20th Anniversary TLDR: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Anyone want some pig?
Plot: After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a deformed chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.
Direction: Marcus Nispel very clearly cares about the franchise and wants to do the right thing - and I think he does. This is his feature debut and it's a high bar to clear, but I think he pulls it off. It's dark, it's sadistic, it's gross. Before this, he made a career shooting music videos, from C+C Music Factory to Billy Joel to Bette Middler to Spice Girls. After this, he made a couple of other remakes (like 2009's Friday the 13th or 2011's Conan the Barbarian), but hasn't made a feature since 2015.Â
Screenplay: Speaking of making a career in remakes, Scott Kosar went on to write the '05 Amityville Horror and episodes of Bates Motel. In terms of TCM, what do you say about the guy that just writes "brum-brum-brum-brum-brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"? I kid! I like the changes he made to make this film different, particularly the hitchhiking opener. He's clearly doing producer Michael Bay's bidding, but it works.Â
Performances: Jessica Biel stars in one of her earliest films after years on 7th Heaven) and although "Final Girl" is a difficult thing to do, I think she stands out here, (If nothing else, this franchise has a gaggle of fun early-career performances, see: Mortensen, McConaughey, Zellwegger, and Dadarrio.) The rest of the teens are strong and committed. Andrew Bryniarski is intimidating as Leatherface, but it's really R. Lee Ermey who steals the show: see below.Â
Cinematography:Â The best decision Nispel made was to call Daniel Pearl - the cinematographer for the 1974 original - and ask him to shoot this film. He has to live up to his original work under completely different circumstances - tons of money, new direction - he reinvents without changing anything. '74 wins (in every way), but this is separately great.Â
Best moment:Â When R. Lee Ermey, as the Sheriff, says (and apparently improvised) about the dead body, "You know, back when I was a young patrolman, I used to love wrapping up these young honeys..." And he doesn't stop talking there...
Fun fact: According to IMDB: During the scene in the van with R. Lee Ermey (The Sheriff) and Jonathan Tucker (Morgan), Tucker forced the gun down his throat in order to make himself vomit every take. If you watch carefully you can see him spit the vomit out of his mouth in the scene. I don't typically believe IMDB Trivia, but they also mention this in the behind-the-scenes (feature-length!) doc on the DVD. Ew!Â
Imaginary accolade: Best 21st Century Texas Chainsaw Film
Everything is too long. Is it too long? 98 minutes? It could probably lose eight minutes!
Rating: I wrote this in 2021 and still agree: If this weren’t called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I guarantee you it would be much more well-liked. It completely stands on its own and is a good time.
Credit: Plot synopsis from Letterboxd via TMDb.