Franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Back in my review of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I noted how this was actually my first real exposure to the franchise, after years of being very leery of it. In fact, it was one of those instances where everything came together all at the right time, as when the movie came out in October of 2003, I was slowly but surely becoming interested in the original and saw that trailer for it that freaked me out so much. As for the remake, I saw a few TV spots here and there at the time, but didn't see the theatrical trailer until the following summer, on New Line Cinema's then recent DVD of Man's Best Friend. I didn't know what it was initially, although the captions, "August 18, 1973. Travis County, Texas," certainly gave me an idea, as did my knowledge of the original when I saw the young adults in the van and their picking up a hitchhiker. It was an awesome trailer, as it was one of the first I can remember that didn't have a voiceover, and it started out all nice and kind of nostalgic, with the kids coming off as carefree, with Jessica Biel and Eric Balfour's characters kissing after playfully teasing each other. But once it showed them pick the hitchhiker up and she said, "They're all dead," the vibe instantly changed, with the soundtrack changing to a sound that was ostensibly a record skipping but came off like a heartbeat. It got darker and darker, showing them wandering around a creepy house, looking for help, getting spooked by loud bangs and flashes of a figure, and when it showed a big sliding door open behind Biel and Mike Vogel, it became downright intense, with shots of them running and screaming freezing and going to black, accompanied by that camera sound. Once I heard that, I knew what it was, and the sudden shot of a chainsaw blade coming through a wall all but confirmed it. While I didn't find the trailer to be as disturbing as the original's, this still looked like a really dark, scary ride. But, despite my intrigue, I was still hesitant due to the original's reputation and the simple question of whether or not I wanted to watch a guy with a chainsaw slaughtering and cannibalizing people.

Then, some time during my senior year in high school in 2004, I caught the remake on cable one night (it was either during October or a little bit afterward, as I remember seeing a lot of those documentaries on the original around that same time). I was about to change the channel the minute I saw the title on the TV's info bar down below, but after thinking about it, I decided to bite the bullet and just watch it... and I was glad I did, because I thought it was awesome. It seems like a cliche thing to say, but it's true: I had never seen anything so raw, brutal, and intense. I was like, "Okay, this right here is a horror film!" I know some of you who dislike this movie are probably rolling your eyes at that statement but that was my honest reaction. After seeing it several times on cable (although I think I saw it all the way through only once), I knew this was a movie I had to have, and so I ended up getting both it and the original on DVD that Christmas. Another thing you might remember from my review of the original is that this movie, along with some other factors, rather hampered my first viewing of it. While I love the original now, it seemed rather tame and dated to me the first time I watched it, no doubt due to my being much more familiar with this. (I guess the lesson here is don't see a modernized version before you see the original.) But while my opinion of the original grew and grew over time, the remake was a movie I liked very much from the get go and my high opinion of it has lasted through the years. Looking at it today, while I have come to agree that the original is the superior film and have watched it many more times, and I can also admit that the remake does have flaws, I still think it's a more than worthy companion piece to the 1974 classic. I also feel it's a lot better than the majority of the remakes that followed in its wake, both from Platinum Dunes and elsewhere, and is a great horror film in its own right.

In 1973, the discovery of a house of horrors in Texas, as well as the most recent atrocities committed by its residents, horrify the nation. After thirty years of being filed away in the cold case section of the Travis County Police Department, the files on the case, which contain over 1,300 pieces of evidence and a walkthrough of the crime scene, are opened and re-examined. The events of August 18th, 1973 are then recounted. Five young adults, Erin, her boyfriend Kemper, Morgan, Andy, and Pepper, a hitchhiker they picked up the day before, are driving through rural Texas on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas after spending a few days in Mexico. En route, they come across a disoriented, almost catatonic young woman walking on the side of the road, talking incoherently about having to get away from a "bad man." Although they pick her up and attempt to take her to safety, she panics when she sees they're heading past a slaughterhouse and nearly causes them to crash. Telling them that they're all going to die, she pulls out a .357 Magnum and kills herself. Horrified, they later come upon a gas station and ask the elderly woman who runs the place to contact the sheriff for them. While she apparently does, she says the sheriff wants them to drive over to the nearby Crawford Mill to make their report. With no other option, they go there, but instead of the sheriff, they find a strange-looking little boy named Jedidiah who tells them that the sheriff lives nearby. Erin and Kemper head in the direction the boy points them and come across an old plantation-house. While the man there, an amputee named Monty, says the sheriff doesn't live there, he offers to call him for them. Meanwhile, the sheriff arrives at the mill and, proving to be a very sinister and disturbing character, takes the body away. And unbeknownst to Erin, Kemper, while looking through the house, is killed by a hulking brute: Thomas Hewitt, aka Leatherface. And it isn't long afterward before both she and her friends begin falling prey to the chainsaw-wielding maniac and his deranged clan. 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the inaugural film for Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes, which he founded in 2001 and which, as a result of its enormous success, would become mostly known for remaking various other horror properties over the next seven years (a rather unfortunate and despised aspect of this film's legacy, as I'll go into later). As far as the screenplay was concerned, it's been noted that both Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel did write one, something Henkel himself confirms in

the small section on the film in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Companion, but he also says the filmmakers behind the remake never looked at it and it was already shooting by the time they handed their script in (Henkel and Hooper are both credited as producers but, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean they had any involvement in the film, something Hooper himself all but confirmed at the time). Ultimately, the remake was written by Scott Kosar, whom Bay hired due to his screenplay for The Machinist. In writing the film, Kosar wisely decided not to try to copy the original, knowing that there was no possible way he could better it, so he came up with completely different characters and scenarios. He also changed Leatherface's character quite a bit, in a manner that many tend not to like but I think is quite well done, actually.

Because Michael Bay's name was all over the trailers and TV spots, I just assumed that he directed this film. And in the documentary, Chainsaw Redux: Making A Massacre, Brad Fuller, who co-founded Platinum Dunes with Bay and Andrew Form, said there had been a rumor that Bay was going to direct it but he dispels that, as does Bay himself. Instead, it was the feature film directorial debut for Marcus Nispel, who'd done numerous music videos and commercials, as well as some video documentaries. While I wouldn't call Nispel one of the greatest directors ever by any means, I do think he has some true talent, as I really like the look he gave the film and thought he did well in shooting the more intense scenes as well as giving the locations a real uncomfortable rawness that fits this movie perfectly. However, it's a shame that, ever since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nispel has done almost nothing but remakes. At first, I thought he'd done something original in 2007's Pathfinder, but I've since learned that's an American remake of a Norwegian film. His other credits include a Frankenstein TV movie, the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th (which I also like, despite its flaws), and the 2011 Conan the Barbarian with Jason Mamoa. In 2015, he finally did something original, with the Blumhouse release of Exeter, but I find it kind of disconcerting how the guy has spent most of his feature-directing career recreating the works of others. And when I look him up now, the latest credit on his IMDB page, eight years after Exeter, was a 2023 episode of the FOX 26 Houston news. I don't think that bodes well for his future prospects.

Looking at her in context, I see Jessica Biel's character of Erin as something of a culmination of how the franchise's female leads progressed from the mostly shell-shocked but still capable Sally to the increasingly stronger characters of Stretch, Michelle, and Jenny. In fact, Erin is kind of a combination of all four of them. She's not only beautiful (I mean, it's Jessica Biel) but, like Sally, has a really good heart and is determined to do the right thing, often to a fault. When they come upon the poor, traumatized woman as she's wandering along the road, Erin is unwilling to leave her out there in the heat and has her come along so they can take her to safety. After she commits suicide and their attempts to report it to the local authorities not only don't go so well but become increasingly frustrating, Erin is still intent upon getting a hold of the sheriff so the girl's family can be notified of her death. And when the others are thinking about dumping the girl's body and getting out, Erin is having none of it, even when both Morgan and Andy vote for it and Kemper seriously considers it. This is where the fault part comes in, as she gets a tad overzealous about it, especially when it comes down to Kemper being the deciding vote, and this attitude does ultimately lead to their falling prey to the Hewitt family. But Erin is just so likable and in the end, proves to be such a survivor and unwilling to abandon her friends that I can forgive her faults. When she realizes that Kemper is missing after they've first been in the house, she and Andy head back there to look for him, which is when they first run into Leatherface and realize what kind of danger they're really in. Later on, when she finds Andy almost dead on the meat-hook in the basement, she first tries to help him but then puts him out of his misery after he asks her to and is completely distraught about it, as his blood drips down on him (though, she could've stabbed him somewhere more instantly fatal and less painful than the gut). Right after that, she finds an injured and shell-shocked Morgan, gets him on his feet, and helps him escape, even though she should probably leave since his condition slows her down. He gets killed in the end anyway, but she still tried.

Like Stretch, Erin is shown to have a playful, slightly smartass attitude at the beginning, like when she playfully flips off Morgan when he asks for someone to make her stop singing along with Sweet Home Alabama on the radio, and when she tosses the joint that Kemper gives her out the window and then goes, "Oops!" Speaking of which, similar to Michelle and Ryan, she has something of a complicated relationship with Kemper. While she does indeed love him and wants to be with him, as she mentions expecting him to give her an engagement ring, she

doesn't like that he was drinking and smoking weed while they were down in Mexico, and is less happy when she learns they have two pounds of marijuana in a pinata in their van. She gives him a real hard time about it, as well as when he considers going along with Morgan and Andy in dumping the hitchhiker's body, and is frustrated with him when they're at the Hewitt house and he seemingly walks back to the Crawford Mill without her. But she becomes genuinely concerned when she learns he didn't come back, and that turns to outright terror when she and

Andy first meet Leatherface. Though she escapes, Andy doesn't, and like Sally, Erin becomes quite frantic when she makes it back to the van, unable to warn Morgan and Pepper about what happened. That begins her own ordeal of being put through the wringer, as she and the others are tormented by Sheriff Hoyt; Leatherface shows up, kills Pepper, and Erin then sees that he's wearing Kemper's face as a mask; she's chased through the woods and finds a trailer, only to learn that the women who live there

are in on it; she's drugged and brought back to the Hewitt house, where she's harassed by Hoyt and then thrown down into the basement; and is chased relentlessly by Leatherface. The cycle repeats when she's picked up by a truck driver and, like the hitchhiker, panics when she realizes he's heading back towards the gas station. 

Though she tries and fails to keep the trucker from pulling into the family's gas station, she doesn't completely lose her mind like Sally did at the end of the original. In fact, not only does she fight back throughout the movie's latter half, like Stretch, Michelle, and Jenny, but in the end, she scores several major blows against the family. First, during the previous scene in the slaughterhouse, she chops Leatherface's right arm off after cleverly tricking him. Second, she hot-wires Sheriff Hoyt's police car, something she's known how to do since she was

young, and runs him over repeatedly. Third, she rescues a baby girl that the family abducted from the hitchhiker. And finally, she obviously was the one who notified the real authorities, leading to the Hewitts' killing spree being uncovered, their house raided, and, although Leatherface managed to escape, the rest of the family likely being arrested.

