The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a true classic in the horror movie genre. It challenged it’s viewers with scenes of violence, a very dark sense of humor, and one of the most disturbing horror movie antagonists ever. So naturally, the best way to represent it is to make a remake of it, and give the directing job to Michael Bay….. Oh boy. This is 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Are you excited? Because I’m not.



So, where the first movie followed a brother and sister and their friends heading out to find out why their grandfather's grave was being vandalised, this movie follows pot smoking, beer drinking, sex crazed teens who are all just cliched and stereotypical. I hate them already. When they get to Texas, they are soon met with a hitchhiker, who shoots herself in the head. Why she had to wait for them to come to shoot herself, I don’t know. Anyway, they arrive into town for help from the police, but soon realises that the police are in on it with a family of cannibalistic serial killers, most notoriously, Thomas Hewitt, who happens to be Leatherface (Also screw you movie, I never wanted to be told what Leatherface’s name was.) And so, the stereotypical teenagers must survive (And we all know that “Main Female Lead” is obviously the survivor. Don’t say you don’t know. It’s obvious if you’ve seen cliched slasher movies, and that’s what this movie is. A cliched slasher film.



This movie just feels like a generic Friday the 13th movie, just with Leatherface slapped on it instead of Jason. You’ve got the cliched characters, an isolated place from the rest of society, a crazy killer who can’t seem to hold a gun, so uses other weapons instead. You see what I mean? Not to mention, it feels like a Friday the 13th movie… But not any of the good ones. It’s more of Jason Takes Manhattan if anything. It even tries hard to show lots and lots of gore. And that’s the movies biggest problem. Sure, the first movie was pretty violent with it’s gore, but it was never shown in the intense fashion that the 2003 version has. There is gore EVERYWHERE in this movie. Gore is just as cheap as an attempt for scares as jumpscares. If used right, it may work…. It’s not done right here, I assure you. Even the most squeamish of viewers will be numb by this tactic as the movie goes on, I assure you. And since that’s all this movie seems to have going for it when it comes to fear… It’s pretty sad.



If I had to say one good thing about this movie, it’s that the Hewitt Family in this movie was done kinda well….. Kinda, I said. Are they as good as they were in the original- No. That should be obvious by now. But, I think they were pretty good. However, they were pretty well used in this movie. They were always met at different points as random characters, making them feel more like regular citizens than part of a cannibalistic family. It gets to a point where even the police are in on the side of the Hewitt family, and are doing what they can to torment those they bring before they take them to the family to get eaten. I think they did a pretty good job with recreating the Hewitt family. Not to mention, there were some pretty cool scenes involving Leatherface. Sadly, as great as they were, that’s also a problem. I shouldn’t find a mentally unstable serial killer cool. I should find them scary. A thing the movie fails to do.



So yeah, it’s safe to say that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just the Diet Drink version of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It just doesn’t have the same flavor to it, and whatever it does have, the original already had it and did it a hundred times better. I’ll give the movie this, I’ve seen worse remakes… More on that next time. But, it’s best you don’t watch this one. It would be better if you just watch the original movie. It’s better, more believable and has a much better story and characters. Take care.

Up next on October Movie Marathon: A MUCH worse remake