Not so much a straight remake as it is an expansion on a well-worn theme, the latest version of the 1974 horror hit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a symphony of sadism, brutality and gruesomeness.
This new version follows the same formula as the original -- a seemingly unstoppable maniac wielding a chainsaw chases a group of defenseless young people in a remote backwater town. That formula was so successful that it spawned dozens of imitators over the years, from the Friday the 13th series to the Nightmare on Elm Street series to the Halloween series to Jeepers Creepers, which had its second installment at the end of August.
Maybe it's because I've seen so many of these slasher movies. Maybe it's that the chainsaw-toting Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), who sews his own face masks from the skin of his victims, is such a lumberingly clunky looking character. But The Texas Chainsaw Massacre lacks a real sense of suspense and terror. The audience at a recent screening reacted hardly at all to the carnage unfolding on the screen. They just sat there attentively. Or were they comatose?
German-born director Marcus Nispel, who has won countless awards for his commercials and music videos, concentrates on the gruesome, grisly aspects of this familiar story. At one point his camera peers at the horrified faces of five young people who have just witnessed a suicide and, as the camera pulls back, we realize that they have been photographed through the hole in the victim's head. Oh no!
There are a few other changes from the original, too. This time we see Leatherface's real face, which has been eaten away by some unnamed disease. There's a lot more blood and graphic killing this time, which is actually not as scary. And Leatherface has been given a larger freak-show family, who abet his killing spree, including a leering R. Lee Ermey as a pretend sheriff who is possibly more sadistic than Leatherface himself. An awful moment comes when Ermey's Sheriff Hoyt pressures a young man to reenact that suicide, ordering him to put the gun in his mouth.
The plot is simple. Five early-20s friends are driving on a dusty backroad in 1973 when they pick up a young woman who seems oblivious to her surroundings. A shocking moment leads to attempts to find a lawman and leads them to a creepy, rundown house in the middle of nowhere. Soon they're being picked off one by one by Leatherface. Sometimes he'll cut off a leg of his victim, then hang him from a hook in the basement. Gruesomely, Leatherface rubs salt in the wound of a man whose leg he has just removed.
The only truly eerie sequence comes when one of Leatherface's intended victims escapes and makes her way to a lonely trailer in the woods. There she finds a strange pair of women -- one pinch-faced and the other oversized -- who try to calm her with tea and comforting words. The creepiness builds in this scene because we're on wobbly ground -- unsure where it's going to lead. Unfortunately, much of the rest of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre feels like been there, seen that . . . and many of us have.
*
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Starring: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leershen, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour, Andrew Bryniarski, R. Lee Ermey.
Rated: R, contains violence, profanity
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