Most Hated Movies of all Time # 48 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

What do a beaver, a nun and the Queen of England all have in common? Chances are, Michael Bay has ruined all of their childhoods.  But, while the man who told TMNT fans to "chill" and managed to make the single worst Transformers movie it was possible to make (at least, in my opinion), there has also been a sub-genre of films where he has managed to anger the fans.  Namely, fans of 70's and 80's horror classics.  Starting with this one and including The Amityville Horror (okay, maybe the original wasn't a classic, it seemed pretty boring to me), The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and oh no, he's also got his mitts on The Monster Squad to remake at a theatre near you, Michael Bay under his Platinum Dunes aegis, has managed to annoy fans of these films with his pointless remakes of them.  However, we're here to talk about one specifically, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the one that started it all.

Now, I did not see the original Texas film, so me comparing it to the original, isn't going to happen.  Everyone seems to agree the  original was and still is, a classic, so that's as far as we're going with that discussion.  However, I do not necessarily agree with this being on the list...not because it shouldn't be hated, but because I don't believe it is hated. 

Here's a number for you: $80, 571.655.  No, this isn't my salary for writing this post, it's actually much lower than that.  This number represents the North American Box Office for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake.  Add in another $26.5 mil overseas (hey, it seems the folks over there realized there was no point to this remake, at least) and you have $107, 071,655 for a film that cost under $10 million to make.  So, quite simply, if this movie is hated, it would not have made this type of box office, Platinum Dunes would not have gone on to remake every frigging horror film made in the 70's/80's, maybe the other yahoos wouldn't have done so either and you're moral outrage would have been quelled.  However, that didn't happen.  This movie was popular enough that they not only made all those remakes, but they made a sequel as well.  So, there you go.

Yeah, the movie wasn't good, in my opinion and whatever the original was, it had to be better than this, but the plain truth is, I don't think this movie is hated because if it was, they wouldn't have done all the remakes and CONTINUE to do all the remakes.  So, despite the fact that true fans of the original probably aren't happy with this watered-down clanker and despite the fact when Platinum Dunes announces another remake, there's a collective series of groans across the 'Net, the fact is, none of this is possible without the first film being the success it was.

Rating: Worth the hate?  Probably, as it never should have been done on a remake, but the fact is, it wasn't, so it probably shouldn't even be on the list.

- Stephenstein

What a fright

J-Man showed me the original a while back.  The trailer for this one looked not half-bad, so I was curious to see it, even though it was a remake.  I didn't pay money to see it though, which in retrospect, was probably a good thing...


So, for those of you who are fans of the original, you won't be surprised to read that it's way better than this remake?  Why?  Simple.  The first one was more subtle, more clever, more charming.  Nothing embodies that more than Chris Sarandon, the original Jerry.  He was suave, he was charismatic.  When he seduced Amanda Bearse in the infamous club scene, you can believe despite the fact she's a virgin and won't even sleep with her boyfriend, Sarandon could somehow woo her out of her clothes, which he basically does, before turning her (temporarily) into a vampire.  In this version of the film, they're in the club, but Colin Farrell just picks Amy up and slings her over his shoulder like a caveman, there is a brief, very lame attempt at a seduction on his part.  


That's the problem with this film, though.  It just takes all the elements from the first film and continuously slams you over the head with it.  Farrell is a lot more overtly menacing as Jerry than Sarandon was, but because he so damned creepy, when Charley is telling his friends and Mom that Jerry's a vampire, they would at least think there's something wrong with the guy.  Another problem is, there's something wrong with almost everyone in the movie.  Charley at the beginning doesn't talk to Ed because he figures Amy, his girlfriend won't talk to him if he's friends with Ed because Ed is a huge nerd...which Charley is too, by the way.  Jerry is just a sleazy, creepy player who attracts women with his bad-boy persona.  Amy, she doesn't really do anything wrong, but you can sort of sense she can be a bitch if she needs to.  Peter Vincent is a huge disappointment, he's a drunken, womanizing, cowardly jackass.  It's hard to like any of the main characters, especially in the first twenty or so minutes in the film. 


That's not to say there isn't some good parts of the film.  The pacing is pretty good, there's a lot of stalking by Jerry on Charley and Amy and it doesn't take long for things to get moving, it's already established that Jerry is a vampire fifteen minutes into the film.  Peter Vincent is an actual occult student who knows lore about vampires and he has all sorts of cool artifacts and what-not in his penthouse.  I find Imogen Poots a lot more attractive as Amy than Amanda Bearse.  Yup, I'm reaching now, because there isn't a lot going for the film, the best thing I can say about it is it's pretty relentless in it's pace.  It's pretty evident that they missed a lot about what made the first film so good, though. 


