The Cinapse Team revs up for one of Horror’s most infamous–and unexpectedly great–remakes from Deep in the Heart of Texas
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No one hates remakes as much as horror fans… or so it seems. It’s really just a vocal minority, because once you start talking to gorehounds and horror nerds, you’ll find that most of us appreciate a good remake and are willing to admit that some of them are as good as or better than the original films. This month, we’re spending spooky season with some of our favorite remakes. Each week, one of us will present a remake we think surpasses its predecessor and invite the ridicule, love, agreement, hate, or whatever comes our way.
The Pick: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
By all accounts, a remake of Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre shouldn’t work. It’s such a singular piece of independent horror filmmaking that continues to leave an indelible impression on audiences, its experimental, documentary-inspired aesthetic a testament to using the sparest of resources to create a stripped-down and relentless experience. That stripped-down ethos stands in stark opposition to Michael Bay’s bombastic “Bay-hem,” fueling film culture’s instinctive rejection of 2003’s dreaded remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Over 20 years later, time’s been nothing but kind to Marcus Nispel’s film. Like the best remakes, it’s definitely conscious of the long shadow it lives in, but makes no qualms about living up to such reverent predecessors. Instead, much like Suspiria would a decade later, Nispel and cinematographer Daniel Pearl channel our collective memory of Chain Saw to forge new, equally visceral ways of evoking its raw realism.
The Team
Julian Singleton
If Hooper’s original plays like a documentary, Nispel’s Chainsaw ’03 is its biopic. Built on the same fake “based on a true story” hook loosely cribbed from the Ed Gein case, this version leans into a heightened, more theatrical vision–expanding Chainsaw‘s scope while drenching it in big-budget grime. Daniel Pearl’s cinematography is elegantly macabre, channeling decades of experience since the OG Chain Saw into dreamlike shadows, cascading sparks, and a skip-bleach, sky-draining palette that captures the suffocating “walking through Jell-O” humidity of mid-August Austin. Greg Blair’s production design doubles down on Hooper’s found wreckage, somehow out-grossing the original in sheer grime and grisly wetness. But nothing flaunts the film’s newfound budgetary bravado more than the audacious pullback through the hitchhiker’s self-inflicted headshot, a stomach-churning mission statement in a single shot.
It reflects how, like any dubious biopic, this Chainsaw trades suggestion for spectacle, offering graphic, imaginative answers where the power of Hooper’s original drew from an overwhelming, oppressive restraint. It spotlights the wider web of the Hewitt family’s crimes, the deeper dynamics of its doomed twenty-somethings…and lots of gore. Tapping into the bloodlust of post-9/11 horror, Chainsaw literally rubs salt in its characters’ wounds, acknowledging that the inhuman atrocities Hooper only hinted at have since become nightly news staples. Hell, it even folds Leatherface into that media landscape, pushing the “true story” angle into a burst of ’70s-style found footage that suggests no matter how graphic Nispel’s film gets, the real horror is far worse. It’s a cinematic game of cultural telephone—indulging in what we think Hooper’s film was, as much as what it actually is.
In that same sense of widespread macabre mundanity, Nispel transforms the disturbing, aberrant pocket universe of the Sawyer family into a vast, rotten landscape fueled by paranoia. From R. Lee Ermey’s perfectly terrifying faux police officer to the benevolent menace of actors like Kathy Lamkin, the sweaty ugliness of Nispel’s Texas suggests such madness as the world’s default state–and this band of young victims are just frogs who grow to the horrific realization that they were born in a pot boiling all their lives. Jessica Biel fittingly garners most audience’s attention for her down-home, dragged through the mud final girl–but with a lineup that includes such faces as Jonathan Tucker, Mike Vogel, and the always-criminally-underrated Erica Leerhsen (justice for Blair Witch 2!), the ensemble of Nispel’s Chainsaw is one of my favorites of 2000s Horror.
Call me a heretic all you want, but this is on par with Hooper’s original. Like its predecessor, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre translates the horrors of the world it lives in into something just as terrifyingly inescapable. Through Pearl’s gorgeous cinematography and Nispel’s relentless dedication to atmosphere as much as bloodshed, it manages to be just as primal, ugly, and real as Hooper’s film even as it trades subtlety for savagery. It clearly understands what made Chain Saw last–but cultivates its own vibe rather than standing on the original’s shoulders. By carving its own jagged path, Nispel’s Chainsaw doesn’t just escape the shadow of a classic: it earns its place beside it.
