The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
November 6th 2006 12:23
I’m part of a minority group who thought the remake of Tobe Hooper’s seminal horror show The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was not half bad. Not excellent either, but there are a sight more God-awful remakes out there at the moment.
The remake must have made enough money for the producers to want to keep on slaughterin’ This time round they’ve enlisted the directorial efforts of Jonathon Liebesman (Darkness Falls, 2003). And he does an okay good job considering the huge obstacle in itself (exposing the origins of a severed-hands-down-bonafide-horror-cult-classic).
In a way Zack Snyder had a similar task ahead of him when he made his re-envisioned Dawn of the Dead (2004), except Snyder’s film is a lot better. Marcus Nispel’s remake of the Chainsaw Massacre (2003) was laden with shadowy atmosphere, with charismatic Jessica Biel running and screaming all over the show, and tried very hard in capturing a lot of the original movie’s relentless, exhausting feverish intent.
Director Liebesman stages most of The Beginning in the grimy light of day. The cinematography is slick and makes stunning use of the killer family’s home. The house secretes evil in a most iconographic way, a monstrous abode which looks like a cross between a colonial homestead and a charnel house. I would be bold enough to say the house at Amityville got nothin’ on this lair; haunted or whatever.
The film takes place in 1969, some five years before the events of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Four teenagers (yup) are on a road trip. One of the guys is considering a draft dodge, while his brother, who’s returned briefly from a tour of duty, is keen to steer him into the action. Both girlfriends are none to happy about the prospect of the boys leaving.
Things come a cropper when a bikie chick menaces them at high speed. There’s a crash. Things aren’t lookin’ too good. Along comes “The Sheriff” and things just get worse, a whole lot worse.
An unlikely bond has Michael Bay (director of such super-trash as The Rock and Armageddon) and original Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper co-producing the film. I’m not entirely convinced of how this stew sits on the horror palate. By concocting the origins of this most heinous family, especially the depraved ghoulishness of ol’ Leatherface himself, the filmmakers have de-mystified a most superbly mysterious southern gothic legend (well, in all honesty, only elements of the original are true).
The movie isn’t as intense or quite as violent as The Hills Have Eyes remake, although it does have its share of hardcore horror moments, most notably in a scene where Leatherface dons his first real face mask. Squeamish be wary!
Some of the actors return from the original’s remake; R. Lee Ermey is most creepy indeed as Sheriff Hoyt, while Andrew Bryniarski – love the name – is menacing, but ultimately not as frightening as Gunnar Hansen's original performance. The teenagers are mighty plucky, and inexplicably (and kinda annoyingly) manage to be rather superhuman in their endurance of pain. They get a damn hammering and seem to spit in the face of fear … well, maybe not quite.
Jordana Brewster has to be one of the more fearless Final Girls I’ve seen in awhile (about as dumb as the chick going back to help her friend in Wolf Creek). Actually, she’s not really the Final Girl … But hey! I’m not really spoiling anything, because The Texas Chainsaw Massacre still has to happen. This is a prequel remember.
* images on this page were taken from the following wikipedia page:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
They are licensed from the GNU Free Document License.
Other images Copyright New Line Productions 2006
In a way Zack Snyder had a similar task ahead of him when he made his re-envisioned Dawn of the Dead (2004), except Snyder’s film is a lot better. Marcus Nispel’s remake of the Chainsaw Massacre (2003) was laden with shadowy atmosphere, with charismatic Jessica Biel running and screaming all over the show, and tried very hard in capturing a lot of the original movie’s relentless, exhausting feverish intent.
The film takes place in 1969, some five years before the events of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Four teenagers (yup) are on a road trip. One of the guys is considering a draft dodge, while his brother, who’s returned briefly from a tour of duty, is keen to steer him into the action. Both girlfriends are none to happy about the prospect of the boys leaving.
An unlikely bond has Michael Bay (director of such super-trash as The Rock and Armageddon) and original Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper co-producing the film. I’m not entirely convinced of how this stew sits on the horror palate. By concocting the origins of this most heinous family, especially the depraved ghoulishness of ol’ Leatherface himself, the filmmakers have de-mystified a most superbly mysterious southern gothic legend (well, in all honesty, only elements of the original are true).
The movie isn’t as intense or quite as violent as The Hills Have Eyes remake, although it does have its share of hardcore horror moments, most notably in a scene where Leatherface dons his first real face mask. Squeamish be wary!
* images on this page were taken from the following wikipedia page:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
They are licensed from the GNU Free Document License.
Other images Copyright New Line Productions 2006
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Comment by suitably*wounded
Eternal Days; Author: Illness, M.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
now i just need to get paid like those "names" do ....