The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Instant Favorite.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A Masterpiece!

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Easily one of the best remakes of all time and MASSIVELY UNDERRATED! I honestly believe this is one of the most legitimately scary films full of sheer tension, depravity, and an absolutely terrifying portrayal of Leatherface. The atmosphere seeps with bleakness and disgust throughout every well shot scene and the overall feel is captured even better than the classic original imo with brilliant set and costume designs. While it does take about 40 min to really take off, when it does it's one of the most engrossing horror finales full of insane brutality and disturbing imagery that says with you. R. Lee Ermey gives the best performance possible of a backwoods sheriff/psychotic Sawyer family leader and truly gets under your skin. Bryniarski is near flawless and perfected the movements and intimidation level of Leatehrface in every shot he's on screen and steasl the show. I believe this remake is vastly superior to the classic original, and that it was hated and scrutinized so much because it's one of the first big remakes and TCM purists didn't give it a proper chance. it's in my top 10 horror's.

Besides the ever-typical stupid decisions, and especially because it's like the innocent characters keep trying to work their way into trouble, what really gets me about this one is Jessica Biel's character contradicting herself by initially telling Kemper that she just wants to get out of there after the incident with the girl hitchhiker, and then makes a big deal that they shouldn't just leave without taking care of her body properly first by at least finding her family and informing them. Knowing she's the GIRLfriend, she even backs herself up with, "Well it matters to ME...If that means anything." At the end, it's just plainly unrealistic: no one could survive in the hallway of a slaughterhouse after getting an arm cut off to then follow someone out to the road to startle her as she speeds off. It's not like he quickly wrapped himself up; he rested back against the lockers and fell to the floor in pain.

This remake is not nearly as bad as you might expect, but its also not anything exceptional. The movie has several decent ideas and a few memorable scenes that are ultimately bogged down by its inconsistency.The film makes several notable deviations from the original. The most immediately obvious is the intro that acts as if it is a true crime story. This is an interesting idea and ultimately one of the best new ideas of the movie. In addition to this they also try to change to story in a few key ways that ultimately make you wonder, Why? why not just leave, why not just go smoke your 2 pounds of weed and listen to Lynnyrd Skynrd, why do you have to go to the freaky cannibal house. (I'm aware this is a common problem in these movies but it's very notable here) In the original it made sense why they were there. The most noticeable change though has to be its over reliance on gore.The original movie was relatively bloodless, some people look at this and think that's a good thing, I disagree. To me the bloodier the better, just don't dumb down the actual story, the tension, or build up. Use the gore to shock and thrill but do not use it as a crutch to pretend that it makes something scary, that is this films biggest flaw. The movie frequently just jumps straight into things with little to no setup, and when it does have setup its so obvious anyone who has ever seen a horror movie can see it coming from a mile away. If the creators had noticed this instead of just thinking of how brilliant they were to use deceptive shot lines the films would be so much better.However in its defense the film manages to have several good scenes when its not failing at building tension. The movie has several fairly good chase scenes that to me are easily the highlights. No spoilers, but when it gets its action going it executes well mostly. Especially notable scenes are in the basement and in the slaughterhouse, that is where it hits its stride. its just a shame it couldn't pull off slower areas as well.I don't mean this to discourage you from watching the movie; I do it to warn you. Underneath it's problems are a few good moments that i'm glad i saw, but really i'm just disappointed because if the films creators actually gave a damn this could've been something great.

It's been years since I've watched this remake, and I think it's grown on me since the last time I've watched it. In my opinion, I think it's better than the 1974 classic because the storyline is better, the characters are better developed and we sympathize with them more when they're killed off. Some remakes copy the original word for word like the Psycho remake and it was terrible. Some remakes like to update and make new characters, new dialogue and new ways to kill people like this and Dawn of the Dead. Rob Zombie's Halloween told a backstory, while remaking some scenes from the original 1978 classic. I think this one works really well because it was different. I'm glad they left out the annoying brother, Franklin and not having a Sally Hardesty character to scream her head off the last 15 minutes of the movie. This one felt more realistic and scary. At times, R. Lee Ermey's character, Sheriff Hoyt takes away from Leatherface, who is the main attraction while watching a TCM movie. Jessica Biel was very good as Erin, the main lead. Her acting was very convincing like she was actually being tortured, physically and emotionally. On August 18th, 1973, Erin and her friends are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after returning from Mexico to buy marijuana. They stop and pick a hitchhiker who looks like she's been thru Hell. She rambles about a bad man and shoots herself in the mouth. While looking for the Sheriff to take her body away, they run into Leatherface and his creepy cannibalistic family. If you love horror and remakes, you'll love THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE!!!