So, that's Fright Night.  It's a straight vampire movie missing all of the charm of the first film.  It was sort of neat for Charley to be this horror movie fan and he gets to fight an actual vampire with Peter Vincent, whose show he watches on late-night television.  This Charley is a bland dweeb who is just lucky he got a girlfriend as hot as Amy, there's nothing that really stands out about him.  At the end of the day, if you can't cheer for the hero, you have to cheer for the villain, but he's nowhere as good as the original, either.  So, do yourself a favour, don't bother with this one and just pop in the original. 


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.


- Stephenstein

How True is Your Grit?

True Grit.

Well, I watched the original before seeing this "remake". The original had John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and Kim Darby. It was mediocre at best, hurt badly by Darby and her Mattie Ross character. Darby plays her as a whiny, demanding brat who wants things just because she does. She plagues the film with her incessant bleating about this, that and the other thing, and made me want her dead within 2 minutes. I had to laugh at the final scene when she suggests John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn would want his grave next to hers, and Wayne counters with "wouldn't that be for your husband." Yeah, as if any man, woman or child could put up with that bitch for longer than 2 seconds without killing either her or himself.

Anyhow, the new one has a 14 year-old as Mattie. I held out some hope at least if the character was whiny again, that at least it sounded better coming from a young teenager, and not a woman in her twenties. It helps too that when she does start complaining that things don't go her way, that Jeff Bridges puts her in her place, and fast.

She wasn't really whiny, though. In fact, she was quite good, as was the rest of the cast...and this was a damn fine movie, to boot. It is different that the first film, but in a good way. A lot of the problems I had with the first film were altered in this one (thus making it one of those remakes that actually improves on the original instead of proving why the original is the superior film), and the banter between Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon's character is jokes. While the first film tried to suggest there were these deep interpersonal relationships that were being developed on the journey to find a killer (and did not really work, considering that neither Wayne nor Glen Campbell had any on-screen chemistry with Darby), this film is all business, and I like that. These 3 individuals are kind of thrown together for a common goal, and they work hard to achieve it. Each has a reason for being on the expedition, be it fuelled by money, and revenge, and it's not all lovey-dovey at the end, which I like.

As expected, it was also far more brutal than the first film. People get shot (sometimes at close range), one character's tongue almost gets ripped off, one guy has his foot planted on the face of a 14 year-old girl...it has it's moments of brutality. The thing is, the movie is realistic, and does not pull punches. The killer is not remorseful for his acts, and even though he has murdered again and again, he just feels sorry for himself. Mattie's two companions are interested in the venture for the money alone, and even though they do care for Mattie and don't want any harm to come to her, it's not like their big friends after the expeditions...in fact, there's a few differences of opinion that leads to split-ups at various points in the film.

All in all, the movie was a solid Western. The movie was serious, but it had it's moments of levity, it was a big journey film, and it was a journey. Each of the characters displays their "true grit" (which is more than I can say for the original), and in the end, I was satisfied. At the end of the day, that's all I'm asking for in a movie.

Stars out of 5: Original - 2.5, Remake - 4

- Stephenstein

One more Nightmare

Hollywood, Hollywood. Why must you remake everything? Isn't it bad enough that you did a Friday the 13th "reboot" and a Halloween "reboot", must you have nailed the unholy trilogy? Was this really necessary? Were people screaming for the Nightmare franchise to be rebooted? Well, as we've all learned now by reading this blog, nothing, and I mean nothing, is sacred in Hollywood. Anyhow, I finally caught this one, just to see if it sucked as much as I thought it would. Actually, it didn't. Which doesn't mean it should have been made in the first place.

Everyone was applauding the casting of Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy. Now, I like Jackie...he was great as Rorschach in Watchmen. That doesn't mean he should get every role in the planet, though. He tries his best, and his best is still good, but I don't know if I buy him as Freddy. He's too short, for one thing, and unfortunately, they shot him short. I don't think Robert Englund is the tallest man on planet Earth, but filmmakers were usually smart enough to shoot him in a way that he filled the frame...made him more intimidating (at least, before he became jokey Freddy). There's one shot, when Freddy is fighting with Nancy, and I swear she's taller than him! Couldn't they have put a track below him, at least?

Then, there's Nancy. In this one, she's an outsider, right from the beginning. Okay, is that just to show us how isolated she is to begin with? So when Freddy starts his shenanigans, it's set up that she can't confide or turn to anyone (thus setting up her relationship with the smart, yet awkward boy)? I will say, this Freddy was kind of perplexing. What were they going for? Why turn Freddy from a murderer into a simple molester (if there is such a thing), and try and throw the "he didn't do it" angle at the viewer? Because, if you're watching this, you're either a dumb teenager (whose opinion doesn't count), or you've caught a Nightmare or 2, and know who Freddy is...and know Freddy can never, ever be innocent. He kills children in their dreams! It doesn't get more bad than that.

