As an old school die hard horror movie geek myself, the scariest thing about seeing the updated ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is knowing that it’s a remake of a perfectly good cult classic. Are we running out of ideas? We live in such a scary world can’t we think of anything new or different to horrify us? Or perhaps the real world is so harsh that seeing Ol’ Leatherface again feels like wearing chainsaw pajamas compared to what’s not being shown to you on CNN.

It offers nothing to add, but the remade ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ sure has a fine recognizable name brand. And if you are measuring success as box office dollars per bucket of gushing blood, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ just barely beat out ‘Kill Bill volume one’s’ opening weekend earnings – which implies that there are slightly more people geared up to see a rehash of a thirty year old classic than half of a new Quentin Tarantino movie.

Tobe Hooper’s documentary style delivery made the original ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ movie the ‘Blair Witch Project’ of its time. The gritty low-fi shakiness fit the gruesome fictional retelling of the true story it was based on. However the original came out at a time when the USA was still scraping the remains of Nixon from its shoe and in these modern times of ours as we hope we’ll be able to eradicate the Bushy smell left by another Texas bad boy, we seek comfort in our horror movies and throw originality out and decide to polish grubby old films into something shiny and new.

At least when Fox’s ‘X-Files’ television show blatantly ripped off the ‘Chainsaw Massacre’ premise in one of their best episodes entitled “Home”, they added a new dimension to the urban legend of the disturbed family that stinks up a house with blood and guts together stays together. But I suppose that breaks off from the ‘based on a true story’ angle of the ‘Chainsaw Massacre’ tale. But who cares?

We came to see chainsaws and gore and were serviced with top-notch modern effects mayhem. This film is filled with a fresh cast of young hotties wearing stylishly revealing clothing ensuring us that the frame will be filled with Jessica Biels oh so trendy lo-rise jeans often enough to be one of many rewarding thrills for fan-gore freaks everywhere. The fans whose candy bags will get filled with rocks and won’t get invited again to Halloween parties again this year and wind up seeing this instead. As a tip of the hat to us old timers, somebody dug up the remains of John Laroquette’s voice box to appear as the narrator, and R.Lee Ermery reprises his permanent role as the authority figure everyone loves to hate.

In the end, you get what you pay for, besides ninety minutes of scream out loud frolicking, the new ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ makes walking through the hardware department menacing once more. Looking to purchase my next power tool, For Movie Magazine, this is Purple.

© 2003 - Purple - Air Date: 10/23/03