What I Liked: R.
Lee Ermey (On Deadly Ground, The
Frighteners) does a great job as the sadistic sheriff. He doesn’t play it subtle at all, which
would’ve served the movie better in my opinion, but he puts on a nice show for
ya with the callous, crude and straight up assholic attitude.
Jessica Biel (Next)
tries hard. She’s screaming her head off
and crying all over the place but always keeps herself moving forward. Good work.
The set design is well done with tons of random crap strewn
about the murder mansion. All the body
parts everywhere, things in jars and general gross wetness of the place is
great atmosphere.
What I Didn’t Like:
The cinematography is not very well done which is interesting because it’s the
same guy that shot the original ’74 joint, Daniel Pearl. He started out making features but found his
real niche in music videos during the mid 80’s.
What got him back into doing films again was this Chainsaw remake. Both versions
use almost exclusively low angle or eye level shots but it bothered me more when
Pearl employed the same method again here.
I’m just not sure why. I felt
like I wanted to lift my head up all the time.
And I’m not into the washed out nearly black and white color palate that
was used.
This item may seem trivial but it kinda pissed me off that
the filmmakers cheated rather badly with one particular kill. When Leatherface is chasing one of the teens
through white sheets that are hung up to dry outside he magically teleports to
get in front of the victim and saws one of his legs off. I don’t know if it was the editor’s fault
(Glen Scantlebury (Dracula (1992)))
or if they simply fucked up when they shot the scene and they couldn’t really
fix it in post. I know this teleportation
shit happens all the fucking time in horror movies (especially slashers) but
this specific instance really annoyed me.
I dunno.
Overall Impressions: First, there is no reason for this film to
exist. The original is a masterpiece and
will most likely never be topped. I’m
all for sequels and rip offs but to roll this sonuvabitch out as a remake is
pure marketing for a quick cash grab.
But if we leave that aside and judge the picture on its own
it still stinks. It’s slasher movie 101
to a tremendous fault. Everything you
expect to happen in a guy-with-a-chainsaw-running-through-the-woods film
happens. There’s zero unpredictability
and that makes for a dull experience. Like
if R. Lee Ermey scaled back his performance to the point where you were unsure
if he was a good guy or a bad guy then we’re starting to be a little more
thoughtful. But you know where all
characters stand the moment you meet them, and all events play out like you’ve
seen a million times before in the most by-the-numbers way possible.
The movie almost feels like it was made by someone that had
never seen the original before but was told everything that happens. It’s not visionary in any way. There’s nothing about it that’s superior to
the first Chainsaw and there aren’t any
new idea that are kinda neat which makes this a bit of a wasted effort.
I wanna be clear that this isn’t even close to the worst
movie I’ve ever seen. It’s totally
watchable but it’s just so uninteresting.
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