Rating: 
Summary: Watch The Original
Review: I have watched several versions of this story and in my opinion the original version is still the best.This modern version is hyped up with sexy teenagers and definitely more obvious gore....like legs getting severed and bodies hung up like meat. Those aspects were also in the original but your mind was what presented the gore more than actual special effects. The actors are all pretty lame, stupid and witless. But who else would stay around in such a crazy town? The "chainsaw" family are all pretty disgusting, inbred and wicked. The scenery is trashy, dirty and littered with pieces of old dead bodies and rusty cars. Of course it is always dark and rainy, a must for bad horror films! The only thing that makes this film at all interesting is the way that the filmakers present clips at the beginning and end leading one to believe this story might actually have taken place in some small creepy town right in our own backyards. That in itself is enough to creep you out. Don't watch it alone but don't miss the original either.
Rating: 
Summary: For a remake, it's not half bad!!
Review: I am a huge fan of the original, and I'm not a fan of remakes in general. With that said, I'm not about to insult anybody by trying to put the original and this 2003 remake in the same category. I do think, however, that this movie is pretty good. What makes it work is that the two movies are very different. There are similarities to be sure, but you don't feel like you're watching a blow-by-blow replay of the 1973 classic. I saw the remake in a theater and expected to spend two hours laughing at a lame attempt to capture the classic's low-key horror. Instead, I found myself wrapped up in the new story because it strayed enough from the original to catch and, more importantly, keep my attention. There are a lot of extras on these two discs, including an interesting plot device that never made its way into the movie. Also, the commentary reveals some interesting facts. Overall, I think anyone who likes scary movies will like this movie. I definitely think people who haven't seen the original will enjoy it because they have no reference to compare it to. However, do yourself a favor and see the original too; you won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy the original
Review: I will make this simple.
BUY THE ORIGINAL I think it was 1974 or was it 1972, im pretty sure 74'. Anyway for the person who said it was creepy, and also said jeepers creepers is scary, please dont listen to him cause he obviousley dont know horror.
Im just not a fanm of new horror, on occasion maybe here and there a new one will come out thats good,ON OCCASION. the best horror is late 60's to late 80' even can find some decent in the early 90's. Horror since the early 90's on to 2005 has just really sucked bad.IMO.
if you found the movie "scream "to be scary or ' I know what u did last summer", or jeepers creepers or the new TCM or when darkness falls or the joke of a remake of 2005 Dawn of the dead. ThenI just feel for you.
Rating:
Summary: Yet another remake - but this one is quite good
Review: As we all know by now, remakes are such a dangerous game. Stick too close to the original and you could wind up with something like the mess that was the "Psycho" remake. Stray too far, and fans of the original film will hate you for it, and the ramake will fade into obscurity. One of the best remakes I have ever seen is "The Thing" in that it kept the core elements of the original but exploited these in enw and inventive ways. The "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2004) also does this - for the most part.
I'll start off by saying that I think that the orginal film was one of the hallmarks of American Cinema of the 1970's, Horror as a genre, and of independant film making. No other film (with the exception of maybe "Psycho" and "Halloween")has conveyed such an air of menace, with so little gore. The remake had such big shoes to fill if it was even going to be considered a decent film in it's own right.
The film keeps the same theme and overall plot as the original, but there are enough differences from the original to keep the viewer interested. Some successful changes are:
R Lee Emery, of "Full Metal Jacket" fame, is the strongest actor in this film. He plays the deranged father of the "family" - a role that has been strengthened in the remake. His characterisation is particularaly good, and adds to the overall sense of dread at what was befalling the five teenagers.
The suicide in the beginning of the film - I thought this was a really good way of introducing the characters for who they really were, what they were made of, and how they functioned as a group. It also sets up what is about to happen to them all really well.
The extended family/other residents - my thoughts are that including scenes of the other residents in the area added believability to what "leatherface" is doing. It almost seems that what he does is being condoned by the community as a whole, and the thought of that is frightening.