If I have any qualms about Erin, they mainly have to do with Jessica Biel herself. First, while her acting is good for the most part, there are a few lines here and there that I think could've been delivered better, like when she tells Kemper, "That girl has got parents out there somewhere who's gonna want her back, not just... not just dumped on the side of the road like a piece of trash," or, when she and Andy are about to go off to look for Kemper, "If you guys just want to take off, that's fine but I am not leaving without him." Second, the filmmakers make no effort to disguise

another reason why they cast her. They put her in this white tank-top whose tail is rolled up and tied on the front so you can see her flat, toned stomach for the entire movie (and when it gets soaked from rain near the end, it's clear she's not wearing a bra under there), and these tight-fitting blue jeans, which you see fit her very nicely in a rear shot while she's walking up to the Hewitt house. You could argue that the latter is inspired by the similar shot of Pam walking up to the house in the original but, knowing that Michael Bay

was involved with this and his very sleazy reputation, it does feel like this was the filmmakers saying, "We're not even going to try to hide one of the big reasons why we cast her. Here's her butt." While I can't deny that I don't mind looking at Biel in this outfit, I'm still like, "Come on, guys. Can you make an effort not to be so obvious?"

I personally find all five of the characters in the van to be likable in their own way, including Erin's boyfriend, Kemper (Eric Balfour). While he comes off as maybe a little bit pervy when he tells Andy that if he and Pepper get hot while they're making out in the back of the van, they could take their clothes off, and does have something of an edge to him when he warns Morgan to stop talking about the pinata full of marijuana in front of Erin, overall, he has real a likable quality. While far from perfect, he does genuinely care about Erin and eventually admits that, yes, he was smuggling dope, but says he was doing it so the two of them could have enough money to start a life together. Some may say he only says that so she wouldn't be mad at him anymore, and they'd also point out how he hid it from her, but I think he knew that, her being who she is, she would object to it, and plus, he comes off as sincere when he tells her, as well as in how bad he feels when he realizes he messed up. Now, that said, I do think they could've expanded on his motivation a little more, like keeping in a deleted scene where he tells her that he wants to marry her but he wants to wait for the right moment, adding, "Come on, you don't wanna marry some dirty mechanic." I know they cut that bit out in order to get rid of a needless, and ultimately just plain sad, subplot of Erin being pregnant with his child, but they could've left the rest of it in and just cut around the mentions of her pregnancy. In any case, I also feel bad for Kemper when he's torn between Morgan and Andy, who just want to dump the girl's body and get out of town, and Erin's need to turn it over to the authorities. While he does at first say he thinks it would be best to just get out, and later learns from the boy named Jedidiah that the sheriff is apparently "Home, getting drunk," he still opts to go over to his house and report the suicide when he's told the sheriff lives nearby.

Another thing I like about Kemper is how, when he's talking to Luda Mae, who runs the gas station, about the suicide, he tries to remain as polite as he can but starts to get frustrated when she says the sheriff wants them to head over to the Crawford Mill to make their report. He doesn't become quite as angry about it as Morgan but, naturally, he doesn't understand why the sheriff won't just come by the gas station instead of making them drive to an out of the way location and tells her, "We're not going to drive around this town with a dead girl in the back of our van!" Given the

situation, I'm amazed he didn't lose it worse than he did, because I know I would have. Ultimately, when he and Erin go to the Hewitt house, Kemper gets killed by Leatherface while wandering around inside (granted, he should've tried harder to find Erin rather than looking through this creepy house by himself) and his body is dragged down into the basement, where he's butchered and his face made into a mask. Another thing about Kemper that I think was a missed opportunity is the diamond ring that falls out of his pocket when Leatherface is hoisting him up. This

revelation, that he was planning on proposing to Erin, didn't hit me the first few times I saw the movie, even when I watched it all the way through for the first time. Maybe I wasn't paying that much attention, or it's because the ring is mentioned so very briefly at the beginning (or it could be that I'm just dumb, which is a distinct possibility) but, I think more could've been done to punctuate its significance. Again, if that deleted conversation between them, minus the pregnancy stuff, was kept in, I think the ring would've hit home a little more, especially with Kemper's line that he was waiting for the right moment; as it is, it's just something that's mentioned once and by the time we get to the part where the ring falls out, you've probably forgotten about it.

I hate to admit it, but the guy I identify with the most is Morgan (Jonathan Tucker). I've been in very bad, tense situations before, and while I would like to think that I could be tough when the need arises, in reality, I've cracked and started panicking the way he does. He's actually right in what he says when he tells everyone that they need to get out as soon as possible, despite whatever happens to the girl's body. When Jedidiah tells them that the sheriff is at home getting drunk rather than heading over to listen to their report, I would've said the same thing as Morgan: "If the sheriff doesn't give a shit, then why should we?" Also, when Luda May tells them what the sheriff wants them to do, Morgan becomes frustrated and exclaims, "I'm sorry, but how often do girls just blow their heads off in this shithole town?!", something else I could see myself saying. Even though he's not in a wheelchair, he's definitely the film's equivalent of Franklin in that he kind of annoys everybody (though not to the extent that Franklin did) and while it's not specified, I think he's supposed to be Erin's brother. He annoys everyone not by being whiny (he does become a bit whiny later on but you understand where he's coming from there), but by intentionally being somewhat of a pest, like at the beginning when he tells Andy, after he's been passionately making out with Pepper, "32,000 Americans each day are infected with a sexually-transmitted disease, and 2/3 of them are just about your age,", prompting Andy to flip him off for killing the mood. He does have a tendency to carry things too far, like when he says, "Kemper, didn't your mother ever tell you not to pick up hitchhikers?", after the hitchhiker starts letting on what's happened to her, and when he acts like something has grabbed his hand when he sticks it in a car near the Crawford Mill. And he also suggests that he's willing to get out of dodge and leave everyone else behind when he demands the keys from Erin when she and Andy prepare to go look for Kemper.

One thing that Jonathan Tucker is very good at playing is being panicked and freaked out of his mind, another reason why I identify with him so much, because I know for a fact that I've acted that way in some situations. After the girl kills herself, his screaming, "I don't know why we had to pick her up. Why the fuck did we have to stop?!", and yammering about why calling the cops is a bad idea, feel like it's coming from somebody who's losing it big time. The scene where I feel for him the most, though, is when Sheriff Hoyt makes him reenact the suicide. His

frightened expressions, quivering lip after Hoyt screams, "Get the fuck over there!" when he's reluctant to sit exactly where the girl was, and stammering at one point show that he no knows this guy is a psychopath and he's in real danger. When Hoyt makes him put the gun in his mouth and asks what happened next, the muffled way that Morgan answers, "She shot herself," is just disturbing, as he sounds like he's almost in tears. What's worse is that his torment doesn't end there. After he attempts to

shoot Hoyt and realizes the gun was empty the whole was empty the whole time, Hoyt takes him hostage and brings him to the Hewitt home. On the way, he smashes him in the face with a liquor bottle when Morgan "bribes" him with his concert tickets, and when they get to the house, he beats the crap out of him some more, before finally taking him inside. When Erin later finds Morgan in the basement, he's been so badly tortured (he has a large wound in his back, suggesting he's been hung on a meat-hook as

well) that he's almost catatonic and can barely speak or walk. But after the two of them escape the house and make it to a small shack nearby, he manages to hold off Leatherface so Erin can escape, going out as a hero when Leatherface finally hangs him up by his cuffed hands and takes his chainsaw to him.

Andy (Mike Vogel) is most definitely this film's equivalent to Kirk in that he's the most good-looking of the guys and is a jock-type due to his physique; just like with Erin, you see plenty through his sweaty muscle-shirt. Also like Kirk, there isn't much to his personality other than he's a decent enough guy, although he does say some things at the absolute worst time to say them, like when, they drive off after the girl has shot herself and he rambles, "I guess that's what brains look like, huh? Sort of like, uh... lasagna. Kind of." He also goes along with the possible idea of dumping the girl's body, mostly because, like Morgan, he just wants to get out of there. However, he refuses to leave Kemper behind and goes into the Hewitt house to look for him while Erin distracts Monty. Even though I identify the most with Morgan, Andy is the one I feel the worst for. Not only does Sheriff Hoyt force him to help wrap up the girl's body and listen to his vulgar, disgusting remarks all the while, but he suffers way more than Kirk ever did. Leatherface cuts his leg off, drags him down into the cellar, with Andy's fingernails getting broken and pulled off when he tries to stop him, puts him on the meat-hook, jams a handful of salt on the stump of his leg (talk about making you wince), and wraps a paper bag around it. Andy then later tries to pull himself off the hook but doesn't make it and falls, forcing it in deeper, and when Erin later can't get him off it either, she ultimately has to put him out of his misery.

The only one of the youths who kind of gets on my nerves is Pepper (Erica Leerhsen). She's not even close to being as fist-bitingly annoying as Heather from The Next Generation, but her constant screaming does tend to grate. Her scream is also really loud and piercing, and even when she's not screaming, her panicking can also be annoying, like when they find a set of teeth at one point and she yells, "It's somebody's fucking teeth, isn't?!", or when Erin is trying to use her knife to start the van and Pepper is so nervous that her hand is shaking while holding the flashlight, causing Erin to break the knife-blade in the keyhole. I know she's supposed to be terrified but, while I identify with Morgan, who also freaks out throughout the film, Pepper kind of overdoes it. She also comes across as not having much of a brain in her head, even at the start of the film. During the movie's first moments, she's talking about the odds of their driving by just as she was starting to hitchhike, adding, "I mean, it's like... synchronicity. It's like LSD. Like this shit does not just happen." Every time I watch this movie, I'm just kind of like, "Okay, you're either dumb or so stoned that you don't know what you're even saying." (Erin and Kemper appear to feel the same way, given the looks they exchange.) I really don't like the idea that she gets killed because she runs out of the van when Leatherface attacks her and Erin while they're inside it. Not only was that, again, rather dumb on her part, but it makes her look really selfish, especially since she runs when Leatherface reaches in and grabs Erin by the hair. And in the end, Leatherface goes after and kills her, so her flight was meaningless.

Knowing full well that they couldn't possibly hope to top the hitchhiker scene from the original movie, Scott Kosar wisely decided to go a completely different direction and instead make the hitchhiker a recently escaped victim (Lauren German). This poor girl truly comes across like someone who is emotionally broken. She's not only bruised and beaten, but she's so traumatized that she can barely speak coherently when she's picked up and mostly just sobs in the backseat. Even more horrific is that there's a lot of blood around the inside of her thighs, suggesting that she's been raped (given how sadistic and twisted he is, I'm assuming it's Hoyt's doing). And later on, they find evidence that she was there with her family, that the rest of them were apparently killed, and her baby daughter was taken. After everything she's been through, she panics when she realizes they're driving in the direction of the town and almost causes them to crash by leaning forward and grabbing the wheel. After Kemper pulls the van over, she tearfully says that she won't, "Go back there," and cries, "He's a bad man. He's a really bad man." She then pulls out a gun (which she apparently had up her vagina, which, ouch!), and after telling them, "You're all gonna die," puts it in her mouth and shoots herself. The whole thing becomes all the more tragic when the kids have no choice but to keep her body in the van for so long that it begins to smell, and Hoyt manages to get a hold of her, groping her and making disgusting comments while wrapping her up with Saran wrap, and takes off with her. In short, while she escaped the family and managed to free her soul, her body to wound back up in their hands and God knows what they proceeded to do with it. Life's a bitch, especially in these movies, isn't it? (On a side note, I feel they should've made a film about this girl's story, maybe taking place in-between The Beginning and this. If they'd made her and her family very likable characters, knowing what eventually becomes of her here would have made that movie all the more horrifying than it already would've been.)

