Disclaimer: I was at an advantage watching this one since we watched The Beginning beforehand. Thank you Corey and Salty. :)
As remakes go, I’m really alright with this one. Ok, we all know the story, so what can they do better. Well, the hitchhiker is a bit more crazy, so that was nice. The cop angle added a nice pickle as well. The gore is a bit more, but definitely within appropriate limits. I cringed. Ok, so there’s a baby, and I guess it being ok leaves you with a warm fuzzy? Yeah, I wouldn’t have put it in there either.
If you want a solid chainsaw massacre flick with an updated cast, please give this one a watch. It’s Maire approved.
Corey says:
For me the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot was one of the first films to kick off the remake revolution. Since it was released countless films have been redone, from other classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween to cult darlings The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left. (Disclaimer: Some of these remakes are good, and some are fucking garbage. Watch at your own discretion.) The 2000’s were the decade of remakes of films that I gave at least half a shit about. I guess everything old is new again at some point.
One of the more interesting decisions made for the reboot is that the powers that be decided to make the film true to the period of the original. While we can take this as a nod to the original, it really doesn’t serve that much of a purpose or stand out during the film. Most likely, we are tooling around in the 70’s because there’s no cell phones, and just not having them is much better than “oh. no. I don’t have service.” for the thousandth goddamn time.
Unfortunately, the family doesn’t take center stage nearly enough this time around for my taste. It’s almost all Leatherface all the time. Don’t get me wrong, the family does an alright job of trying to be the Sawyers (even though their names have been changed. Why? Fuck you, that’s why), but they aren’t as much of a focal point as they have been in previous outings. R. Lee Ermey is the shit, and plays the patriarch very well. He’s no Drayton, but he does ok. This time, there’s all SORTS of ladies helping out (I’ve never heard so much about tea in a film that wasn’t about tea in my goddamn life), and they brought another fucking kid into the mix. At least that goofy-toothed monosyllabic miscreant knew better than to get in the way too much. Fucking kids.
The reason that this film succeeds as a remake is because the people who made it knew who their audience was. In the olden days, horror films were drive-in fodder. You took a date and watched some schlock in the hopes that you’d get to see some tits (either on the screen or in your car). Throughout the years, though, these movies built a following. Gorehounds started watching the films because they liked them. Texas the remake isn’t about throwing a bunch of teens into a modern day situation with a tired old theme (I’m looking at you, Prom Night remake) in hopes to get one of the larger moviegoing demographics to see it. It’s made for the fans who watch the film for the film's sake.
Salty says:
The good horror movies are the ones that put you in an extreme situation and ask you to figure out how to handle it while the characters do the same – the better ones tend to let their character make more agreeable decisions. This remake of Texas does a great job of coming up with the situations and having its characters react well without letting thing work out nicely. In order to keep the surprises coming, the family is expanded into a town of sadists hell-bent on cannibalism.
In what I would like to think of as a tribute to our friend Franklin (remember those raspberries?) we are given a wheelchair-bound antagonist, a likably evil sheriff, and an assortment of scrawny and morbidly obese co-conspirators (oddly enough this amalgamation of the family most resembles the family presented in part 3) that work to keep the thrills a-comin’ with a lot of what-would-you-do scenes. And then there is a very respectable, very scary version of Leatherface. You really get the impression that this individual would be terrifying to be in a room with. Add a chainsaw to the mix, and all I would think to do is wet my pants, and hope that he fears urine.
Okay, I really dislike that they changed Leatherface’s name to Tommy or something, but otherwise minimal complaints.
| Maire | Corey | Salty |
|---|---|---|
| ☆☆☆ | ☆☆☆ | ☆☆☆ |
Well, look at that rating above there. Hrm. It looks like we've all finally agreed that a film deserves three stars. Huh.
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