What didn't work:
The deforemed kid - "Leatherface's" younger brother. These scenes were a little pointless to me, and advesely affected the pace of the film.
Overall this is a solid remake with tight pacing and enough shocks and gore to keep the viewer interested. I highly recommend watching this film if you are a fan of horror or action, or if you have a very black sense of humour like myself.
Rating:
Summary: Gives you some spooks, but it's not the original
Review: The remake of the '74 classic horror film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre does have its moments when you're jumping out of your seat in terror, but it doesn't match the sheer brilliance and creativity of the original. The first one is quite possibly the best horror film ever made (also there's Jaws, Halloween, The Exorcist, Psycho). The utter fact that some people left the theatre in traumatic shock just proves how outrageously violent and twisted a movie it is. Nowadays, horror films are just trying to make you jump out of your seat and forget how to create real suspense. The reason why the original was so successful is because it is so shocking and unexpected when the killer strikes unlike horror films these days which just leave a character in an obvious death trap and throw the heavy music chords on you. Don't get me wrong. This film will scare you. But you'll forget about the scares once it's over. After seeing the classic horror movies from the 70s, you can remember specific frightening and shocking scenes and you'll be paranoid about things(i.e. going in the ocean, taking a shower). Unfortunately, we probably will never see something that effect in a horror film again.
Rating:
Summary: Decent horror flick
Review: Tobe Hoopers 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre was one of the
best horror films ever made. So what about this 2003 re-
make? Well, It has it's good and it's bad... It starts
out with 5 teens going to a Skynard concert. Problem is
I highly doubt Jessica Biel has any Skynard in her coll-
ection so it makes that part alittle hard to believe. But
then the teens pickup a chick that is seemingly in shock.
Things start to heat up when she seems them going toward
the same place she was just coming from.. She grows really
upsetand warns the teens of the danger ahead before putting
a gun in her month and blowing her brains out. You would
start to think that the teens would be wary of going any
further but they continue on path until they reach a Bar-
B-Q/Gas Station. They are then told they must go out in
the countryside to make the report of the girl who commited
suicide.
This is where it all starts... We are lead to about an hour
of grewsome murders and sickening personalities by the likes
of a old man and a redneck cop(played by the Full Metal
Jacket drill Sergeant)and of course Leatherface. What makes
this film good is that the teens in this movie are better
actors in the original with the exception of the lead female
in the 1974 movie.
We also get more gore than the original. That can be good
some and bad.... The original wasn't just about murder, it
was also about mental torture. This film doesn't have that
going for it... In fact, Jessica Biel doesn't seem like all
that much of a victim. It seems like despite the presence
of Leatherface and the cop that she is still in control.
What's good about the film is some good gore the movie
gives you a chance to actually care for the victims in-
stead of caring less. And as I said, it has better over
all acting than the original... It's just ashame that
the mental torture part of the movie was non existant.
One major complaint... The movie had no special features
at all. Come on, they can give us alittle more than a few
repetitive trailers.
Rating:
Summary: Return to the Ranch of the Cannibalistic Psychos.
Review: This, the 2003 version of, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is an example of a remake done well. The movie stays fairly close to the original film with some minor changes and a different focus in storytelling.
The movie opens with some "real" camera footage of police officers searching and investigating the Hewitt family house in Travis County Texas. A narrator introduces the story and a few minutes in one of the police officers hurls at the sights and smells being discovered. The narration ends on the words "the Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
The movie then pans into a van rolling down the highway with five young adult friends. The group has just left Mexico and are taking a detoured route home. They come across a girl walking aimlessly along the highway and trying to be good citizens they pick her up and offer to take her where she wants to go. Piecemeal conversation follows. The girl looks out the window and screams, "You're going the wrong way." She tells the group that "You're all going to die" and then pulls a gun from under her skirt and shoots herself in the head. Chaos ensues and the van pulls over. Then the girls in the van learn that the guys are smuggling pot back home. One thing leads to another and before they know it the group splits itself in two as one group waits for the sheriff and another leaves to see if they can phone the sheriff to come sooner. Soon the members of the group are picked off one by one until only one remains alive (Jessica Biel), trying to stay away from Leatherface and outsmarting the Sheriff.
This TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is much more bloody and gory than the original. Tobe Hooper's original film works so well because he showed so little. Hooper took a lesson from Hitchcock and knew that the most frightening and horrifying things are usually the things that we can't see; things that we are left to imagine in our own minds. This version doesn't do that. Though it doesn't show every graphic detail, the film is quite gory and filled with blood and guts, starting from the moment the wandering girl shoots herself in the head until the last act of the film when Erin (Biel) fights back agains Leatherface and saws off his arm.
The acting in the movie is fairly realistic. Biel does a wonderful job as the heroine of the piece who ends up saving someone else's life beside her own. The other noteworthy performance is that of R. Lee Ermey who portrays the viscious Sheriff Hoyt. The most frightening character in this movie is not Leatherface; it's Sheriff Hoyt. Hoyt is kind of the mastermind behind much of what goes on. Not only that, but Ermey's portrayal is just so believable. Ermey's performance makes you think of that good-ol'-boy farmer back home and makes one wonder if maybe that farmer might be a mastermind behind a bunch of serial killings, too.
The lighting and music play a significant role in setting the tone of the movie and are done well. They help provide the suspenseful and terrifying atmosphere. Combined together with the focused cinematography, good acting, and solid direction it makes this version of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE a film you really don't want to watch alone in the dark.
Rating:
Summary: Put On A Happy Face...
Review: Yes, some things ARE worse than death. Hammers are worse. Meat-hooks are far worse. The roar of a lunatic's trusty chainsaw is worse still. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is a dark, deeply disturbed and dripping story of mindless torture, murder, and small town family life (in hell). Jessica Biel leads a hippy-van full of young folks into this twisted day / nightmare of unearthly sadism. Five innocent (well, ok, they are smuggling two lbs. of pot from mexico) kids on their way to see Lynyrd Skynyrd in Dallas are driving along, minding their own business, when they come across a girl wandering down the middle of the road. They simply must pick her up, so off they go, unaware that their plans are about to be changed drastically. The girl is dazed and traumatized, mumbling incoherently about death and doom. Do our five heroes listen to her warnings? Nah, they just figure she's a baked potato on acid. Then comes the first shock of the movie, when the girl pulls out a hidden weapon and turns it on herself. The first shock, but nowhere near the last! Biel and company must find a phone and call the law. Skynyrd will have to wait. Soon, R. Lee Ermy enters the picture as the not-so-helpful, loudly perverse sheriff of the small town. He is obviously dangerous and untrustworthy, with a violent undercurrent just beneath his skin. Little do we know, he is utterly evil to boot! Of course, we have Leatherface as well, that unhinged, misunderstood mountain of murder and mayhem. Oh yeah, and his chainsaw. The last hour of TCM is a relentless assault of carnage and insanity. We are given little context for the events. Like the victims, we get few explanations for the ordeal we find ourselves in. The simple fact is that these kids have stumbled into something they will never escape. Even if they survive physically, some part of them will not make it. Like Hooper's original, this update grabs us and forces us to watch as others suffer and die. It takes us into places we'd rather not imagine and that (we hope) don't exist. Recommended ...
Rating: 
Summary: Out here on the Perimeter there are no Stars
Review: Tobe Hooper's original 1974 "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is one of greatest splatter flicks of all time, a landmark in brutal, uncompromising cinema.
So why remake it? What else is there to say?
First-time director Marcus Nispel (who had previously done nothing but music videos)answer that question in his sledgehammer remake, and the answer to the question is: Oh, old hoss---there's always plenty to say about primal fear.