Speaking of different character dynamics, I personally enjoy what Kosar and Marcus Nispel did with the family. Besides the fact that, apart from Leatherface, they created their own characters instead of remaking the Hitchhiker, Drayton, Grandpa, and so on, I like how widespread they are throughout this small area, with the apparent sheriff and a pair of women in a small trailer being in on it as well. It's sort of an expansion on how, when you watch the original, there's a creeping thought in the back of your head that there may be other members of this

depraved clan that don't live at the house. I also thought it was interesting that, even more so than in the original, the cannibalism is very downplayed. In the prequel, we learn that they are definitely cannibals, but here, other than Andy being put on the meat-hook (which could be meant as a means of torture), there's no clear indication that they eat their victims. There's no dinner scene, and while there is meat hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, it's unclear whether or not it's human. There's also some

blood in a big bowl there, but that could easily be from animals they've butchered themselves. Really, the only other thing that hints at cannibalism is what appears to be a pair of bloody long-johns hanging from that ceiling, but again, that's not meat, and if it's from a human victim, they probably just killed that person and are hanging it up to drain the blood out so they can eventually wash and dry it, then wear it. Or maybe it belongs to one of the family members who got blood all over it from a recent victim and they're doing what I just described to clean it.

Also, when I first saw Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III after having watched this many times, I was amazed at just how much it borrows from that movie, especially in regards to the family. There's a matriarch, as well as a disabled person in a wheelchair (the difference is that they were one in the same in Leatherface, whereas here, it's the characters of Luda Mae and Monty respectively); Andrew Bryniarski's portrayal of Leatherface is similar to R.A. Mihailoff's in terms of physicality and manner; Leatherface has his own private part of the house,

where he butchers his victims and makes his skin-masks; and there's a moment here where he removes his mask and you see his face, something that was supposed to happen in that movie. And, like Sara in that movie, you have a character who's managed to survive the family's carnage, only for them to die and their bodies, in one way or another, end up back in the family's possession. Some may call it stealing, but I think it's cool that they, intentionally or not, carried over some concepts from one of the more underrated films in the franchise.

Some may feel that the way Leatherface (or Thomas Hewitt, as he's referred to by his family and even in the closing credits) is portrayed in this film, as a truly sadistic, rage-fueled, chainsaw-wielding killer, is rather bland and not as interesting or frightening as the mentally-stunted, childlike brute in the original. But as much as Gunnar Hansen's original portrayal will never be matched, I do think Andrew Bryniarski's performance here more than works for what they were going for. This Leatherface is a savage beast of a man, like a much more extreme version of Mihailoff's portrayal. There is still some hint at an underdeveloped, childish mindset, like in the scene where he's sitting on the floor in the next room, listening to Luda Mae talk to Erin, and he quickly does as she says when she tells him to take Erin away, but for the most part, he fears absolutely nothing and is a ferocious monster who takes pleasure in terrorizing and killing people, due to the ridicule and teasing we learn he suffered as a child due to his skin disease. That's another thing that people bash about this characterization: they gave a concrete reason for why he wears other people's faces, rather than it being something he just does. Now, would I have preferred it to have been left ambiguous, like it was originally? Yeah, but since this is a whole new continuity, it doesn't bother me (if they had suddenly done this in one of the sequels, it would've been a different story). 

There are several things that I especially love about this version of Leatherface. One is how, early on, he's creeping around the house, just out of Erin's sight, and after he's killed Kemper, he's watching everything else that's going on through small holes in the walls and an eyeglass in the sliding door leading to the basement. Speaking of which, by extension, I love how they expanded upon him having his own personal section of the house from the third movie, to where he has his own nightmarish world down in the basement. And even after he tosses Erin down there

and appears to just leave, he keeps an eye on her through the floor boards, prompting him to start chasing her again when she finds and starts helping Morgan. That leads into another thing I really love: like in the original, Leatherface is positively relentless. He will chase and hunt you down, and not stop until he gets you. This is proven during the movie's last twenty or so minutes, where he chases Erin and Morgan from the house's basement to this old shack in the woods, and after killing Morgan, he

continues to pursue Erin. Although he's momentarily held up when he trips over a fence and accidentally cuts his leg with the saw, he follows her all the way to the slaughterhouse and continues to chase her inside, stalking her through the meat freezer and the locker room. Even after she cuts off his arm, he follows her back to the gas station and gives the chainsaw one last swing as she drives away. And after she's escaped, there's a closeup of his face and you can see how furious he is that she got away.

As for his main mask, created by makeup effects man Scott Stoddard, while I like it more than those in Chainsaw 2 and The Next Generation, there's still an unnatural feeling to it. Like in the latter, it looks more like latex instead of flayed skin, but that's not my problem; rather, it looks like they tried too hard to make it intimidating and scary. Whereas the mask in the original film was naturally frightening, and was made even more so by the way it was often lit and its inherent crudeness, this mask looks too much like a monster instead of the sewed together faces of several

people. That said, there are shots where I do think it works very well. One that sticks in my mind is when Andy is looking for Kemper in the kitchen and there's a quick shot of Leatherface watching him through a hole in the wall (said shot is at the top of the previous paragraph). The little bit of the mask you see there, combined with the clearest look at his eyes in the film, is very creepy, making him come off as some sort of hideous creature living in the walls rather than a human being. But what trumps the main mask for me is the Kemper mask that he wears when he attacks

Erin and Pepper. Now, that I found absolutely horrifying, as it does look like he's wearing Eric Balfour's face. Believe it or not, I actually missed the reveal of that mask the first few times I saw the movie (I must've just nonchalantly looked away at that moment each time) but when I did first see it, I was like, "Oh, shit!" I wished he'd kept that mask for the rest of the film rather than going back to the other one, not only because it's so freaky but also because it would've been so much more horrific for Erin to be

running from and fighting against someone who's wearing her beloved boyfriend's face (as they would do in the prequel). As for his overall look, I think Leatherface comes off well, although that suit, combined with Bryniarski's already large frame, does make him feel a little too thick in an awkward way. And I think the chainsaw used here is the best one since the original, with its long blade and particularly threatening sound.

Unfortunately, while I personally think Bryniarski played Leatherface really well, he's made a lot of enemies in real life and tainted people's opinions of this film by acting like an arrogant asshole who thinks he's the greatest person to ever play the role. This surprised me because, in the Chainsaw Redux documentary, he comes across as rather friendly, jokey, and enthusiastic about playing an iconic horror movie villain. Granted, he did seem to terrorize everyone else on the set by maybe getting a little too into the role (though, Kane Hodder has been known for doing the same thing) and his statement in the documentary that he was born to wear the mask was questionable, but I didn't think he came across as a jerk. However, a few years later, my opinion of him began to shift due to another interview clip (I'll expound upon that when I talk about the prequel) and horror stories that I'd heard about him at conventions. While there are exceptions, it seems like nearly every convention he's ever gone to, he's made an absolute jackass out of himself by getting drunk, insulting and sometimes even threatening people, and other awful behavior. (R.A. Mihailoff may not appreciate me comparing his characterization of Leatherface to Bryniarski, because I've heard the two of them got into a confrontation at one convention and had to be separated. I asked Mihailoff about it one time when I met him but he simply said, "No comment.") I heard one story that he showed up late at a Q&A, was drunk, proceeded to insult a kid in the audience, and proclaimed himself to be the new Jason Voorhees (this was when the Friday the 13th remake was in pre-production). Another person once said that Bryniarski bullied and insulted him relentlessly on Facebook when he said he would've rather seen a NECA figure of the Gunnar Hansen Leatherface than his. Bryniarski apparently even threatened legal charges if this guy contacted him again, even though Bryniarski himself was the one who started the whole thing! His reputation has gotten so bad that you don't see him much at conventions nowadays. I've personally been at one show where he was but stayed far away from him (I tend to avoid people with really bad reputations at conventions). I can remember him loudly blowing his nose a couple of times and loudly exclaiming that Leatherface had major boogers or something like that. (I've heard he does that kind of stuff a lot. Class act.) And my opinion of him has only gotten lower since I first did this review, as he did something I find totally unforgivable, but again, I'll wait until we talk about The Beginning to get into that.

Back when I first did this review, it seemed to me that people had mixed feelings about R. Lee Ermey as Sheriff Hoyt, with some liking him in the role, while others felt he was just playing a more sadistic, murderous version of his character from Full Metal Jacket. However, I now feel that that view was influenced by certain people whose opinions didn't reflect those of the entire horror community, as much as they'd like to think they do. In any case, this movie was actually my introduction to Ermey, as I hadn't seen Full Metal Jacket or anything else with him at the time (except for Toy Story, which I didn't know was him), so I had nothing to compare his performance to. And even now, after having seen a lot of his movies, I feel the same way about him here as I did when I first saw it: I think he's great, and could be among the most despicable characters in this whole franchise, if not the most. The minute he pulled up in his sheriff's car and got out, chewing some tobacco with an evil scowl on his face, I knew he was bad news. He instantly makes both the characters and the viewer uncomfortable, as he nonchalantly looks over the crime scene in the van and makes comments like, "Now, it's just an educated guess but, my money says your dead body's right there in that van," and, "Wow, look at that mess." He's also automatically hostile towards everyone, telling Andy, "Excuse me, you mind getting the fuck out of my way, son?", and, "How about givin' me a hand here, asshole?." Things get downright depraved when he ropes Andy into helping him wrap the girl's body up with Saran wrap and tells him, "You know, back when I was a young patrolman I used to love wrappin' up these young honeys. Yeah, cop me a little bit of a feel every now and then, you know. [He says while doing so to the body, which makes my earlier theory that he could've possibly raped her even more hideous.]" He then leans out of the car to spit, and adds, "Ooh, look at that. She's kind of wet down there. What you boys been doing with this dead body anyway?" Another part that's both appalling, yet darkly funny is when Andy and Morgan are taking the completely wrapped body over to Hoyt's car. Pepper comments, "It just seems so wrong," to which Hoyt responds, "Don't give me any crap, young lady. Goddammit, I've got just as much respect for a dead body as anybody." And then, he sees that Andy and Morgan are about to put the body in his backseat and yells, "Hey! Get that nasty goddamn thing out of the backseat of my goddamn car! Put it in the trunk. What the hell's the matter with you?"

