remake, so it’s kind of like when Doc and Marty have to travel backwards from the parallel world where Biff is rich and has the big casino.  Have I lost you yet?
 
Here’s a comment I made on JPX’s review of this last week:  “I can't tell how I feel about remakes that are good movies but leave one asking why they bothered.  The Dawn remake was great because it added a new spin to the story in a number of ways, remakes like The Omen are horrible and sully the original, American remakes of Japanese horror are clumsy and miss the point but at least the J-horror is getting noticed -- but what about this one? Not good, not bad, not Japanese...I'll be exploring this question after the break.”
 
My answer starts by pointing out this movie has a lot going for it. I think it's a worthy revisit to the story, and that's not such a bad thing. When you think about it, Evil Dead 2 is kinda sorta a remake of the first one. However, I can't deny there is a little bit of an empty feeling left behind in the new Chainsaw's grimy wake. I think Summerisle's tag of "meets but does not exceed expectations" puts it perfectly. It's easy to resent any kind of "update" on a well-liked character. When they tossed in a couple lines to reconcile James Bond's implicit hatred of women, it clearly needed to be done. But it left a whiff of nostalgia for the good old days. So, besides making money, why update TCM? How did they do it?

The main difference I like to characterize as a change of color. I think of the first one as mostly muted green, which I see as the ambient color in the dining room and the feather-strewn parlor, also the interior of the van and the hitchhiker's shirt. It ends red, with the morning sunrise and bloody Sally screaming, but it's grounded in green. The second one is orange. The interior of that cave is bathed in orange, a perfectly lurid hue for that goof-ass late 80's movie. Ignoring the others, the remake's color is squalor. Not a color exactly, but a never-ending presence of dirt and grime that's been a growing vibe in horror since David Fincher's Seven. Look at any Saw poster if you're not sure what I'm talking about. Squalor has been the new black for several years now.



As that would suggest, the TCM remake is indeed a slicker, glossier version of the original. But I think they turned a lot of the right knobs on the equalizer, and they managed to leave the suck knob pretty much alone. Changing the opening hitchhiker encounter to one of the victims, and then having her blow her brains all over the van -- I call that a pretty smart punch.

I liked this batch of characters more than any of the others, including the prequel. I liked the interplay between Jessica Beil and her boyfriend played by Eric Balfour, since it was mostly built on an exchange of looks. Right after he yells out to the unseen presence in the mill, he looks her way and she gives a small nod. Great touch. I also found the character Morgan's encroaching breakdown while Sherriff Hoyt was taunting him very convincing.

And that Sherriff Hoyt, what a bastard! He's another creation of the remake, channelling the partriarchal Cook character from the original, but this time with a badge, a gun, and a big taste for mental and physical sadism. This guy is exactly the kind of character I could find unbearable, and it's a testament to the writers that he's as entertaining as he is. The bullying and mind-fuckery is just the opening act of his sociopathy; he's planning to eat these people. There's a great moment when Pepper, lying face down on the ground with the others on orders from Hoyt, screams "we're gonna die!" and she hasn't even laid eyes on Leatherface yet. Hoyt's craziness is murderous enough. He does, however, get too out of hand for me, and there were times when I was yelling at the kids that, whatever move they try, successful or not, they really, really needed to stop recognizing his authority as a cop.


So they got themselves a slicker, weirder-looking pack of hillbillies. That isn't the real triumph of this movie for me. It's the squalor again, in the way it's presented in the surrounding landscape and in the native's art projects. With the former, you get this feeling that the land around the Hewitt residence is just steeped in the various remains of their victims. Suitcases, shoes, glasses, false teeth -- any of this might at some point crunch underfoot. So too the strange fetish objects of the Hewitt clan litter the grounds: a victim's family photo is found preserved in a liquid-filled mason jar, the Ring kid's got a slew of found-object ensembles in the mill. It's an extension of all the bone sculpture in the original, with the clan spreading their work all around like little voodoo shrines. And when you get to the nucleus of this vast art display -- Leatherface's basement -- the projects are far more direct, containing human fingers, jaws, and everything else. That's always been the focus of the Chainsaw movies, really. The treatment of human bodies as the objects they are, to dice up and reuse the bits. Our insides -- stuff that's never more than a layer of skin away from any of us but might as well be in a different dimension for all we'd like to know -- are just nuts and bolts to the former staff of a slaughterhouse. The desktop surrounding my computer is cluttered with body parts too, except they're all legos.