The subject is Fear. Fear, not just of death, but what comes before, and perhaps a little after.
We've all been caught out on some lonesome highway after dark, trying to peer up over the high beams at the unfamiliar road up ahead, desperate for a place to pull over for the night, disappointed when the green relflectorized sign drawing up from the dark turns out to be a mile marker and not an advance beacon for the next town.
You're afraid of drifting off the road; you're afraid you should have pulled over at that truck-stop 100 miles back and gotten some coffee. You're afraid of all that dark piled up outside the windshield if you're alone, and if you're not, then you're afraid of the horrors that could swoop down on your sweetie, sleeping comfortably in back, if something happens to you.
Then you see the red & blue flashers in your rear-view. How could you miss 'em, since the trooper has what must be 30 krieg lights also trained on your head. Is there any Bad Feeling in the world so convulsively bad as being pulled over, out of the blue, by a nameless trooper on a nameless stretch of forlorn roadway at a nameless hour?
Especially when, after you've fumbled over your license & registration, said trooper says, in an inflectionless monotone, "could you step out of the car, please?". As if it's an invitation.
That is Fear, is it not? You're told to get out of the car by an AUTHORITY: normally you'd be ready to kill---we're wired that way---but what if this guy is legit? Then aren't you the bad guy?
Nispel takes that concept and nails it like a champ in his "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", less a 'remake' than a variation on the good old bloody theme. Who knew a whiskey-drenched, speech-slurring redneck sheriff (R. Lee Ermey, who owns the flick right down to his ugly black sock garters) could be more frightening than a chainsaw-wielding monster(Andy Bryniarski, hulking and menacing very nicely, thank you) who wears the skinned faces of his victims?
Now, all the original ingredients in this Texas BBQ (extra bloody!--erm, hearty!) recipe are still there, even John Larroquette's solemn voice-over, which still gives me laughing spasms every time I hear it.
You've got five teenagers (Jessica Biel and Ericha Leerhsen provide the ogle factor, while Mike Vogel does all the heavy lifting and the other two guys are white noise) crammed in a van on a roadtrip through 1970's Southeast Texas, five teenagers bearing gifts of frankincense, Lynyrd Skynyrd tickets, and pot. Yeah, they're heading north to the Skynyrd concert, ya know man, having scored a little sweet Mary Jane down Mexico way.
Which means a quick stop for Texas BBQ and some gas is fraught with more than a little anxiety, and a little becomes a lot when the Kids meet up with a pretty, distraught young hitchhiker (Lauren German), who gives a whole new meaning to "concealed weapon". Soon the Kids needs help from the Locals, and the Locals---well, you know, they need help from the Kids too, so to speak.
That's about all you need to know. If you haven't seen either film, I envy you; if you've seen the Hooper classic, then you're in for a few nasty surprises. Nispell keeps the pacing taut, and stables TCM with some remarkably solid actors. Ermey (Sheriff Hoyt) can act in his sleep, but here he achieves a remarkable transformation: keep a close eye on his facial mannerisms.
Mike Vogel (Andy)is equally remarkable here: it's rare that I pay attention to victims (I'm rooting for the dude with the Chainsaw, myself), but he does a brand of scared sh*tless I haven't seen before. Impressive, Vogel---very impressive. Leatherface Bryniarski doesn't disgrace the blade: the "custom" face was a sick little touch (you'll know it when you see it).
And then, of course, we have the townies: Terrence Evans (Old Monty)serves up a nice turn on the wheelchair-guy motif of the original (brrrr); Heather Kafka (Henrietta) goes from reticent to psycho in less time than you can say "Armadillo!"; and Kathy Lamkin (Tea Lady, and a stand-in for Fat Mama from "Gilbert Grape"), who goes "my my my my my" and gives me the crawls. Yeesh.
