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60%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #1,205
...out of 20,690 movies
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Driving through the backwoods of Texas, five youths pick up a traumatized hitchhiker, who shoots herself in their van. Shaken by the suicide, the group seeks help from the locals, but their situation becomes even more surreal when they knock on the door of a remote homestead. It's quickly apparent the residents are a family of inbred psychopaths, and the unlucky youths suddenly find themselves running for their lives. In hot pursuit is a disfigured, chainsaw-wielding cannibal known as Leatherface.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: April 10, 2004
We start up with the five kids in the van; Erin, Morgan, Kemper, Andy, and Pepper. They've come back from Mexico with two pounds of marijuana, and are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas. The description above is a bit off in all that, but it's not too terribly important. Lots of pot smoking and fondling is to be done on the trip, when all of a sudden, a woman is almost hit by the van. She's walking down the middle of the road with no regards to her own safety, so our happy campers decide to pick her up and give her a ride. The woman is kind of off her rocker, talking about people being killed and that these kids need to get away from the town. Of course, if that were to happen, we wouldn't have a movie, right? So, distraught at their movie madness, she pulls out a gun and offs herself. The kids now have a dead body in their van, and move on to the town to get the sheriff to help them out. Doesn't take a lot of guesses to figure out what happens there.
Decent enough remake, but doesn't come close to the original as so many of the kiddies are saying. Alot of the storyline was changed, but the basic premise stuck together. I would have liked to have seen a remake of the infamous hitchhiker scene from the original instead of the psycho woman, but the woman did go along more with the storyline of this one. Also, there were some minor timing fuckups which brought the story down a bit. The movie is set in 1973, but there's a few phrases / items / miscellaneous things throughout the movie which definitely wasn't around back then. A minor gripe, but could have easily been avoided.
I also didn't like the changes to Leatherface in this one. In the original movies, he was a bad-ass with some mental problems and a temper. In this one, he's a whiny little bitch with a chainsaw. Seeing Leatherface sitting on his ass bawling his eyes out almost made me cry, but for reasons other than what the storyline was showing. But enough with the comparisons, trying to be fair here.
The storyline, while considerably altered from the original, wasn't too shabby. I think that some of the coincedinces that just happened to happen were a bit off, and there were some considerable plot holes, but I suppose that could be overlooked... I guess. The acting wasn't very high on my list either... especially our straightedge, nagging-to-be-a-wife heroine, good ol' Jessica Biel. She belongs in more of a teen slasher flick than in a straight horror movie, and she definitely seems out of place here, which drags the movie down a bit more. The rest of the teenies aren't too bad, but nothing noteworthy either. Now, Leatherface himself... while his performance fits in more with this storyline, he definitely didn't do Gunner Hansen (the original Leatherface) a whole lot of justice. That was another letdown for myself. Is it really too much to ask for, when I'd like to see a remake keep the characteristics that made the original such a classic? Suppose so. The last gripe of the review, is this movie suffers from the DVD Collectors bug. What I mean is, it's quite obvious that parts were cut out solely to get people to check out the uber-ultra-7334-special-edition version in order to see things in detail. Since I didn't rent said version, I missed out on some of these happenings, which was the final letdown.
Overall, I'm a bit mixed on my thoughts on this. It was entertaining, and it did have some nice moments, but there were quite a few things that left a bad taste in my mouth. If you saw this one and enjoyed it, but haven't seen the original, you should definitely give it a view or two, as it's done a lot better in my opinion. If you enjoyed this one more than the original, you should be shot. 6/10.
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#1:
compoundwhore
- added August 18, 2004 at 5:36am
Jessica Biel definitely over-acted.
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#2:
Schillinger
- added August 22, 2004 at 2:41am
Why is it that this horrible remake has a better
rating than the (far superior) original? This film
was trash. They turned the most brutal film of the
70's into nothing but a typical teen slasher.
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#3:
Tristan
- added November 4, 2005 at 1:37am
This movie destroyed the original. Not only do
teens think that the original was just like this
piece of trash, every fan of the original has
wasted their money on something they probably
thought may be have decent. They skipped over the
best parts of the original, and made a cheesy
new-age horror flick, with their quick paced
camera editing, and pathetic character
development. Overall, I think this movie is just
sad. It makes you wonder what those dipshits in
New Line are up to.
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#4:
Ginose
- added December 26, 2005 at 10:13pm
First off, shut-up. I will arge with you all about
how good this movie was. It wasn't GREAT but it
was decent, not so much as a remake, but more like
a sequal in alot of ways. For one the story has
been changed dramaticaly. In all fairness this one
was scarier. This Leatherface was far better
designed and the charecters were far more
memrorible. sure the original dominated compared
to this, but you people are pissy simply because
it MAY turn off some potential fans to the series.
I thuroughly enjoyed this film and I am the horror
master. So this movie was decent, nothing compared
to the original, but good. 7/10
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#5:
QuietMan
- added January 2, 2006 at 7:14pm
Honestly never saw the original but this movie is
awesome to do mystery science theater 3000 type
commentary on with your friends. "how can that
chainsaw still be running it's been a long time? "
"Well my friend that chainsaw is powered by dream
light and moon beams"
just for that i
gotta say 7/10
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#6:
Ginose
- added August 9, 2007 at 11:27pm
...disregard previous comment, I'm an asshole.
Ignore all comparisons to the original "TCM" and
drop the rating to a 6.3/10. A purchase and
repeated viewings have now shown me a greater
truth to both this and the original. My
apologies, once again, for my rectum-like
disposition.
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#7:
Crispy
- added December 20, 2008 at 2:18am
Wasn't a bad flick. Any flick with Jessica Biel
running around in a white tank top in the rain
gets my vote. As for its merits as a slasher
flick; meh, I've seen better, and I've seen worse.
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#8:
Mal
- added December 14, 2009 at 7:02pm
Okay It wasnt that but the Nu leatherface was
AWSOME but the rest of the movie was sucked
outloud
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#9:
benloveshorror
- added November 24, 2010 at 3:20pm
I guess I should be shot then, because I liked
this just as much (if not more) as the original.
9/10
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#10:
Lucid Dreams
- added November 24, 2010 at 4:05pm
This film barely made average and I doubt I will
ever take another look into this. Now like Chris
said it's hard to resist Jessica Biel in a tank
top running around in the rain. I hate her
acting, but she is hawt. 5/10
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