| The Texas Chainsaw Massacre | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Marcus Nispel |
| Produced by | Michael Bay Mike Fleiss Brad Fuller Tobe Hooper Kim Henkel |
| Screenplay by | Scott Kosar |
| Based on | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre by Tobe Hooper Kim Henkel |
| Narrated by | John Larroquette |
| Starring | Jessica Biel Jonathan Tucker Erica Leerhsen Mike Vogel Eric Balfour R. Lee Ermey |
| Music by | Steve Jablonsky |
| Cinematography | Daniel Pearl |
| Editing by | Glen Scantlebury |
| Studio | Radar Pictures Platinum Dunes Next Entertainment |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema (United States) Focus Features (International) |
| Release date(s) | October 17, 2003 |
| Running time | 98 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $9.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $107,071,655[2] |
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 American remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film was directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay. It was also co-produced by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper, co-creators of the original 1974 film.
This film is the first of many horror remakes to come from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company which also remade The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film became a success at the box office despite negative reviews from critics.
Contents |
In the beginning of the film, there is archive footage of a police search of the Hewitt house. The two officers survey the house and descend into the basement, noting the fingernail scratch marks, human blood and hair embedded into the walls.
We are then brought to August 1973 where five young adults, Erin (Jessica Biel), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Andy (Mike Vogel), and Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after returning from Mexico. As they drive through Texas, they see a distraught hitchhiker (Lauren German), who eventually gets in their van. After trying to speak to the hitchhiker, who speaks incoherently about "a bad man", she shoots and kills herself with a .357 Magnum. The group tries to contact the police, then go to a store where a woman (Marietta Marich) tells them the sheriff is at the mill. Instead of the sheriff, they find a little boy named Jedediah (David Dorfman) who tells them that the sheriff is at home drinking. Erin and Kemper go through the woods to find his house, leaving the other three at the mill with the boy. They come to a plantation house where Erin is allowed inside by the owner, an amputee named Monty, to phone for help. When Erin finishes, the old man asks her for help. Kemper goes inside to look for Erin and attacked by the vicious-looking Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), who hits him with a sledgehammer. When Leatherface takes Kemper's body to begin to make a new mask out of him, he discovers a small black box from Kemper; opening it, he discovers a ring meant for Erin.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) arrives at the mill and disposes of the hitchhiker's body, wrapping her in cellophane and putting her in his trunk in which he drives away and tells the youths to leave. Erin arrives and finds that Kemper is still missing. Andy and Erin go back to the Monty's house, where Erin distracts him while Andy searches for Kemper. Monty realizes Andy is inside and summons Leatherface, who attacks him with his chainsaw. Erin escapes and heads towards the woods, but Leatherface cuts Andy's leg off. Leatherface carries him to the basement and hangs him on a meat hook with his feet hanging over a piano, where he rubs salt on Andy's stump of a leg before wrapping it in butcher paper and tying it with human hair.
Erin makes it to the mill and tries to escape in the van, but the sheriff shows up and, after finding marijuana, orders Erin, Morgan and Pepper to get out of the van. The sheriff gives Morgan the gun he took from the hitchhiker and tells Morgan to reenact how she killed herself. Morgan, scared and disturbed by the sheriff's demeanor, and under pressure by Erin and Pepper, attempts to shoot the sheriff only to find the gun is unloaded. Sheriff Hoyt handcuffs Morgan and drives him to the Hewitt house (a drive which includes a brutal beating), leaving the girls in the van. Erin tries to fix the truck, while Pepper holds a flashlight. Erin gets the truck running, but the one of the wheels rolls out. Erin and Pepper stay still in the truck but Leatherface appears on the top of the truck and tries to attack them. After witnessing Pepper's murder by Leatherface, Erin, who sees that Leatherface is wearing Kemper's face over his own, runs to escape and hides in a nearby trailer with two women inside, who offer her tea and try to soothe her. The two women, an obese middle-aged woman known only as the 'Tea Lady' and a younger woman named Henrietta, whom is presumably her daughter, act strange and after they tell Erin they don't have a phone for her to call for help, a telephone in the trailer rings and Henrietta picks it up and tells someone on the other end that "she's here". Erin discovers they have kidnapped a child when she sees that the baby with them is the same child in a photograph with the woman who committed suicide earlier. However, the tea is drugged and she passes out when she tries to leave.