Nispel's cinematography (vet Daniel Pearl wields the camera) lacks the raw, grainy, documentary flavor of the original (that was called *no* budget), but manages to look both sleek and dangerous. Best of all are the locations, which are even more forlorn than those in the original Massacre. All convey isolation, degeneracy, rot: an entire region whose livelihood, and morality, have long ago gone to seed.
Jim Morrison once said, "Out here on the Perimeter there are no Stars". The Perimeter the Old Dead Lizard King was referring to wasn't the Frontier---I think it was the Forgotten. The Land that has been drained and bypassed. Out here, city boy, we have our own ways, and our ways ain't your ways. Out here, we just might bury strangers.
Out here on the Perimeter, "civilized" means something else: maybe it means giving strangers a wide berth. Or maybe it means teeth and flesh and blood and the whine of a chainsaw in the dark.
Eat up.
JSG
Rating:
Summary: George W. Bush's Kinda People
Review: I saw the original TCM version in 1994, rented by a fellow animal rights activist friend whom I met during a PETA internship. I'm not keen on wasting too much time on a comparison between the original and this remake. Both were chilling and I believe classics in their own right. The fellow PETA intern who rented the original pointed out to us (there were 5 watching it that night) the glaring irony that so many people who saw it in the theatre would immediately go out for hamburgers afterward. This is one of the few major flaws I found with this remake. Unlike the 1973 version, there are no scenes here of bovines locked in factory farm stalls, awaiting impending murder by the slaughterhouse operators. Perhaps the new director has no concern for the plight of nonhumans in slaughterhouses, or simply decided to water down the plot for a primarily carnivorous audience who can't stomach the truth of atrocities to which nonhumans are systematically subjected to end up on their meal plates.
In any event, I found this revised version far more disturbing than the original. While I've long been a fan of various horror movies in general, I'm not an avid watcher of B-films that some might dismiss as exploitive, ie. so-called slasher films, with no underlying storyline or respectable acting. The only actor I particularly recognized was Eric Balfour, since I'm a devoted fan of HBO's Six Feet Under. The acting was surprisingly strong and moving among the 5 teens heading to Dallas, with the cultural attitudes somewhat updated for this modern era, though the story occurred in the 1970's. I didn't expect this remake to haunt my memory as deeply as it has since viewing it for the first time last night. It's not the kind of movie I'd want to watch repeatedly, but worth it for anyone with a strong stomach looking for a good scare one night. It may be gorier than the original, but the acting and chilling musical score more than compensate for any lack of originality. Trust me when I say this is not a film for the faint-hearted with a weak composition.
If a prequel or sequel were to be made of this film, I'd highly recommend the director, whether the master Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, George A. Romero or any future genius, to hire George W. Bush to portray Leatherface. I'm sure he'd relish the bundle he'd earn when he retires from the Oval Office in 2008 (8 years overdue) to keep his mind occupied. Given his record as Texas Governor for 5 years, during which 152 people, many of whose guilt was extremely questionable, were murdered by the state on Death Row under his auspices, Bush's penchant for death, violence, bloodshed and sadism would be the perfect match for a mentally deranged miscreant of Leatherface's ilk. Bush's foreign policy record in Afghanistan and Iraq, since hijacking the Oval Office in January 2001 (with the Supreme Court's help), with hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in cold blood under his direction, would make a real-life Leatherface lick his lips in desire. Why do we need to create any new horror-film antagonists such as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers when a genuine slasher is right at our fingertips, falsely calling himself the "President," despite the electoral scandals in both non-elections (the 2004 case revolving around thousands of suppressed votes in multiple states besides Ohio)? Just make a docudrama about Shrub's life and you'll have a brilliant screenplay fit for Fangoria magazine's cover story.
I agree with the previous reviewer who explained this TCM remake exposes why one shouldn't consider moving to Texas, unless of course you appreciate the bloodlust among Leatherface's family depicted herein. With all due respect to native Texans (unlike Bush from Connecticut) who may not fit this description, I suspect this problem is endemic to Texan culture.
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