Another thing I dug about this film is that it's shot amazingly well. Look at these stills. It turns out it's the work of Daniel Pearl, who was the cinematographer on the original movie, which was his first. He also was director of photography on Zapped.


My point? I have no point. Look at the stills. Good stuff.



And speaking of good stuff, I've definitely found my "scream queen" for this year's contest. I've been discussing this with JPX and Summerisle, the founding brothers, and it wasn't much of a surprise that we all agreed: when these reviews were just things we emailed to each other, it was much easier grooving on the nudity. These reviews were always meant to tune each other in to just what you're missing or not missing in a given horror flick, and skin content is an important criterion. For the blog, however, I tend to sneak those facts in as little jokes. No more! This is an adolescent pursuit, after all. And while there's no actual nudity in this movie, as a fan of the feminine form I have to say: Jessica Biel is a hot-tay. Her face is a little odd, but whoever decided to dress her lanky, curvy frame in those jeans and tank top gets a hearty table-pounding from me. She's got a sexy walk, too. I was pretty pleased every time she walked in and out of frame.

So with all this going for it, why the ambivalent feelings about this remake? Well, for all the slickness they throw some tired old horror movie stupidity at us. Nobody in the original movie just sat in the van screaming while a chainsaw came through the roof, and throughout the movie there's a good deal of questionable hiding in enclosed spaces. That's not an update, folks. The other problem is Leatherface, who despite the neato art projects doesn't really come across with much of a personality. It's better than some of his incarnations, so it's not like a mistake's been made -- but he's too clean a slate. It takes the prequel to knock his personality into place. The shot of him without his mask is strange, too. He just takes it off during a moment of repose. As the only time in the whole series where we see his entire face, that was a funny choice.

Okay! In the spirit of freer dialogue, here are the worthy mentions of nudity and general hotness I've left out this year.

Killer Nun: I'mnotMarc was bold enough to point this out. The real killer nun, played by an Italian Playboy Playmate, lotsa naked.

Funhouse: Obligatory Tit Shot of, oddly, the "good" girl of the two women. The same actress would later play Mozart's wife in Amadeus. I'll be using OTS as an acronym from here.

Fear of Clowns: One victim is chased around her house in a towel, then the clown gets the towel. So there's naked, but it's not what I'd call super highly recommended naked. I already covered the shirtless clown.

Forest of the Damned: Well, I did mention this one, but how could I not? The monsters are naked chicks with teeth. That begin the case, there actually could have been a lot more nudity going on. And the two cutest women remain clothed.

Imprint: Hmm, there must have been some nudity in this, right? Prostitutes? I honestly can't remember.

FeardotCom: A video of one of the victims supplies an OTS or three.

Leeches!: I can't really do this honestly without mentioning this one, but the flesh in this movie is all male. No bare butts, but many loving takes on the legs and torsos of tan, muscular guys. If you've got a spouse or girlfriend who likes horror movies except for the universally female skin factor, and you're confident in your masculinity, give her a treat and pop this in. Works for gay men, too. Probably better.

Bloodrayne: Kristanna Loken peels down her bodice and she and a guy have sex standing up with most of their clothes on. Bland as it sounds.

Land of the Dead: There's a stripper in the background somewhere, and Asia Argento in her bra somewhere. This movie's good, though, there's plenty of other reasons to see it.

The Wicker Man: Same with this one, you should just see it. Plenty of skin, though. And there's lots of butt slapping. Stunt ass!

Man, that's it? I haven't been watching enough 70's movies.