Then there's the Mom. Okay, so she hid evidence that Nancy went to that school, so she wouldn't remember what Freddy did to her. So why keep a class picture of Nancy and her schoolmates in her drawer! Neatly labelled with everyone's names! You know, Nancy doesn't need to remember Freddy diddling her, but I want to keep a souvenir of that! Huh? What kind of irresponsible parenting is this? Luckily, she gets the most gruesome death in the entire movie.

I will commend the filmmakers that they really tried hard to make Freddy serious. There are no real quips, and Freddy shows up a lot, and I do mean A LOT in this movie, which is satisfying, because you don't have to wait around to see Freddy. He shows up in the first 5 minutes. The makeup...I'm not completely sold on. I read they tried to emulate what a real burn victim would look like...but I like Frankenstein's green look, and what's the last time you saw a corpse that was green? So, that's fine and dandy, but why screw with a classic?

Anyhow, this movie was actually better than I thought it would be (which shows the expectations I walked in with). At least Freddy was serious, and he was doing stuff, and trying to get scares. The script didn't make sense at parts, I was indifferent to the new makeup, and Freddy wasn't menacing enough to live up to his predecessor, despite Haley's best try. Catch this one, only if you're a collector of the series, and you get every Nightmare, or whatever. Otherwise, you probably have a better movie to watch.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein

Crazy for you

Missed this one in the theatre, as well. That's right, I am making up for all past wrongs! Pretty soon, a guy named Mike Phillips is going to have me knocking on his door, demanding "why did you pick on me all that time in high school? WHY? What did I ever do to you?" before collapsing into a sobbing heap at his feet. Yes, that will surely intimidate him.

So, this is one that it was wise we didn't end up paying money for. Why? It just doesn't work. Maybe the original doesn't, either (I somehow doubt it though, considering George A. Romero made it, and he is the MAN), but this remake just didn't do it for me. Why? I'll explain.

Firstly, this film was made in the wrong time period. When Romero made it in the 70's, America was just getting around to the idea that hey, maybe our government really isn't that good! Maybe they don't have our best interests at heart! Maybe the army is a bunch of macho idiots who can't do anything right, and would panic and shoot their own citizens at a moment's notice! Stuff that would be really, you know, revolutionary and thought provoking in that era. Nowadays, we know the government is corrupt. We know the army is their enforcers, and the ideals they stood for no longer has the quote unquote "higher moral" ground. We know all this, there's been a gazillion movies on this theme. Well, now it's a gazillion and one. Hardly a feature that makes it stand out.

Number 2, what really makes an effective horror film is a) a really neat story, or b) a really neat or charasmatic monster, or c) funny, interesting teens that at least keep us entertained while the bad guy slices them to bits, or best of all d) all of the above. This film does not have any letter of the alphabet. I will give them this, there's no long lead-up, people are crazy like 4 minutes into the film, but if there's no buildup or establishment of the characters, than you need a lot of crazy (pardon the pun) action, or extreme gore, or something. It' just paint by the numbers (the sheriff realizes something is wrong, the sheriff grabs his doctor wife, conveniently, neither are affected, the army moves in, it becomes a question of avoiding the Crazies and the military, sheriff, wife, and hangers-on look for a way out, people die). There's nothing there you haven't seen before, and it was done better before. This is just mediocre, run-of-the-mill stuff.

Finally, 3rd point, if you're going to make a horror movie, at least have some good deaths. There's nothing. Most people die off-screen, the one potentially tense scene, where people are tied to beds, and a Crazie is walking around, impaling people with a pitchfork, is partially ruined by the filming technique. Crazy lifts up pitchfork, and then the next shot, pitchfork goes through bottom of the bed. Wow. You know you're in trouble, when your Aunt Selma can watch the horror film with you. It was pretty watered down, no gore, no suspense, just Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, and the supporting actors running from one spot to the next.

So, I would not bother with this one, or if you're feeling that my review has peaked your interest (which I doubt), find a way to watch it for free. Better yet, watch the original...it's probably better.

Rating 2.5 out of 5 stars.

I bid thee a fond goodnight.

- Stephenstein

When Titans Clash

Well, everything else is being remade, so why not this? For those of you not in the know, this movie is a REMAKE of the last film Ray Harryhausen already made. Much has been made about Harryhausen and his career on this blog, so I won't go into the details again. Let's just say that yes, the effects are nice in this movie. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the action sequences.