When Hoyt pops back up later on, he goes from a nasty bully to a full-on sadistic monster, forcing Erin, Pepper, and Morgan out of the van under the pretense that they're taking drugs and making them get on the ground, ignoring Erin's pleas for help and making up the wild accusation that Kemper murdered the hitchhiker and ran off. He shoots right next to Erin's head when she tries to get back up and then, in what I think is the most tense scene in the film, takes Morgan into the van and forces him to reenact the girl's suicide. As I described earlier, the crap that

Hoyt does to Morgan is unreal: scaring him half out of his mind, forcing him to put a pistol in his mouth and put his finger on the trigger, and, when Morgan pulls the gun on him, tempts him to shoot him and tells the girls that they'll be accomplices to murder if he does. When Morgan pulls the trigger, only to find it wasn't loaded, Hoyt takes him hostage on the grounds that he intently tried to kill him and continues to torture him, smashing a liquor bottle on his face on the grounds of "bribery" and beats the living snot out of him when they arrive at the house,

before forcing him inside. He later tortures Erin by forcing her to keep her head right next to his crotch while he's sitting on the couch, as Luda Mae irons his pants, and pours some beer onto her face. All this makes it very palpable when, as the truck driver brings her to the gas station, Erin panics the minute she sees the sheriff's car and almost causes the guy to run off the road. That's such a frightening prospect, knowing that the only authority figure in the vicinity is a sadistic monster and no one else will listen to or believe you. It also makes Erin's revenge on Hoyt so satisfying, when she hits him with his own car and drives over his body a couple of times.

If there's any correlation between a character in this film and the original, aside from Leatherface, it's the matriarch of the family, Luda Mae (Marietta Marich). She is basically this film's version of Drayton, as she's the public face of the Hewitt family due to her being the most normal looking. Like Drayton, she runs the gas station and there are two sides to her personality: the one she shows to those who stop by there and the one while she's amongst her family. While she does try to come across as polite as possible in her public persona, there's a dismissive and nonchalant tone to her voice, both when she's calling the sheriff ("There's about six of 'em altogether, countin' the dead one,") and talking to them afterward that rubs the kids the wrong way. The smiling, jovial way in which she tells Kemper that the sheriff wants them to drive over to the Crawford Mill, and didn't say why he just wouldn't come by the station, is enough to frustrate anybody. The last straw is when Kemper tells her that they're not going to drive around with a corpse in their van and she just says, "Young man, what you do is your own business." That screams, "Okay, this woman clearly doesn't give a shit, so it's no use talking to her." When we see Luda Mae again late in the film, amongst her family, I'm able to draw another tie between this film and Leatherface. Like Mama Sawyer, she gets irritated at the ruckus that Hoyt's causing while he's messing with Erin, telling him, "You messed up everything already. Stop bothering her," but when Erin pleads for help, Luda Mae makes it clear that she has no sympathy for her, telling her, "I know your kind. Nothin' but cruelty and ridicule for my boy, all the time he was growin' up. Does anybody care about me and my boy?!" It's very similar to how Mama told off Michelle. Luda Mae also proves to be very cruel to young Jedidiah, telling him when he's trying to get in to help Erin, "You best stay out there with them dogs 'till you learn how to play by the rules!" In the end, she gets tired of Erin's growing hysteria and has Leatherface toss her down into the basement, leading into the climax.

One Hewitt who's memorable simply because of his handicap is Old Monty (Terrence Evans). There's not much to his character, other than he's a grumpy, crusty old man who doesn't like visitors and is very picky about who he lets in his house, but he's unforgettable simply because of the way he looks, with his wheelchair, amputated legs, the cane he carries around, and that annoying little dog who won't stop growling and barking at strangers. He does manage to be rather intimidating in the scene where he catches Erin and Andy in his house, telling Andy, "You little turd. You're so dead you don't even know it," and proceeds to apparently challenge him when stomps his cane on the floor and says, "Come on, boy! Bring it!" However, you quickly learn it's a signal for Leatherface and he's telling him to bring his chainsaw. When Leatherface then attacks, Monty attempts to keep Erin and Andy from escaping and slows Andy down by whacking him with his cane while he's running out of the house, disorienting him enough to where Leatherface is able to catch him. One scene that I don't quite get is earlier, when Erin finds Monty in the bathroom and he asks her to help him get out of the floor. I'd assume she's supposed to get him back in the wheelchair, but she's lifting him up right next to the toilet and the wheelchair isn't anywhere nearby. I know the real reason behind him asking her to do this is to distract her so Leatherface can kill Kemper (as well as so Monty can touch Erin's butt, something he clearly enjoys) but I still don't get what this action is supposed to accomplish practically.

A family member whose motivations I don't get is young Jedidiah (David Dorfman), this inbred-looking little boy they come across at the Crawford Mill. When they first meet him, he acts all distracted and eccentric, looking around and not paying attention to what they say to him, and he points Erin and Kemper towards the family's house, basically leading them right into the lion's den. But after Erin has been captured, Jedidiah seems to have a change of heart and yells at Luda Mae and Hoyt not to hurt her. Kid, if you don't want your family members to kill her, then why did you tell her and Kemper to go over there in the first place? Yes, it is true that Hoyt was on his way to the Crawford Mill at the time, so they probably would've fallen victim to the family eventually, but I still don't get why Jedidiah did that. Later, he shows Erin and Morgan the way out of the basement when they're being chased by Leatherface, and even slows him down a bit so they can escape. I do like the idea of someone who doesn't like what their family does, but I don't think it was executed well with Jedidiah. Plus, other than that, the kid just looks silly to me. I understand that he's meant to look raggedy and likely inbred, but his deformed teeth, messed up hair, and grimy looking clothes are a bit too on the nose. And whose kid is he anyway? Since he calls Luda Mae "Grandma," I'm guessing he could be either Hoyt or even Leatherface's kid, possibly from a rape (again, like the little girl in the third movie). Or he could also be Henrietta's kid, only she's shunned him because of his deformities in favor of the hitchhiker's baby.

Speaking of Henrietta (Heather Kafka) and the "Tea Lady" (Kathy Lamkin), who Erin comes across in a trailer while being chased by Leatherface after he's killed Pepper, I don't think they need to be in the movie. While it's great that Erin ultimately gets the baby that Henrietta had taken from the hitchhiker away from her (and I'll admit, the moment where Erin accuses her of abducting the baby and she insists, "She's mine," while holding her as she's crying her eyes out is pretty disturbing), you could've written that subplot out along with both of these characters,

had Erin get ambushed and abducted by Hoyt while running from Leatherface, and it would've worked better and not stopped the movie's momentum. The only other purpose Henrietta serves besides the baby is that she tells Erin about Leatherface's skin disease but, by that point, we'd already gotten a look at his real face and could put two and two together ourselves. The Tea Lady (whom, technically, is Henrietta, since she's the one who actually offers Erin the tea) is even more pointless, as she does nothing. In fact, I find her kind of annoying, like when she tells Erin that waking the baby wasn't a good idea and that phones are hassle, all while nodding like an idiot. And let's not forget her line, "Oh, my, my, my, my, my!", which they even put in the trailer and some of the TV spots. 

There's nothing special about the character of Big Rig Bob, who picks Erin up at the end of the movie, except that he was originally meant to be played by Gunnar Hansen. However, he turned them down because, for one, he didn't like the idea of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre being remade in the first place, and for another, by his own account, the casting assistant whom he spoke to said something stupid along the lines of, "Now this time, it's going to be a dark, psychological thriller and not a gore-fest like the

original," suggesting they'd never even seen it. While it would've been nice to see him in the movie, I do understand why he made that decision, and it's a sentiment that was shared by just about everybody involved with the original (save for Tobe Hooper, who would later say good things about the remake). From Kim Henkel's grumbling about his and Hooper's script not even considered for use, to Lou Perryman in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Companion saying he was flatly turned down for a cameo and Bill Moseley saying basically the same thing there, it does seem like, despite the good will and reverence for the original that the producers like Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form appeared to have, there was some resistance to people from the original being heavily involved. And I can also understand how those involved with the original didn't like how Platinum Dunes grabbed the rights to it and did this remake mostly just to get the company off the ground. Of course, they were far from the only ones who didn't like the idea of this movie being made. Not only did that book's author, Stefan Jaworzyn, bash on it before it had even been released but, even though it was very successful, there are still a good number of diehard fans of the original who hate it and, again, I get it. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is such a product of its time that nothing else, be it sequels or remakes or what have you, will ever be able to recapture what that film is in terms of its cultural significance, its unique look and feel, and such.

But I would argue that, after the cinematic abortion that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and how it damaged the image of the franchise, making both it and its characters, especially Leatherface, a complete joke, the only way to continue would've been to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. And it paid off. Whether you like the movie or not, you can't deny that it revived the franchise and, I would go even far as to say, generated new interest in the original, which may have been

diminished after how bad The Next Generation was (after checking out that movie, I doubt anybody who hadn't seen the original would've been enthusiastic about seeing where that originally sprang from!). Granted, the revival didn't last very long, as the franchise lost its way again after its time with Platinum Dunes (also, this is the last entry that I personally think is really good), but at the time, this movie did do a lot of good for the series.

Speaking for myself, I feel this does exactly what a remake should: take the basic story of the original and do its own thing with it. While this is still a story of five young adults falling prey to a deranged family in the Texas backwoods, and there are other aspects of the original that are recreated here, it mostly goes in its own unique directions. While it's obvious who each of the protagonists is supposed to be in relation to the characters from the original, as I've gone into, they're quite different and have personality traits and

quirks all their own. Again, apart from Leatherface, the family dynamics are totally different, in that there are no real Hitchhiker or Drayton equivalents, and while there is a scene involving a hitchhiker early on, it's the polar opposite of the original; there are many more locations; and the last twenty minutes is as different as you can get, as there's no dinner scene, the ending is much more hopeful, and so forth. And the idea that what we're seeing is an "account" of something that really happened is much more fleshed out and comes back around to conclude the film,

unlike the original. I'd figure that any self-respecting fan of the original would want a remake to do its own thing rather than just be a shot-for-shot photocopy, but, as I'll touch on in a second, there are some who just hate the idea of a remake flat-out existing.

I will admit, when I first heard of it, the idea of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre being remade intrigued me because, at that point, it felt as though the movies that were remade were those no more recent than the 60's. Putting aside the well-known 80's remakes of 50's science fiction films, remakes around that time referred to those of Psycho, The Haunting, and House on Haunted Hill that we got in the 90's. So, the idea of a movie from the 70's being remade struck me as very unusual, especially as someone who watched

almost nothing but horror films from the 30's to the 60's for the first part of my life. Because of that, I always viewed the time periods from the 70's onward as contemporary and, thus, didn't think that the movies made then warranted any modernizing. On top of that, doing this movie would also mean reinventing an icon of modern horror. While many other famous horror characters, such as Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, and even King Kong, had been reinterpreted and redone many times over, it felt more natural in their case since they either

stemmed from classic literature, which can be adapted and redone many times, or, in the case of King Kong, their stories could easily be moved to modern times, like the 1976 Dino de Laurentiis film. Recreating a character like Leatherface, whose foundation is very firmly that of the original film and whose story had been expanded into sequels (that's another thing: movies with a bunch of sequels generally didn't get remade, with the exception at that time being Psycho, which wasn't necessary either), was something else that felt very alien to me. I thought, "That's like trying to recreate Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or Freddy Krueger. How would you do that?"

