THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003): Remade in Hell – My Love Letter to the 2000s Horror Remakes

Sneaking into the Scariest Night of My Childhood

I was eleven years old when I snuck into my local 3-theater cinema to watch 7th Heaven star Jessica Biel run from a chainsaw-wielding maniac in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). My best friend Cody and I were forced to forgo our usual “kids combo,” which cost a whopping $5 for a small popcorn, drink, and candy at the concession counter, to maintain a low profile. Of course, neither of us had seen the original film, but that didn’t matter because they made a new one just for us.

We took cover in the back of the dark theater where the crowds thinned out. Our heads bowed behind the gum-stricken seats in front of us to avoid the eyeline of any usher brave enough to walk the aisles with Leatherface on the loose. This was a movie moment that felt different. It felt important. It wasn’t just another horror film produced and pumped out by the Hollywood machine. At least to us. This was a remake of quite possibly the scariest film that had ever been made, and it carried the name to back it up. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

There is no greater title.

What I didn’t know was just how influential that October evening with my best friend would wind up being. It was the beginning of something, a commercial movement in film that would shape horror cinema for the next decade. But there we were. Me and Cody. Two eleven-year-old boys watching a horror movie through the cracks in our fingers.

While I can’t sit here and tell you that every horror remake from the aughts is a masterpiece or even worth your time, what I can tell you is how much these films meant to me. And each week in October I will be examining a different remake from this decade to discuss and dissect the film, my life, and the times. How our post-9/11 nationalism inadvertently gave way to the most nihilistic and gruesome decade in studio horror filmmaking. It was the decade in which we saw the Twin Towers crumble on live TV and the internet roared into our everyday lives. When I would finally lose my father to cancer and going to the movies was all we had.

These were the horror movies I escaped to and where a piece of me will always stay. This is Remade in Hell.

Revisiting the Original Before the Revival

Before diving into the Michael Bay-produced remake, we must first touch upon the perfection that is Tobe Hooper’s original film. Shot on a shoestring budget and released in 1974, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (“chain saw” is spelled as two words) is a film of unmatched brilliance. It is The Wizard of Oz of horror pictures.

But that’s not what I want to talk about, and that’s not the film the remake tries to be. We need to separate any thoughts we have about the original picture in order to fully embrace the remake. If you go into a movie demanding it to be one thing, you’re already a sucker in your seat. Let the film come to you. Like you just snuck into the theater with your best friend.

Blood, Beauty, and the Birth of Platinum Dunes Horror

In 2003, we have a first-time director (Marcus Nispel), a first-time casting director (Lisa Fields, more on her later), and the first film produced by Michael Bay and Brad Fuller’s shiny new production company, Platinum Dunes. Pair that with cinematography from Daniel Pearl, who shot Tobe Hooper’s original film, and a fresh young cast bursting out of their Levi jeans and sweaty tank tops and we’ve got something special.

Each star is better looking than the next, but with the acting chops to ground their performances. A far cry from your Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street sequels (or remakes) with unlikeable teens whose sole purpose is to be thrown into a meat grinder. Jessica Biel is dynamic in her first leading role, and at just 21 years of age, she carries the film entirely atop her bony, exposed shoulders.

But the real star, her foil in the film, is that of Thomas Hewitt, better known as Leatherface. A far less sympathetic portrait of the character than Gunnar Hansen’s. This Leatherface is played by Andrew Bryniarski, a towering stunt actor who looks to have been plucked from hell to stalk the Texas back roads. To recreate Hansen’s original Leatherface would have been a misstep, so they upgraded him for the 21st century. Gone are the days of film grain and gritty 70s aesthetics. This is the millennium, and we need more bloodshed, more violence, and more everything. At the hands of an incompetent director, the pieces would have collapsed on themselves, but Nispel handles the material with precision and style.

And how could I continue without mentioning the late great R. Lee Ermey as Sheriff Hoyt and uncle to Leatherface? He is as sensational as he is sinister, and you can’t take your eyes off him anytime he’s onscreen. I love that before he utters one word of his phenomenal dialogue, Sheriff Hoyt spits a wad of chewing tobacco into the dirt. Pure cinema.

The key to Marcus Nispel’s 2003 remake is that he delivers the gore and goods, but never at the expense of the overall film. It’s kinetic in its approach. Launching the viewers headfirst into madness alongside our unassuming youths.

When Horror Movies Were All We Had

The world outside the movie theater that day was one of extreme uncertainty. Not only for myself, but for the world. Had my dad returned home from the hospital after another round of chemotherapy? Would New York ever recover from the attacks on September 11th? There was a new dawn breaking, but for that hour and a half none of it mattered. Because I had my best friend in the world, a pitch-black movie theater, and a horror film that was made for us.

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