So, this one is a little different from the original. Instead of being the Gods' puppets, we now have the humans versus the Gods. It seems that the Gods resent the fact the humans aren't praying to them anymore, and the humans don't like the fact they have to pray. Or whatever. Enter Hades, who proposes that the Gods punish the humans for their insubordination (he's basically taking over the Maggie Smith role from the old film), and threatens to unleash the Kraken on Argos, unless Andromeda (who is hardly in the film) is sacrificed. Our man Perseus, embarks on a journey to find a way to stop this from happening.

So less Andromeda, and now we have Io (who is the old Andromeda character and the Burgess Meredith character rolled into one), who serves as the pseudo-love interest. Calipos is no longer a creature, but the king who condemned Perseus to death in the first place, with half his face blown off by Zeus for doing so. We do have the Stygian witches, Charon, the Kraken, and my personal fave, Medusa (who is the best thing in this whole movie), and giant scorpions, as well as a Djinn, so don't worry creature fans, you haven't been neglected.

I really liked the designs on the creatures. The giant scorpions are...well...giant scorpions, the Kraken looks awesome, the witches are amazing, and Medusa is downright sick. I would have preferred Pegasus being white instead of chocolate brown, and I was not impressed that Calipos got the shaft, both storyline and design wise, but hey, we did get some pretty good stuff, there. The sets are amazing too, Zeus' throne room is really neat, and of course, the temples, desert and Medusa's lair all have the proper atmosphere.

What really let me down in this film is the action scenes, and that's really big for this type of movie. It's weird that they got most of the character designs spot-on, which you would think would be the hard part of the film, but the action scenes, which I consider easier, blew. Why? Guess. That's right. I had no friggin' idea what was going on in the scenes. Like, none. Which is pretty sad, when you consider it's a human versus a giant scorpion, how is it possible that I can't tell who hit what? It also doesn't help that all the humans look the same (okay, when I said character design, I meant the creatures...no one cares what the humans look like, so long as they aren't wearing something stupid, like pink feathers), which was a definite mistake, visually. Since they went to pains to sort out the humans personality-wise (or about as much character destinction as you are to get in a film of this sort), why not give them little touches to separate them visually? Nope. Fast cuts, zoomed-in hits...I have no idea what's going on, half the time. The only part that didn't suck was the Medusa section...and that's only because it's mostly Medusa chasing people around, or sneaking up on people. Hard to screw that up.

So yeah, other than the action scenes, this film is really fun. You have cool-looking creatures, you have a quest, you have square-jawed good guys, a bad guy who travels around as smoke, and turns into flying creatures (!!!), and you have bits and pieces of mythology. All good. If the action scenes were proper, this would have been 4.5 to 5 stars, but alas, I can only give out 3.5 due to this.

Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I bid thee a fond clash

- Stephenstein

The Taking of Denzel Washington's Wallet

Look at that poster. Doesn't it make you want to run out and see this movie? Me neither. Still, I try and see as many Denzel Washington movies as possible (as long as it looks like something's going on in them...reason I skipped Antwone Fisher), but this is a remake! How dare I spend money on...a remake! For shame! Eh, what can I say, Stephenstein is hard up these days for theatre fare.

Actually, this movie was pretty good. You have John Travolta demanding $10,000,000 (or basically the amount of money that Denzel has in his wallet at any given time...off-screen, that is) within an hour, and if he doesn't get it, he will kill people on the train he's hijacked. At the other end of the line, you have Denzel, and boy oh boy, does this man have problems. To tell the truth, this may be the first time I've seen Denzel Washington in a role where he was completely helpless...even in John Q, when he's doing the hostage negotiating with the police for his son's life, you get the idea, hey it's Denzel, he knows what he's doing. Not in this film though, and it's really interesting to see him play a floundering character. Travolta is charasmatic as he usually is in the bad-guy role (though he's gotten to the point where just screams motherf***** at the good guys, and that's supposed to be intimidating), and John Turturro supplies solid supporting work as the veteran hostage negotiator.

My gripes with this movie are a few plot holes (ummm...if the police are speeding towards a location with $10,000,000, what idiot is going to smash into their car? I mean seriously, you're telling me the motorcycle escorts with them couldn't have cleared the streets?) and the movie was predictable, including the ending which I won't spoil here, other than to reveal, surprise surprise, Denzel and John have a confrontation, with guns involved. Still, I think this was a pretty solid movie, with a decent mix of suspense and drama, so it's worth a peek, though you can probably get away with watching it on whatever souped-up home theatre system you may possess.

Rating 3.5 out of 5.

I bid thee a fond good night.

- Stephenstein