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The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a
dark, terrifying social commentary—a controversially influential film reflecting the
national psyche in the post-Vietnam era loss of innocence, whereas the remake is a garish
gore fest featuring a man in a fat suit doing a chainsaw coo-coo dance with a family of
hooky Texan freaks as back up.
In 1974, Tobe Hooper took a true-crime
incident and combined it with a rather frustrating holiday trip to the hardware store
(where he entertained for a moment the idea of literally cutting in line with the help of
a chainsaw) to produce a genuinely horrifying experience. The result of his concoction,
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, mutated the horror genre forever, spawning the
grotesque extremes of the slasher genre and becoming both a cult classic and, ironically,
an academic darling.
Both films center on a group of five teenagers who
(per horror movie formula) become victims of a deranged family that redefines the term
dysfunctional — including the flesh-wearing, chainsaw-wielding Leatherface. At the core
of both the film and the subsequent academic discussions is the mythically portrayed
moral ambiguity the family exemplifies. A moral ambiguity that includes a blatant misuse
of various power tools, an abhorring lack of style (human flesh and bone is such an
outdated look), and poor table manners — occasionally resulting in the eating of
guests.
For any remake to be successful, it must do more than update a
film with a pretty cast and a new look—it must mold the story to reflect current events
or at least current attitudes. Since I had heard mumblings of subtle changes, I was
intrigued enough to hit the theatre. Unfortunately, the differences are in the texture
of the film. The original was psychologically intense, with the most horrifying elements
done off-screen and therefore left to the imagination, while the remake is built off its
gory elements and leaves most of the horror off-screen. In other words, the remake
regurgitates the same storyline and then dons the pretense of innovation by showing the
audience the chunks.
The character of Erin (Jessica Biel) acts as a poor
substitute for the original’s Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns). Burns played the tortured,
victimized survivor all too well, her howling screams so blood curdling that I have
literally been able to “name that scream” within five seconds of listening to (not
watching) the film. More so, Burns’s portrayal of a victim is agonizing in its
authenticity, whereas Biel, a product of the slasher generation, plays the role as a
generic victim, which is exactly what you would expect from a generic film.