Erin wakes up at the Hewitt house surrounded by the Hewitt family: Leatherface, his mother Luda May, Sheriff Hoyt, Uncle Monty, and the little boy Jedediah. Luda May tells Erin that her excuse for her son Thomas' actions, was that her son was tormented by teenagers and that she felt no one cared for her family besides themselves. Erin is taken to the basement, where she finds Andy. She tries to help him off of the meat hook but when he sees he will land on the piano keys and alert Leatherface, he begs her to kill him, which she does, though suffers severe emotional trauma. She finds Morgan, still handcuffed, and Jedediah leads them out of the house. Jedediah rejects Erin's plea to come with them and distracts Leatherface long enough for them to escape. Erin and Morgan find an abandoned house in the woods and barricade themselves inside. Leatherface breaks in and discovers Erin, but Morgan attacks Leatherface, causing him to drop his chainsaw. Morgan grabs him and wrestles him, but Leatherface is too heavy and easily lifts Morgan upwards onto a chandelier before releasing him and Morgan gets tangled in the chandelier by his handcuffs. Leatherface picks up his chainsaw and slices up into Morgan's crotch, killing him.
Erin runs out of the shack and escapes through the woods. Leatherface trips and cuts his leg while pursuing her. Erin finds a slaughterhouse and hides in a locker; Leatherface opens the locker across from hers and she attacks him with a meat cleaver, and chops off his right arm. Erin runs outside and flags down a trucker, whom she tries to convince to go away from the Hewitt's house, but he stops to find help at the eatery. Erin sees Luda May and watches as Sheriff Hoyt arrives and talks to the trucker. Erin sees Henrietta watching over the kidnapped baby in a highchair. When Henrietta walks outside to join Luda May and Sheriff Hoyt whom are talking to the truck driver, Erin sneaks the baby out of the eatery and hot-wires the sheriff's car before running him over repeatedly until he is dead. Leatherface appears in the road and tries to stop her, but Erin and the baby escape unharmed.
The police archive footage continues to play. The officers inspect the basement noting the hanging meat hooks when suddenly one of the officers is grabbed and severely beaten. A blurred figure viciously shakes the camera and the other police officer is heard screaming. The narrator states that "The crime scene was not properly secured by Travis County Police. Two investigating officers were fatally wounded that day. This is the only known image of Thomas Hewitt, the man they call Leatherface. The case today still remains open".
This film, like the 1974 original, as well as Psycho, was inspired by Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.[3] Gein skinned human bodies and made up furniture out of it, but he acted alone and did not use a chainsaw. Most of his "victims" were already dead and he only personally murdered two people. The film's opening claims the events are factual, a use of the false document technique (filming of the first film was from July 15, 1973 to August 14, 1973, while the event took place on August 18, 1973).
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received negative critical consensus. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes shows a rating of 36% for it.[4]Metacritic, another review aggregator, calculates an average of 38%.[5]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in North America on October 17, 2003 in 3,018 theaters.[6] It grossed $10,620,000 on its opening day and concluded its North America opening weekend with $28,094,014, ranking #1 at the box office.[7] The film opened in various other countries and grossed $26,500,000, while the North American gross stands at $80,571,655, bringing the worldwide gross to $107,071,655.[8] All based on a $9.5 million budget,[9] the film was a commercial success.
The film's box-office success was notable for starting a long line of remakes of 70s/80s horror films that continue to the present day.
The film was released on VHS and DVD March 30, 2004 through New Line Home Entertainment.[10] Special features include seven TV spots and trailers and a music video for Suffocate by Motograter. A two-disc Platinum Series Edition was also released that same day, containing a collectible metal plaque cover, 3 filmmaker commentaries with producer Michael Bay, director Marcus Nispel and others, crime city photo cards, deleted scenes, an alternate opening and ending, Chainsaw Redux: In-Depth documentary, Gein: The Ghoul of Planifield documentary, cast screen tests, art gallery, 7 TV spots & trailers, Suffocate by "Motograter" Music video, and DVD-ROM Content including script-to-screen
A UMD version of the film was released on October 4, 2005 and on Blu-ray on September 29, 2010.
Stephen Hand wrote a novelization that was published March 1, 2004 by Black Flame. Hand previously wrote the novelization for Freddy vs. Jason, also for New Line and Black Flame.
There were two soundtrack albums released by Bulletproof Records/La-La Land Records for the film; the first was meant for regular audiences featuring popular rock music and was released on November 4, 2003.[11] The second was the film's original score as composed by Steve Jablonsky. This was released on October 21, 2003 and has a run time of 50:25.[12]
Trailers and TV spots used This Mortal Coil's cover of "Song to the Siren", which was originally performed by Tim Buckley.
In the beginning of the remake, the protagonists are listening to "Sweet Home Alabama", a song which was released in 1974, while the film takes place in 1973.
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