And that leads me into what is this movie's most unfortunate legacy. As the highest grossing film in this franchise (over $100 million on a budget of like $9.5 million), it kicked off the despised spate of 70's and 80's horror remakes that dominated the 2000's and even into the 2010's. Less than a year after this, we had the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and in rapid succession came The Fog, The Hills Have Eyes, Black Xmas, The Omen, April Fool's Day, Prom Night, Halloween, and numerous others. Platinum Dunes, in particular, became known for doing many of these remakes, as they went on to produce The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, and, most notably, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can still remember how aggravating that got, as it felt like there was no creativity left in the genre, especially given how it seemed like we were never going to get any more entries in the original continuities (I'm still irked that we never got a sequel to Freddy vs. Jason). And on top of that, Marcus Nispel himself became the first in another annoying trend: music video directors getting their big breaks by remaking beloved horror films. Music video directors can certainly prove to be quite good filmmakers in their own right (David Fincher being the most shining example), but most of the guys who made these movies, like Samuel Bayer, Rupert Wainwright, and Andrew Douglas, don't seem to know anything other than where to point the camera. They don't know how to tell a good story, get good performances out of actors, or even give their films a good visual style, with most of these movies looking like music videos in and of themselves, overusing either the bleach bypass process used here or color correction.

But I did and still think it's unfair to blame all of that on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hollywood is just very reactive and, since that movie and others like it did so well, of course they were going to keep doing it. In the years since, I've learned to let things go and just accept all of that for what it was. Moreover, while some of those remakes were, predictably, total garbage, others were actually really good. But like I mentioned up above, many fans just don't like the idea of these remakes existing at all, as if they completely wipe away the originals, which is a bunch of bull. Nowadays, I feel like, if you don't like this or any other remake, that's your right, but just because it's a thing doesn't take your beloved original away from you. And it also doesn't give you the right to attack and belittle those who do enjoy those remakes, something I've seen a lot of and which, among other things. made me quit that horror website I used to belong to that I've mentioned before.

When Marcus Nispel signed on as director, one person he was intent on bringing with him was the cinematographer who'd shot the majority of his numerous music videos and music videos... who just happened to be the original film's cinematographer, Daniel Pearl. There are actually conflicting reports as to who convinced who to work on the movie, with Pearl saying he was reluctant to do a remake of a movie he worked on as a young man and Nispel saying Pearl was the one who talked him into

directing, but whatever the case, I'm glad they came together on it. Rather than copying the gritty, 16mm look of the original, they gave the remake its own unique visual style via the bleach bypass process. It's a shame that that sort of look became overused and cliche because, when I first saw this movie, that was one of the things that really struck me. Though there were movies before that used that process, most notably Se7en, this was the first one I'd ever seen and I thought it was a very cool and unique look. The

muted color palette, with the tobacco-like greens and silvers, give the film quite a foreboding, unpleasant atmosphere, as well as an added harshness to many of the already horrific visuals, with the redness from the blood particularly standing out. The lighting effects created through this process, with lots of contrasting shadows and very deep blacks, are also very striking, and some of the visuals are actually downright lovely. One I especially love is when Erin and Kemper are walking through the forest on their way to the Hewitt house, as the effect of those darkly lit woods and the

pronounced rays of sunlight shining through is straight out of a painting and looks ridiculously beautiful. This feeling is maintained when Erin comes running back through later on. I also appreciate how the visual style accentuates the already disgusting interiors of the gas station, the very uncomfortable vibe of the Hewitt house, and the cold, metallic look of the slaughterhouse. If there's one drawback to this look, it's that the darkness, especially during all of the nighttime scenes during the second half, can make

some of the action and chase sequences hard to make out, a problem accentuated by the sometimes rapid editing of those scenes (this problem would get a lot worse in the 2009 Friday the 13th, which Nispel and Pearl also directed and shot, respectively).

There are a few shots and moments from the original that are copied wholesale, like the distant one of the van driving across the road in the middle of the empty countryside, Leatherface clubbing someone, dragging their twitching body through a big, sliding door, and slamming it shut, and the low-angle shot of Erin walking towards the house, but for the most part, the camerawork and angles have their own flavor. Not surprisingly, given Nispel's background, they come off as not only more traditionally cinematic but also

fairly showy and visually dynamic. The most well-known one is when, after the hitchhiker shoots herself, there's a shot that begins on the others' screaming and horrified faces and then, the camera pulls back, going through the girl's mouth and out the hole in the back of her head, proceeding out the bullet hole in the back window, and finally pulling back to show the entire van, as the kids get out of it as fast as they can. It's a very impressive visual and becomes all the more so when you know it was created without

the use of digital technology, save for the removal of the opening in the van's roof they had to make for the camera, and that it took a lot of takes to get it right. Before that, there had been other distinctive shots, like others of the van and the countryside and a close-up of the marijuana joint that Erin tosses out of the van as it hits the road, but that one is truly a visual highlight. There are definitely others, though, like the camera ominously zooming in on the big sliding door's eyeglass before Leatherface attacks Erin and Andy, as well as a shot underneath the rattling

floorboards as Monty signals him by pounding his cane; some very striking nighttime wide shots of the Hewitt house; Erin's POV when she faints in the trailer, looking up at Henrietta and the Tea Lady, followed by Hoyt looking down at her before he pours his beer in her face; the memorable image of Andy looking as if he's crucified up on the meat-hook; Erin's POV as she watches Leatherface search for her while she's hiding in both the small shack and the slaughterhouse; and reverse shots of her watching from said hiding places, among others.

While the film may not have gone for the original's more documentary approach, it does incorporate the idea that this is a true story in its own way. Like Bryanston's ad campaign for the original, not only did the trailers and TV spots play up this angle, with the caption, "Inspired by a True Story" (the use of the word "inspired" rather than "based" should let you know that, while there is a connection to something that actually happened, it's a very loose one), but the film itself opens and closes with what is meant to be

grainy, archival footage of the actual investigation. We see bodies being taken away on gurneys from and around the Hewitt house, the collection of pieces of evidence, such as bits of bone, fingernails, and so on, and the typing up of the police report and newspaper articles on the crime. We're then told that, after thirty years of being filed away in the Travis County Police Department's cold cases division, the official reports have been made public, including a classified crime scene walkthrough, which we see the beginning of

right before the actual story begins and come back around to at the end, after Erin escapes. The walkthrough, which is said to have been conducted two days after the massacre, abruptly ends with the investigating officer and cameraman being attacked and killed by Leatherface, who had been hiding in the basement because, as we're told, the crime scene wasn't properly secured. I like how the film concludes with the knowledge that the flashes of him captured by the doomed cameraman are the only known images of Leatherface, that he hasn't been seen since

1973, and that the case remains open to this day, indicating that he could still be out there. It's also nice that they were able to get John Larroquette back to do the narration, as his deeper, more objective voice here works just as well for this film as his younger, slightly more emotional one did for the original. And I think this whole wraparound not only compliments the original's cinema verite style but also ties a nice bow on how what we've been watching is an account, or, more precisely, a reenactment, of what happened.

While Nispel initially wanted to go the route that New Line went with Leatherface and shoot the film in California, Michael Bay wisely advised him to actually shoot in Texas. Like with the original, the state itself definitely made a difference, providing not only a memorable and lovely location, with the big, expansive countryside, sweeping fields, farmlands, swimming holes, and dark forests, but also a feeling of atmosphere, especially in how a lot of the locations were actual places they found and shot at. That's

especially true of the nighttime exteriors throughout the second half; they may not be as pitch black as the original, but they still have a very palpable look and feel to them, sometimes almost coming off like a Gothic horror film, like when Erin and Morgan run to the old shack and when it's pouring rain during the finale. And also like the original, you can tell it was hot and humid as all get-out when they were filming, as the sun always feels like it's bearing down on the characters, who often clearly sweaty, and you can feel how stifling it is even when there's a scene in the shade. That feeling of heat and discomfort also comes through in many of the interiors, as you know there was likely no air conditioning there, especially since we're in the 1970's.

Despite the infinitely bigger budget, like in the original, every environment and setting is either downright filthy or, at the very least, fairly cluttered and raw in how it looks. The inside of the van not only feels very lived-in but it's much more personalized than the one in the original, with details like that hula-girl knick-knack on the dashboard, the pinata full of marijuana, a shag carpet with a pattern similar to Clint Eastwood's poncho in the Man With No Name trilogy on the floor, and a MAD Magazine

poster on the ceiling. Initially, the only thing keeping it from feeling totally comfortable is the lack of AC, as the fan up front doesn't work, but it becomes much more icky and skin-crawling after the hitchhiker has committed suicide in the backseat and stays back there for a long time. The gas station that Luda Mae runs can be described as the pinnacle of all those nasty country gas stations we've come across on trips that take us through very out-of-the-way places. You know just from looking at the exterior that it's not

going to be pleasant (it looks a lot like the gas station in the original, actually), and when they go inside, it doesn't disappoint. The interior is rather old and dirty, with a feeling of choking, stuffy air filling it, compounded by the stench that has to be coming from the compartment where the meat is kept, which is filled with all sorts of disgusting stuff, including a whole pig head, covered in flies. And, not surprisingly, the outhouse around back is disgusting as well. You only see it for a couple of seconds, but it's enough. My favorite location in the entire film,

though, is actually the Crawford Mill the kids are sent to in order to meet up with the sheriff. It's a really creepy, rundown, isolated place, with a lot of dark corners and spaces, weird machinery up near the ceiling, and all sorts of junk piled in spots. And despite the mixed feelings I have about the character, the little space that Jedidiah is found sitting in is a creepy touch all its own, decorated with weird drawings and ornaments he's made out of various little objects, like dentures, glasses, doll-heads, and what looks like a little toy skeleton.

