The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I never intended to watch this. The first two TCM movies did not impress me in any way, and I knew the franchise had more downs than ups beyond that. But I wanted to take part in a remakes vs. originals ranking video on YouTube, and this was one of the few on the list I hadn’t seen yet, so … figured I’d suffer through it. Turns out, I found this better than the original in several ways. Not enough to watch any more, but it was better. Yes. One thing I never liked about the original was the relentless hopelessness of it all, and the utter waste of space that was the final girl, Sally. Apart from Barbara in the original Night Of The Living Dead, she may be the most useless horror heroine in history. This movie’s final girl, Erin, is active. She runs, she fights, she plans. She isn’t a non-stop shrieking machine. I can get behind that as a viewer. I also like Leatherface more in this movie. Like Erin, he’s more active here, which makes him more menacing. I also like the supporting cast of victims more here, as no one is written to be intentionally irritating. I’m not saying these characters are templates for good writing, but they’re better than the original source material. And the inciting situation that draws them into the carnage — coming across a traumatized victim who got away instead of one of the family members acting as a lure — plays out better and feels more believable (and there’s a nice  callback to it at the end). All that being said, it’s still not a great movie in my eyes, and doesn’t redeem the franchise in any way. As much as I don’t like the original, it had a grit and grime that makes it feel unique; the dirtiness and sleaze in this remake feels calculated and over-produced, like a pair of pre-ripped jeans being sold at a high end retailer. They do use the chainsaw far more here than in the original, but several of the kills are still off-screen; you see the occasional severed limb, so I can’t say it’s bloodless, but slasher movies are about kills, and they feel strangely antiseptic. The extended Hewitt family can get tiresome, as they are EVERYWHERE in the area. Every time you turn around, here’s another new one. I know Leatherface can’t be on screen all the time, but by spreading out the family to such an extent, the movie loses some focus and starts to drag in places. And while I know horror movies are long known for being exploitative when it comes to the feminine form, at least it was always in the context of a sex scene; here, Jessica Biel is wearing an outfit designed to be titillating for the entire runtime (white tank, no bra, low rise jeans, and the tank is often wet) and it just feels like they are wanted to crowbar in some eye candy for the boys somewhere. It’s tacky. Overall, it’s fine. I’m probably on an island preferring it to the OG, and I can live with my horror cred-threatening. It’s far from excellent, certainly nothing I’ll come back to, but I didn’t feel like watching it was torture. Just an occasionally tiring chore.