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THE
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
4/10
USA 2003
: Marcus NISPEL : 95 mins
Aaarghhh!!
They messed with Texas!!! Remaking Tobe Hooper’s 1974 semi-classic
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for purely commercial ends, co-producer
Michael Bay, director Nispel and scriptwriter Scott Kosar have dispensed
with much, much more than just that oft-overlooked gap between the words
“chain” and “saw.”
Brrrrrzzzzzzhhhhummmmmmmshh!!
That’s the sound the original’s fans will hear as the both the fascinating
subtexts (via Kim Henkel’s script) and the surface roughness of the original
are crudely ripped away, to be replaced by a numbingly one-dimensional
screenplay and incongruously slick production- values. Only the plot’s
basic skeleton remains intact: driving through a Texas backwater in the
mid-70s, a group of college kids fall into the clutches of chainsaw-wielding
Leatherface and his family of murderous inbreds.
Re-employing
Hooper’s own cinematographer Daniel C Pearl was a nice touch (Chain
Saw narrator John Larroquette also returns), but you wonder why they
bothered - Pearl’s over-stylish work here bears little relation to his
earlier efforts on a film whose degraded look formed part of an all-out
assault on the viewer’s senses. Making a virtue out of necessity, Hooper’s
no-budget production was a thoroughly convincing evocation of a poverty-blighted
hell-hole, as equally unpleasant to look at as it was to hear: his cacophony
of human screams, animal cries and mechanical grinding remains unmatched
in movie history.
Chainsaw,
in contrast, must have spent many more times the original’s entire budget
on lighting alone. Though much of the action unfolds under a full moon,
this doesn’t explain the mysterious and unseen sources of bright illumination
which seem to be located behind every large building. At times, you wonder
if the chainsaw-fodder kids are being stalked by an unhinged lighting-crew.
Writing in
Cult Movies, Danny Peary summed up the original as “well-made but
excruciatingly unpleasant” – Nispel’s version is just excruciatingly ‘well-made,’
a classic example of over-polished form proving wildly unsuited to the
down-and-dirty content. Chain Saw an ordeal for everyone concerned
– not just for audiences, but also for cast and crew. According to all
reports, the actors all hated Hooper and couldn’t stand each other either
– ideal for a film in which all the bickering characters are obnoxious
to varying degrees.
Well, not quite
all… One of the many radical aspects of Chain Saw was the development
of Leatherface: though this hulking, mute, murderous brute initially comes
across as a Jason Voorhees-ish killing machine, the scenes in which he’s
cruelly abused by his despicable family show him as a truly pathetic figure.
The hapless Leatherface is the most pitiable of the movie’s victims –
indeed, alongside the thoroughly unpleasant teens and his own evil kin,
he’s by far the most sympathetic figure on view. Nispel and Kosar may
go to the trouble of giving him a name – Thomas Hewitt – but, paradoxically,
they thoroughly dehumanise the character: he’s never anything other than
a hulking, mute, murderous brute - a Jason Voorhees-ish killing machine.
And the fact
that he survives (as we see via an epilogue featuring some cheesily Blair
Witchy ‘found footage’) suggests that Bay and company have their eyes
on a money-spinning franchise* along the lines of Elm Street and
Friday the 13th. Because this is, above all else, a
money-making exercise – according to Variety, “In the press notes,
an exec producer cavalierly admits that the idea for the remake stemmed
from research showing that 90% of the film’s score, males-under-25 audience
knew the title of Hooper’s film but had never seen it.”
Despite these
cynical beginnings, an updated Texas Chain Saw needn’t have been
quite so shoddy – not to mention boring – as this. The antics of a certain
Texan occupant of the White House make this an ideal moment to go into
the darker recesses of the Lone Star State of mind (a la Bill Paxton’s
Frailty),
but it’s an opportunity Nispel and Kosar seem content to miss. Despite
its reputation, Hooper’s Chain Saw is really a subversive, blackly
comic anti-carnivore, pro-vegetarian satire - some critics even interpret
it as a parody of dog-eat-dog US capitalism. One commentator has discerned
similarities between the Hewitt clan and the Bush family, but this seems
like wishful thinking – Chainsaw is nothing more than a cynical,
over-produced, teen-friendly exercise in one-dimensional shock-and-gore.
15th
November, 2003
(seen 13th November : Odeon Gate, Newcastle)
* The
original’s three, barely-released sequels were 1986’s Texas Chainsaw
Massacre II (with Dennis Hopper!), 1990’s Leatherface : Texas Chainsaw
Massacre III (with Viggo Mortensen!!) and 1994’s Henkel-directed Return
of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, (with Matthew McConaughey and Renee
Zellweger!!!)
by Neil
Young
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