Instead of a little farmhouse, the family's home is now a big, two-story plantation house with a lot of rooms, though most of it we don't get to see, especially the second floor. Like the Crawford Mill, I like that the place is isolated and out of the way, set in the middle of a huge field of tall grass, and as there was in the original film, there are a bunch of vehicles belonging to previous victims placed in a small junkyard near the edge of the property. It's very foreboding on the outside, and while there's no bone furniture inside the 

house (a first for the franchise), it does still have an overwhelming feeling of discomfort about it, not unlike the gas station. Besides its long, ominous hallways, as with all of the locations, it's quite dirty, with animals like little pigs running about in the living room, grimy residue on the furniture and floor, a trace of mold on the wall, old, corroded lace curtains on the windows, and such. When Kemper walks around looking for Erin, he comes across weird stuff like a record silently skipping on a running

phonograph and some old cartoon playing on a TV in a room that nobody's in, as well as creepy sights like an old picture of an old woman on the wall and a sort of sewing room with a mannequin and fake heads lying about, which we later learn is where Leatherface makes his masks. The grossest rooms in the entire house are the kitchen and bathroom. When Andy later goes into the kitchen while looking for Kemper, not only do you see those pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling but there are filthy dishes strewn everywhere, chickens sitting here and there, more

pigs running through, and when he makes the mistake of opening the refrigerator, he's immediately hit by an awful smell. As for the bathroom, like the outhouse, we don't see much of it but what we do see is enough to get the point across: a disgusting toilet and bathtub, as well as some bizarre contraption that the family has rigged up so Monty can flush the toilet more easily... at least, I think that's what it was for. You see so little of it that I'm not quite sure what it is. 

And then, there's the basement, which is Leatherface's domain. The door to the stairs leading down to it is that aforementioned sliding, metal door, similar to the one leading into the kitchen in the original, with a fish-eye eyeglass so Leatherface can keep tabs on what's going on in the main part of the house. The basement itself really is like hell on Earth, in that it's a dank place with water dripping constantly from the ceiling (I'm not sure where it's all coming from but there's enough to create a large puddle at the bottom

of the stairs); a table where he places the bodies of his victims for the blood to drain out; a bathtub that he later hangs Kemper above; a device that he never uses but which I later learned is meant to be a bone-grinder; all sorts of horrific things strewn about, like chains and hooks, fish-hooks, ornaments that appear to have human teeth attached to them, various bladed instruments like knives and scissors, old dentures, wire, what appears to be a jar of Vaseline and a razor blade (I don't want to know what he uses that stuff for); the meat-hook that he hangs Andy on, with an

old piano below that (don't know why that's there; does Leatherface play it when he's not butchering people?), and various body parts from past victims like hands, fingers, ears, eyeballs kept in jars, a severed head (Harry Knowles) on a platter, and a badly decomposed corpse. There's also a narrow corridor with slatted wooden walls leading to an exterior door, which Erin and Morgan use to escape during the climax.

There's not much to say about the trailer where Henrietta and the Tea Lady live. It's very cramped, as well as a little bit cluttered and dirty on the inside (one of the few actual sets they did for the film) but not quite as much as the other locations, and does come off as a bit more homey. A location that I've always found much more interesting is the small shack in the woods, near the automobile graveyard, where Erin and Morgan hide from Leatherface after escaping the house. Not only is it another one of those

isolated, abandoned places that I just love, but I've always been curious to know what this place used to be. It's beyond a small metal gate, and inside, we see that there's a couch, as well as a small chandelier hanging from the ceiling in one big, empty room, so it's clear that someone used to live there, but who? Has it always belonged to the Hewitts, or did it belong to somebody else who moved away long ago? Either way, why did they abandon and leave it out there to become a rat-infested dump? And is it just a place on their property that the Hewitts never use or does it function as a deathtrap disguised as sanctuary? Given the windows with metal bars in the back that trap Erin and Morgan, it makes me suspect the latter.

And finally, there's the slaughterhouse, and after so much talk about them in the other films, I find it very appropriate that a setpiece finally take place there. I particularly like the contrast in how the room that Erin initially crawls into upon entering the place, which is filled with hooks and all sorts of bladed instruments, looks all pristine and clean, along with the irony that the only clean environment in the entire film is in a slaughterhouse. Then there's the meat locker, where Erin hides for a couple of minutes 

before being chased out. Like so much else in the movie, they actually shot in a real slaughterhouse, so all the hanging slabs of meat you see are real, including the one in which Erin takes cover, and the same goes for those skinned cow heads on one side of the room. I have to give the filmmakers props for going that extra mile and giving the movie a feeling of uncomfortable authenticity (because of the budget, they couldn't create fake slabs of meat). Also, interestingly enough, this results in perhaps the only instance in one of these movies where somebody is

actually cold instead of hot and sweaty. Since this was an actual freezer, Jessica Biel really was quite cold since she was in there with just a tank-top and blue jeans, and standing in the center of that slit open carcass couldn't have been pleasant (being the son of a deer hunter, I've been in those types of meat lockers and, not only are they freezing but the cold makes the smell really bizarre and nasty). And finally, there's the locker room, where Erin hides from, tricks, and badly injures Leatherface before escaping, which is actually kind of spooky-looking when he's roaming it, searching for her.

Surprisingly, another connection between the original and the remake is that it's not nearly as gory as you might expect. While I would definitely say that you see more than in the original, most of what you see in terms of the actual kills and torture comes in the form of splatter and spray: blood splattering on the TV screen when Leatherface clobbers Kemper with the sledgehammer, some shots of blood dripping from the bottom of the kill table, and Morgan's face getting badly cut and him losing some of his teeth after Hoyt

smashes a whiskey bottle in his face. Both Pepper and Morgan's deaths are virtually bloodless (the latter, though, was initially more graphic, with hideous shots of Leatherface slicing into Morgan's crotch, causing blood and intestines to pour out, and the hitchhiker's death originally had more blood splattering, as well as a severed ear landing in Pepper's lap), and when Erin performs a mercy kill on Andy, you don't see much aside from his blood dripping own on her afterward. Even when she runs Hoyt over at the end, you see

some blood but not a lot. There are some more graphic makeup effects, to be sure, courtesy not only of Scott Stoddard but also Greg Nicotero, who created a pretty realistic dummy of Lauren German, with a big hole in the back of its head. The most notable one is when Leatherface slices off Andy's leg, which looks very real, mostly because you see it very quickly, and the way Mike Vogel yells, "Shit! God!", after it happens makes it sound like he's in real agony. Also, not only does the mask that Leatherface makes out of Kemper's face look really horrific when he

wears it, but it's also hideous when you first see it by itself before he puts it on. As I mentioned before, there are some pretty gruesome corpses and pieces of past victims down in Leatherface's lair, and Monty's amputated legs look pretty good too, as does Leatherface's sliced off arm at the end of the movie (however, the sight of him trying to grab it while it's still gripping the running chainsaw as it spins around on the floor is more funny than anything).

Like the original, the remake shows you a lot of hideous, unsettling, and downright gross sights without needing to be overly gory. In addition to all the grime and filth in so many of the settings and locations, you have the hideous implications of what Leatherface intends to do with Kemper's body when you see him cutting his shirt off with shears and grabbing all sorts of skin-crawling objects, and when you later see him hanging Kemper above the empty bathtub, with the engagement ring he bought for Erin

falling onto the blood-covered floor. When you later see him sewing Kemper's face into a mask, then removing his current mask, revealing his disfigured face, we get just enough without the film having to wallow in it. The same goes for when Hoyt forces Andy to help wrap up the hitchhiker's body, which is disgusting but more due to what's implied and Hoyt's morbid dialogue and disrespect for the corpse than anything you actually see. Similarly, the torture that Andy goes through after his leg is sawed off is just

awful and makes you wince, like when you see that nasty close-up of his fingernails cracking against the basement wall when he tries to stop Leatherface from dragging him down there, when he gets put on the meat-hook and later tries to lift himself off, only to fall and drive it deeper into him, and when Leatherface puts salt into the stump of his leg and ties some paper around it, without showing a lot of blood. There's also a real rawness to some of the imagery, mostly in how these good-looking, young actors are forced to look as un-glamorous as possible, like when

Hoyt forces Erin, Pepper, and Morgan down into the ground, with them getting covered in dirt, as saliva and snot run from their faces, and, although it doesn't really come across onscreen, Morgan getting sick to his stomach and throwing up when Hoyt forces him to put the gun into his mouth (Jonathan Tucker actually made himself throw up for a good number of takes). For me, this makes the movie all the more effective than it might've been with just a lot of hideous gore flying everywhere (as is the case with its prequel).

I have to give Marcus Nispel and the producers a lot of credit for deciding to do as much here in-camera as possible. Even though this is the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre to make use of any kind of visual effects, they're used very sparingly. Aside from removing the long slot in the van's roof for the shot after the girl kills herself, digital effects were also used to put in the glass in the back window for that same shot and also to remove Leatherface's nose during the scene where he takes his mask off. (You'd think they would've used similar effects to remove Terrence Evans' legs as Monty, but no, according to Nispel, they didn't have the money for it. Instead, they just had him kneel all the time in a special chair.)

Now, despite all of my compliments and genuine enthusiasm for it, the remake is not perfect, and some of its flaws tend to hurt that notion of it being a dramatization of real events. By this point, even though many still thought this whole thing was based on a true story, few were likely to believe that what they were actually seeing was real, especially in the wake of The Blair Witch Project (although, I have heard that some felt the wraparounds were actual archival footage), but it would've been nice if the

filmmakers had gone against genre conventions and not utilized so much artifice in order to make it more believable. For instance, and I really, really hate to rag on it because of how impressive it is, but that shot after the hitchhiker kills herself all but reminds you that this is a movie after all, and the same goes for some of the other camerawork and dramatic cutaways. Granted, Tobe Hooper and Daniel Pearl did more than their fare share of noteworthy and rather fancy shots in the original, but those fit with its cinema verite style of that film, whereas if they'd had

the money and capabilities at the time to do something like these shots there, I guarantee it would've felt very out of place and distracting. And that is, sadly, kind of the case here, despite how skilled Marcus Nispel and Pearl's work was. (Some may also argue that the film's very look, which itself is quite stylized, does the same thing, and I would say you may have a point, but it's the camerawork that does it more for me personally.)

The same also goes for the number of horror movie tropes we have here, which are also just aggravating in general, as you'd expect a slick, modern movie to get beyond them. First, you do have instances of people going off by themselves and splitting up when they shouldn't, investigating a strange noise, or saying, "I just saw something." There are a few false scares, like when Erin sees something moving around in a locker inside the Crawford Mill, only for it to turn out to be a possum when Kemper opens it up, or 

when Morgan reaches inside the trunk of one of the dilapidated cars near the mill and acts like something has a hold of his hand. If you've seen a bunch of horror films, then you know these are probably going to be fake-outs because they're so obvious. Another tip-off is that we're well aware of what the threat is and thus, know that none of the antagonists, especially Leatherface, can fit inside those small spaces. Also, when you really think about it, some of the scenes and story beats don't make any logical

sense, which is bad for a movie that's claiming to depict something that really happened. For one, why was that possum in that locker to begin with, especially since the door seemed to be closed very securely? Later, after Erin comes back to the Crawford Mill without Kemper, they randomly hear a car horn nearby, and find a stick jammed onto the steering wheel of one of the old cars, with one end pressing against the horn. Who put that there and why? The answer could be Jedidiah, who wanted them to follow the sound and find the jar with the

pictures of the hitchhiker and her family inside it, as a sort of warning to the danger they're in, but, going back to what a confusing character he is, why didn't he just show them the pictures himself and tell them about how insane his family is? And then, there's the number of jumpscares. Some of them are effective, like when Leatherface suddenly clubs Kemper from behind, when he appears behind Erin and Andy, and when he unexpectedly attacks Erin and Pepper in the van, but others, like our first glimpse of Jedidiah at the mill, Hoyt suddenly popping up beside the van when Erin tries to start it, and Henrietta suddenly touching Erin on the shoulder after she first tries to take shelter in her trailer, come off as so cliched.

