Movie Reviews (such as they are)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

It came around on network TV, so I sort of felt I had no choice but to watch it. What's that? You don't know what film I'm talking about yet? Yeah, I guess I could've been a bit clearer with the title: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sharp-eyed film fans will know that this review is going to be of the remake from a couple of years ago, since chainsaw here is one word, while in the original Tobe Hooper classic it is two: chain saw. But that's just me being my usual pedantic self.

Well, I gotta say I was disappointed. I don't wanna be all hung up on the past, like some kind of miserable 30-something motherfucker, but what was the point of this film? I've seen the original two or three times, including once at a late-night cinema screening, after which I had to take the night bus back home to north London from the West End. Never a nice prospect that; even more daunting after watching a movie about crazed serial killers... But this remake, man... it had no spirit, no shocks, no spine. The original will make you jump every time. The way it's shot, the overpowering sense of foreboding. It's all there. The remake, not so much.

There were exactly two things I liked:

1. The decision not to go for too much gore, just as in the original.

2. Leatherface wearing the face of that dorky guy from Six Feet Under.

Other than that, nothing. The one slightly gory bit -- seeing the rest of the kids through the hole in the young girl's head near the beginning -- was funny but basically stolen from From Dusk Till Dawn. And the "police footage" that topped and tailed the film was an attempt to add some Blair Witch shock to an otherwise dull movie.

A waste of two hours. I give this film 30 points out of 100.