Calling the remake of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” the best in the series since the original is a lot like saying the bowel movement my kitten took moments ago doesn’t smell as bad as the one she took yesterday. So what? It still stinks!
Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic, originally sneak-previewed at San Francisco’s Empire Theater with “The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three,” scared the hell out of an audience largely unaware of its subject matter. Now, as I stare at a picture of Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski, “Rollerball”) in a menacingly cool pose, it’s hard not to utter a sigh of familiarity at how much it reminds me of Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger.
I wonder if Marcus Osborne’s statement on the back of the DVD case was misquoted. “You want scary! THIS is scary?” would be far more accurate than, “You want scary? THIS is scary!” By replacing the sheer terror of the original with bathtubs of blood and grime, director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott Kosar (“The Machinist”) have succeeded mainly in re-emphasizing what I said about “Cabin Fever” — just because something is gory does not mean it is scary.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but in a genre riddled with plagiarism (or should I say homage?), almost everything is old hat. But this is not the bastard child of Gus Van Sant’s ill-conceived “Psycho.” Nispel wanted to retell, not merely re-shoot, a Xeroxed copy of Hooper’s script. That his desire to re-envision a masterpiece of horror without being derivative was overshadowed only by his failure to recreate the raw terror and originality of the first one in no way shames his initial aspirations. The original “Chain Saw Massacre” perfectly reproduced our worst nightmare. Could anyone duplicate that? Why remake a classic?
One answer: Jerry Bruckheimer wanted his studio to make a successful, relatively low-budget (by studio standards, anyway) horror film. When a “For Sale” sign appeared over the copyright of the original, Bruckheimer snatched up 14-karat gold on celluloid. With name recognition, a built-in audience and the rights to makeover one of horror’s most notorious villains, the question aptly became, “Why not?”
If only Kosar could have had free reign with his screenplay. In one of the many enlightening anecdotes throughout the three feature-length commentaries, Kosar describes the blank stares he received from executives after pitching his ideas concerning Erin (Jessica Biel, “Blade: Trinity”).
Originally, we’re told, Erin, “the kind of girl who would have been Miss Texas if she weren’t such a tomboy,” was supposed to be nine months pregnant. Near the film’s end, Kosar wanted to her to go into labor while hiding from Leatherface in a slaughterhouse (incidentally, the one used during the actual shoot was real, complete with a kill box used days before shooting and a freezer full of carcasses). As dawn approaches, the cries of Erin’s newborn give her away and the screen fades to black as Leatherface flings open the doorway and charges the now helpless mother. Wow, what a great ending that would have been! Too bad we get a kidnapping subplot and a “Blair Witch” knockoff instead.
It helps that the DVD includes an alternate beginning and ending, both of which are better suited to the film, but neither of which matches the intensity of Kosar’s original concept. Making Erin nine months pregnant would have given the film the exploitative edge it ultimately lacked. At the very least, her pregnancy would have provided the necessary foil to hinder her escape and prevent her from saving her friends, especially Morgan (Johnathan Tucker, “The Virgin Suicides”). As is, for such an intelligent character to not pick up Leatherface’s dropped chainsaw prior to Morgan’s groin-to-grin death scene, shown in all its glory among the deleted scenes, is simply lazy scriptwriting.
In what is perhaps the film’s most macabre stroke of genius, Erin watches helplessly as Leatherface dispatches Pepper (Erica Leershen, “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2”), rather bloodlessly and off screen, only to turn and meet her gaze wearing the face of her now deceased boyfriend, Kemper (Eric Balfour, “Trojan War”).
Speaking of which, the bloodless manner in which Pepper dies highlights the film’s most significant achievement: it challenges the arguments of academics like Vera Dika. In her essay “The Stalker Film,” Dika argues, “The slasher film brings into question the killing of the male, generally shown from a distance, versus the misogynistic killing of the abject female, always shown after a prolonged stalking sequence ending with her wound made visible to the spectator.”
The two women who die in this film are killed relatively quickly. Pepper’s death is obstructed, while the Hitchhiker’s is self-inflicted, albeit gratuitously. The men, however, have a hell of a time dying. Each one is tortured and then some, their deaths (lovingly?) photographed in painstaking detail. In what is probably the most disturbing scene in the film, one even begs the heroine to finish him off while dangling on a meat hook. The scene wherein Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey, “Willard”) forces Morgan to re-enact the hitchhiker’s suicide is especially torturous and is the closest this film comes to matching Marilyn Burns’ harrowing ordeal from the original.
There truly was a great deal of talent behind this film, and it’s especially nice to hear John Laroquette doing the opening narration again and view Daniel Pearl’s cinematic gusto. But even though the art of storytelling involves retelling, the latest batch of remakes, from this to “Dawn of the Dead,” seems to suggest that the retellings, no matter how polished, well acted and good intentioned, are never quite as good as their namesakes. Think of it as re-heated leftovers from a restaurant.
Michael Goodman said it best: the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” was ” a real nightmare inside a filmed nightmare … it’s a nightmare from which we can’t wake up.” The retelling captures its essence, but creates a dream world that’s easy to shake off with an “It must have been something I ate” shrug of the shoulders.
Nispel’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is something you’re likely to forget about the moment it’s over. Too bad he couldn’t have harnessed the stench of kitten poop. You can never quite forget that.