Finally, and this is a pretty major issue, I don't quite believe that this movie is taking place in 1973. There may not be any cellphones, really fancy TVs, or anything of the like, but the main cast do not look or dress like people from that era. Granted, they're not wearing clothes that scream 2003, in that they wear simple shirts, tank-tops, and jeans, but one or a couple of them could at least wear bell-bottoms or shirts with wide collars. And another thing: people who were that age in the 1970's simply did not look the

way these guys do. Human evolution goes on and someone like Jessica Biel, as good-looking as she is, did not exist back then. There were some good-looking people back then, to be sure, but the look of someone such as her is very indicative of the time she grew up in and it sure as heck wasn't the 70's. And do I need to say anything about the way Mike Vogel looks? That's a modern day pretty boy model, not somebody from the 70's. They can talk about how much they like Lynyrd Skynyrd all they want, I don't believe they're from that decade. I will say, though,

that the way they made Jonathan Tucker look, with the sideburns and glasses, does make him come off a bit more like someone from the 70's (when I first saw the original after seeing this, I thought he and Allen Danziger looked alike), and Pepper does feel a bit like a hippy, but that's all I can say. And if you want to get really nitpicky, not only were the two Skynyrd songs they mention not released at the time, but I've also read that the brand of chainsaw that Leatherface uses didn't exist back then, either. 

What I've always liked about this film is how it establishes its mood from the very beginning, with eerie, atmospheric music playing over the logos for New Line Cinema, Platinum Dunes, and Radar Pictures, before it opens with the scratchy archival footage of the police investigation and aftermath of the crimes, with John Larroquette solemnly intoning much of the same monologue from the original. We then see a little bit of the crime scene walkthrough, with the one officer descending into the Hewitt house's basement, pointing out scratch marks on the

walls, as well as a bit of hair and a fingernail embedded into it. And then, after the title (which appears atop the official case-file), a woman is heard screaming but the mood changes, as we see the young adults having fun at a swimming hole, with the woman (I think it's Erin) screaming in excitement as she swings across the water on a rope. This upbeat mood continues into the first scene of them in the van, smoking weed and rocking out to Sweet Home Alabama on the radio. But when Erin and Kemper kiss while the latter is driving, he comes very close to

hitting the woman walking along the side of the road, having to swerve to avoid her and whipping up a massive cloud of dust. Despite this, she barely reacts to them, even when Erin sticks her head out the window and calls to her; she just keeps walking, muttering to herself. Wanting to do the right thing, Erin and Pepper get her into the van and they drive off with her. However, she becomes increasingly hysterical, talking about others who were with her now being dead, and when they drive by a

slaughterhouse, she panics and tries to make Kemper turn around, nearly causing them to crash when she grabs the wheel. Morgan flings her back into her seat and Kemper hits the brakes. The girl then breaks down completely, sobbing and talking about a "bad man," before pulling the gun out, putting it in her mouth, and pulling the trigger before the others can stop her.

After processing the horror of what just happened, and attempting to inform the sheriff, the group is ultimately led to the Crawford Mill. Upon arriving, and briefly debating about whether or not they should just dump the body and leave, they search for any sign of the sheriff who's supposed to meet them, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone there. Then, some of them spot a figure run by inside the mill, although Erin thinks they're just trying to freak her out so she'll want to leave instead of waiting for the sheriff. She

goes off inside by herself, only to then scream, bringing the others running. That leads into the fake scare with the possum in the locker, but then, they hear a sound elsewhere. After Kemper yells a warning for whoever it is to show themselves, and gets no response, the group then sees Jedidiah squatting in a nearby corner; they also see some of his little art-pieces in another spot (they're also startled by a random metallic screech that's never followed up on). Following that, he sends Erin and Kemper on the path to the Hewitt house. They reach it, meet Old Monty,.

and he lets Erin so she can talk with the sheriff's department, but makes Kemper stay outside on the porch. After Erin apparently talks to the sheriff's office (to me, the voice on the other end sounds like Luda Mae, whom Erin didn't meet at the gas station), Monty calls her into the bathroom to help him with... whatever it is he needs help with. As she does, we get our first glimpse of Leatherface as he walks by in the hallway. Kemper gets impatient and heads into the house, looking for Erin. He wanders into the living

room, past a bunch of small pigs, and then into the sewing room, where he's rather disturbed by what he finds. And then, when he knocks something off a half-open door and bends down to pick it up, Leatherface appears behind him, whacks him in the head, and drags away his body, slamming the sliding door behind him. This startles Erin, who goes out into the hall to find what happened. She finds the sliding door, and while she can't open it, she does spot the eyeglass. After Monty tells her that Kemper isn't in the house, Erin leaves, thinking he went on ahead; at the same time, the others have had to contend with Sheriff Hoyt, who wraps up and drives off with the body.

Eventually, Erin figures that Kemper is still in the house somewhere. She and Andy return to it and he has her keep Monty, who's sitting outside, distracted while he heads inside, armed with a four-way lug wrench. He wanders through the living room and then makes his way into the horror show that is the kitchen. Looking around, he makes the mistake of peering inside the refrigerator, recoiling at the sight and smell of what's in there. When he closes the door, a large box atop the fridge falls over and hits with a loud crash. Hearing it from outside, Erin runs inside

and finds that Andy is unharmed. Monty comes rolling down the main hallway, angry about intruders in his house, and Andy tries to tell him that as soon as they find Kemper, they'll leave. Monty snarls, "You ain't runnin' things, boy, except your mouth." He then makes a threat and starts pounding his cane on the floor, yelling, "Come on, boy! Bring it! Bring it!" Initially confused, they quickly realize who exactly he's talking to when the door slides open behind them and they see Leatherface, who revs up his chainsaw. The two of them run for it, heading through a pair of

double-doors separating that spot from the main hallway. Erin slams the doors behind them and tries to keep Leatherface back, while Andy trips and his wrench slides underneath one of Monty's wheels. He tries to pry it loose, while Leatherface forces his saw through the crack between the doors and bursts them open, knocking Erin back. Andy quickly grabs the wrench and uses it to block the saw when Leatherface attacks him, sending sparks flying. He yells for Erin to run and she reluctantly heads out the front door. He

then kicks Leatherface in the leg, causing him to lose his balance and saw through the floor. Andy heads for the door as well, but Monty slows him down by hitting him with his cane. Leatherface chases after him, plowing right through the door and chasing him through a bunch of sheets hanging on a clothesline on the side of the house. Andy frantically runs through the sheets, flinging them out of his way, with Leatherface hot on his heels. Then, for a moment, it seems as though he stopped chasing him, only to

suddenly appear on his left and saw his leg off, splattering the sheets with blood. Leatherface picks him up and carries him back into the house and down the stairs leading into the basement, while Erin runs back to the Crawford Mill.

As I said before, the scene between Morgan and Hoyt in the van that night could possibly be the most intense in the entire movie. It's already uncomfortable, with Hoyt having forced all three of them to lay down in the dirt, and then, when he and Morgan get in the back of the van, he forces him to reenact the girl's suicide down to the letter. He yells at him to sit exactly where she was, then forces him to take a revolver and show him exactly how she shot herself. After pressing the muzzle into his chin, Hoyt yells at him to take it, and when he does, he holds it

under his chin, telling Hoyt when he asks that that's how she shot herself. Hoyt, however, says she put the gun in her mouth and forces Morgan to do the same, with the music building in intensity, to the point where it feels like it's going to snap, when Hoyt all but suggests he pull the trigger and shoot himself. Outside, Erin gets up and looks through the windshield to see what's happening. When Hoyt is distracted, Morgan pulls the gun out of his mouth and points it at him, screaming, "You motherfucker! Get

on the fuckin' floor! I said get on the floor!" Horrified at this, Erin tries to talk Morgan down, while Pepper, upon getting to her feet and seeing what's going on, starts egging him on, encouraging him to shoot Hoyt. Between their shouting and Hoyt daring him to do it, Morgan can finally take no more, yells, "Fuck you!", and pulls the trigger... only for it to click empty. Hoyt then takes the gun away, pulls and cocks a loaded gun on him, forces him out of the van, and takes him away in his car, leaving the girls there by themselves.

While Hoyt takes Morgan to the house, Erin and Pepper attempt to get the van rolling without any keys, as Hoyt took them. After trying to turn the switch with a knife doesn't work, Erin successfully hot-wires the van, but they don't get far before the front, right tire comes loose and flies off. And after they stop, Leatherface attacks, sawing through the back window and shattering it, then coming around to the front and shoving his saw's blade through the driver's side. Erin and Pepper take cover in the back, when they hear him climb up onto the roof. They try

to escape, but he saws through it, with the blade coming through right in front of them. They try again to escape, but he keeps shoving the saw down through the roof, forcing them back. At one point, the saw comes through and hits the back of Pepper's coat, sending feathers flying everywhere. They, again, go for the door, when he reaches in and grabs Erin's hair. That's when Pepper panics and runs out of the van, only for Leatherface to jump down and chase after her. She stumbles, attempting to use some steel drums to block his saw, and then makes a run for it, when he

slices open the back of her coat. She falls to the ground and rolls over, unable to escape when Leatherface brings his saw down on her. Erin watches this in horror, and is even more shocked when Leatherface turns to look at her and she sees he's wearing Kemper's face. He runs at her and she quickly climbs out of the van, tumbles to the ground, hurting her leg, and gets to her feet and runs off into the woods, with Leatherface not too far behind her. She manages to get ahead of him and make it to a

trailer, where she meets Henrietta and the Tea Lady. After they let her in, they attempt to calm her down, only for her to become frantic when the tea kettle starts whistling, worried that Leatherface will hear it; outside, Leatherface does reach the spot but disengages his saw as he approaches the trailer. Inside, Erin is forced to drink some tea, only to learn that Henrietta was lying when she earlier said she didn't have a phone, and also recognizes her baby as the one from the hitchhiker's pictures. She attempts to escape, but passes out from the drugged tea and wakes up in the Hewitt house, with Hoyt harassing her.