Justin Harlan
Am I am fan of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre? Of course. Every horror fan needs to at least acknowledge its importance and impact. Though, I don’t revere it the same way many do. I appreciate it and I think its a really well made film in many ways, but it isn’t one I’m oft compelled to revisit or list among my faves. The 2003 remake, on the other hand, is one that I can jump back into every so often and really enjoy myself.
It follows the late 90s/early aughts teen slasher format, which is an aesthetic that works well for me as someone who’s first R-rated film in theaters without parents tagging along was Scream. And, while, it’s telling a version of the same basic story as the 70s classic, it ramps up the blood and gore quite a bit. These are winning elements for me.
The pacing is quicker and it keeps me engaged throughout, something that pockets of the original cannot do. And, while it’s impossible to reproduce the meanness and grit of Tobe Hooper’s seminal film, it has a mean spirit and grittiness of its own that really works.
And, let’s be honest, watching a scantily clad former star of 7th Heaven get down and dirty with Leatherface is something the teenage me in the 90s surely was longing for.
Spencer Brickey
I’m a Texas Chain Saw ride or die (as you can tell by my correct spelling of “Chain Saw”). It’s easily my favorite horror franchise, and it has to do with the pure aesthetic variety. You see, like many horror franchises, the Chain Saw sequels are essentially just remakes of the first film over and over again. While that can lead to some staleness in a series (looking at you, Friday The 13th and Halloween), the Chain Saw films are able to circumnavigate that by each being insanely off-kilter in their own way, while also representing the era in which they were filmed.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is essentially Hooper remaking his masterpiece with a real budget, truly making it the “dark comedy” that he said the original actually was. It’s also a pretty perfect example of the bombastic, gore gags-filled horror that we could expect in the mid ‘80s. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III shifts towards the glossier studio style that New Line was starting to push as the Nightmare films began to wane, while still delivering the mean bits and pieces (arguably one of the meanest entries). Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation picks up on the still gestating meta-horror style, asking the question “what if a horror movie realizes its failing as the film is still going?”; an incredibly interesting approach that I still think it deserves credit for.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) is, interestingly, a case where I believe it started a new wave all on its own; I posit that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the first true post-9/11 film, and the beginning of the nihilistic wave of horror cinema in the Aughts.
Released just over 2 years after the Towers fell (about the average production time on a feature), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was really unlike anything that had come out at the time. While there was plenty of blood flying on screen with the Dark Castle remakes and the smatterings of horror franchise entries, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was something else: it was mean. It is an incredibly cruel, angry, vicious film, that not so much rubs your nose in it, but makes sure you damn well know that life is fleeting, and some shitheel with a hammer can end it all in a second, life plans be damned. This is a film that essentially opens with a young woman pulling a pistol out of her genitals and blowing her head off. It’s a film that not only sets up a potential surprise engagement, not only shows us the ring after the guy is killed, but also makes sure the killer is wearing his face when he confronts his girlfriend. It’s a film that makes sure to let us know that, yes, Leatherface likes to salt the wounds of his victims. It’s a film where R. Lee Ermey makes another man mime out the gunshot suicide for his own satisfaction. This is a mean, mean film.
But, it’s also slick as hell. Produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, this is an incredibly sleek-looking film that still operates like a blockbuster. Its chase scenes are shot like action scenes; there are incredible explosions of sparks every time the chainsaw strikes; and Jessica Biel is in the skimpiest outfit imaginable through the entire runtime. Hell, even the initial suicide is filmed like something out of an action film, as the camera pans through the new hole in her head.
Which is where I get around to my point: 2 years prior, we all watched as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. We watched as the fires raged, and as people tried to wave for help. We watched as those same people, with no other options, leapt to their death. We watched as both Towers collapsed, burying over 3000 people in a matter of seconds.
We watched the worst tragedy in American history, and it played out like a fucking Roland Emmerich film. It was a quintessential American disaster: explosions, fire, massive destruction, massive casualties. How could we process that? What would that process look like in art? It would be big and brash, it would be mercilessly mean, and it would feel immeasurably hopeless and incredibly exciting. It would be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
This Month: Revenge of the Remakes
All month, we are celebrating spooky season with something a little different. Our staff chose some remakes that we enjoy as much or more than the originals. Each week, one of us will plead our case and we’d love to have you chime in to tell us if you think we’re crazy or if we have a point. Or just chime in to share your thoughts on the film! See you next week!