After Leatherface tosses her down into the basement, Erin finds Andy, still hanging from the meat-hook, above an old piano. When he awakens, she climbs up onto the piano and tries to get him down by pushing him up off the hook, but this only causes him more pain, and in the end, he falls back down onto it. Knowing that he's basically dead, he asks her to put him out of his misery. Reluctantly, she grabs a knife from nearby and, though it takes every ounce of willpower she has, she does ultimately plunge it into Andy, ending his suffering but causing her to let out

an anguished yell, as his blood drips down onto her. Once she gets her wits about her again, she moves deeper into the basement, unaware that Leatherface is watching her through the floor up above. She comes across Morgan, sitting in a bathtub of bloody water, with a large puncture in his back and his hands cuffed. At first, it seems like he's dead, but when she touches him, he flails around in a panic and she has to calm him down by making him realize who she is. Leatherface continues watching as Erin gets Morgan out of the tub, while nearby, Jedidiah appears and

motions for them to follow him. Erin gets Morgan to his feet and the two of them stumble over to where Jedidiah is, when Leatherface comes rushing down the stairs, his chainsaw revving. Jedidiah leads them down a tunnel, yelling for them to run as fast as they can, as Leatherface is already not too far behind them. They round a corner, head down another pathway, and reach a small flight of stairs that leads up to the outside. As they climb up, a rung breaks beneath Morgan's foot, but just as Leatherface catches them,

his saw dies and he has to rev it up again. Erin implores Jedidiah to come with them but he insists they go on without him. They climb on up, as Leatherface gets his saw running and lunges for the stairs, pushing the kid out of the way. He grabs at Erin's legs but she kicks him back and quickly climbs outside with Morgan. Jedidiah actually grabs and bites Leatherface's hand, but he flings him back and continues up after Erin, who slams the door on the cellar's exterior entrance and bolts it. She and Morgan

run from the house and towards the automobile graveyard, as Leatherface saws his way out of the cellar. The two of them stumble towards the small shack nearby and head through the door. Looking back out, they see Leatherface coming for them. Erin slams the door, and she and Morgan push a couch in front of it, but Leatherface, naturally, begins easily sawing through the door (I don't know why he doesn't go through the large window right next to the door).

Knowing they're not going to be able to keep him out, they run through the shack, futilely trying to find another way to escape. Unable to escape, and with Leatherface having climbed through the sawed open door, Erin opts to hide Morgan in a closet in one corner of a large room, while she ducks through a large hole in the wall near another door across from that.

After a few seconds of silence, Leatherface enters the room, quietly searching for them. Erin, while dealing with a bunch of rats crawling around her feet in her hiding spot, looks out a hole in the wall and quickly ducks out of sight when Leatherface turns in her direction. She also attempts to slightly close the door and, when she looks again, she sees him walking towards Morgan's hiding spot. She then pushes away a rat that crawls into her lap and it squeaks loudly. Leatherface hears it and snaps his head around, prompting Erin to duck out of sight again and clamp

her hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp. She then looks out the hole again, only to see that he's gone. Breathing raggedly, she slowly stands up, unsure of what's going on, when his arms suddenly burst through the wall behind her. He grabs her, pulls her through, and forces her into that main room. Hearing the commotion, Morgan comes out of his hiding spot and sees Leatherface fling Erin to the floor, pin her down with his foot, and rev up the chainsaw. Seeing Morgan but ignoring him, he prepares to slice Erin up. Morgan suddenly lunges at and shoves him. He's

unable to get him off of Erin but he does make him drop the saw, which hits the floor and rattles around dangerously close to Erin's face. As Leatherface struggles with Morgan, Erin manages to roll out from under his foot and beats on him to make him let got of Morgan. She gets knocked back against the wall, as Leatherface lifts Morgan up, hangs him from a chandelier by his handcuffs, then grabs his saw and slices into his midsection. Knowing she can't save him, Erin runs out of the shack, with Leatherface turning and giving chase right behind her. He

furiously chases her through the woods until the two of them reach a barbwire fence. Erin easily ducks beneath it and runs on, but when Leatherface does the same, his foot gets snagged and he falls. His saw ends up cutting into his right leg and he grabs at it, howling in pain, while looking in the direction that Erin ran.

After failing to catch a ride from a passing motorist when she reaches the road, Erin crosses to the other side and passes through some shrubbery to find herself in front of the Blair Meat Co. slaughterhouse. With no other choice, she runs towards it, past all of the cattle outside, and, after passing through some gates, enters the building. She has to get down and crawl in order to enter the next room, when Leatherface suddenly appears behind her and grabs her legs. She frantically kicks at him as he tries to pull her towards him, and after getting loose, she runs to

the back of the room, soon hearing the sound of the chainsaw again. He runs after her with it, as she ducks into a meat-locker and tries to navigate her way through a virtual maze of hanging sides of beef. Leatherface follows after her, searching through the meat, while Erin finds one carcass that isn't wrapped in plastic and ducks within its hollowed center. Looking out in front of her, she doesn't see him anywhere, but he then starts moving the slabs around with the chains. Some of them knock into her,

startling her into screaming and allowing him to find her. He charges at her, and she runs and trips onto the floor. He brings the saw down on the floor right between her legs, but she then kicks him and runs out of the meat locker. Leatherface hits the button that activates the fire sprinklers, apparently thinking it might slow her down or make her easier to find. She runs into the back and grabs a meat cleaver, as well as finds a bunch of small pigs being held in cages. 

Leatherface makes his way back there and into the locker room, as the sprinklers stop. Hiding inside one of the lockers, Erin watches through the slats in the door as he walks by outside. He reaches the end of the path between the lockers, and is about to go on, when Erin bangs on the door and yells at him. Snapping back around, and realizing where she's hiding, he begins searching the lockers, throwing them open and shutting them. He walks past the one where she's hiding and looks right through the slats, but doesn't appear to see her. Then, one locker begins rattling and

he promptly revs up his saw and flings the door open, only to find a small pig inside. Erin immediately bursts out of the one behind him and slices into the arm wielding the saw. As Leatherface screams, she chops into him again and again, until his arm comes clean off. She then runs for it, as he tries to grab a hold of his saw, as it circles around on the floor, his severed arm still grabbing onto it. While he grabs and pries the arm loose by slamming the saw back and forth against the lockers, Erin escapes through one of the loading doors, running out into a pouring rainstorm.

Upon being picked up by Big Rig Bob, only to become hysterical and attempt to make him turn around when she realizes he's heading towards Luda Mae's gas station, nearly making him run off the road, Erin finds herself left alone in the truck's cab in the parking lot. She quickly gets out and runs off to the station's side, looking into the window. She sees Luda Mae there with Hoyt, Henrietta, and the baby, as Bob comes to the door and tells them that he needs help. Luda Mae answers the door and yells for Hoyt, whom she calls "Junior," to see to what's going on. She also

tells Henrietta to get her raincoat, and once the baby is in there by herself, Erin takes her chance. Bob tells Hoyt what's going on and he heads towards the truck's cab, with his gun drawn; at the same time, Henrietta goes back into the store and finds that the baby's gone. While Hoyt makes his way around to the truck's front, Erin is shown attempting to hot-wire another vehicle like before. Unable to see anything through the windshield, Hoyt heads around and yanks the driver door open, pointing his gun, only to find it empty. That's when it's revealed that Erin was trying

to hot-wire his patrol car, as she runs right at him, knocking him across the windshield and roof, and sending him tumbling to the ground over the back. Erin stops and pops the car in reverse, as Hoyt points and shoots at her. Unable to make her stop, he's run over completely, and then, just for good measure, she drives over him once more, ensuring that he's dead. She drives off down the road, into the rainstorm, taking the baby with her in the passenger seat. Leatherface then suddenly appears and takes one more swing with his chainsaw, but only clips the edge of the car, sending sparks flying through the air. He watches angrily as Erin drives off.

It cuts back to the crime scene walkthrough, where the investigating officer and the cameraman head into the back of the basement. But when the officer checks one spot with a curtain and chains, he's suddenly knocked to the floor by Leatherface, who promptly attacks the cameraman. It quickly cuts to footage of a funeral procession, as the narrator tells us, "The crime scene was not properly secured by Travis County Police. Two investigating officers were fatally wounded that day." The film ends on blurry shots of Leatherface taken from the camera, with the narrator saying, "This is the only known image of Thomas Hewitt, the man they call Leatherface. The case today still remains open."

The music score by Steve Jablonsky is another aspect of the film that tends to get a mixed reception from fans, but it's one of its greatest strengths. When the film begins, the score opens with a soft, gentle melody that's later used for tender moments between Erin and Kemper, but it quickly becomes eerie and haunting, and transitions into the low, doom-laden main theme as the archival footage begins. That theme is reiterated throughout the film, playing again after Kemper is killed, and it also comes back at the end for the last bit of the archival footage and the ending credits. There's a similar, even more foreboding theme that plays when the hitchhiker begins revealing what happened to her, getting across that she's been through absolute hell and the same thing is in store for these characters. And when the kids drive off towards the Crawford Mill as Luda Mae watches from her gas station's window, the music gives you the feeling that these kids are screwed and are driving towards their own grave. One of my favorite pieces of music is this very creepy piano theme that plays when they come across Jedidiah in the mill. Specifically, it's the piano combined with a very haunting sound that's almost like a moaning, alluding to how this day is becoming more and more nightmarish as it goes on. There's another low theme that you hear when Erin and Kemper first come across the family's house, as well as when Kemper is wandering around the house later on, that Jablonsky has described as Leatherface's theme. It's fine, but even better than that is this piece that starts really low but gradually builds and builds and builds, to the point where you're expecting something to snap. You this throughout the scene when Andy is snooping around the house and up to when Leatherface attacks him and Erin, when Sheriff Hoyt is tormenting Morgan in the van, and near the end of the film, when Hoyt is walking up to the big rig truck that he knows Erin is in (it sounds particularly intense during those latter two). Beside foreboding and eerie, there are some downright frantic attack themes for when Leatherface is after somebody, my personal favorite being the one that plays when he's chasing Erin through the slaughterhouse, and I also like the one you hear when he's chasing her after having killed Pepper. And that piece of music that plays when he attacks her in the cabin and ultimately kills Morgan is so damn intense as well. Finally, there's the strong, orchestral piece that plays when Erin is forced to put Andy out of his misery. It's another theme that builds and builds and become absolutely tragic when she finally plunges the knife into him. Not only does it work well for that moment but I also like that it's the last bit of music you hear over the ending credits, bringing home the notion of the horrific tragedy that happened to these kids who were just out for a good time.

While the original will always be a classic, I think the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a very worthy entry in this franchise. It's well-made and shot, has some good characters and decent-to-great acting, a visual style that was very unique at the time, some truly horrific moments and imagery that are accomplished without being overly gory, great chase sequences and kills, some very ominous, well done music, and, if nothing else, does its own thing instead of just xeroxing the original. It does certainly have flaws, like some characters who don't work out that well, as their motivations are hard to understand or they're just pointless; camerawork and direction that, while cool to watch, make it hard to suspend your disbelief that what you're watching is something that did happen; a few too many traditional horror movie tropes; and some elements that make it hard to buy that this is taking place in the 70's. But on the whole, I do think it's not only a great remake but a good horror film in its own right, one that saved the franchise from becoming a big punchline after The Next Generation. If you don't like it because you're a diehard fan of the original who felt it shouldn't have ever been remade, I understand, although you shouldn't act like its existence negates the original. But if you hate it simply because of the trends it inspired, I would advise putting that aside and giving it another shot, because it might surprise you.