You can probably give a brief summary of the original film in one not-so-brief sentence: Michael Myers is a messed-up little kid who kills his sister, gets sent away to the nuthouse but breaks out, and then tries to kill his younger sister many years later. In fact, that same synopsis is true for this film even though you would have to make a few inserts between commas here and there to get the gist of this film. Here we learn that Michael is not some normal-ish kid who simply snaps but is raised in an environment that guarantees an outcome of either loose or psychotic depending on the gender of the child. You’d like to think that Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) was trying hard to raise her kids right but then you are reminded that she is a stripper and is voluntarily living with an abusive asshat. You might even feel a tinge of sympathy for Michael up until he butchers a rat off-camera in the first few moments and increases his violence thereafter.

Once the initial Halloween deed is done and Michael is found guilty of murder, Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is assigned to his rehabilitation but after a few violent outbursts and a decade and a half later, Loomis resigns having failed to elicit even a rudimentary response out of the now gargantuan Myers. Depending on which version you watch, Michael escapes somehow and treks back to Haddonfield to find Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) for some snuggle time. Or maybe to kill her. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows?

Now, before I go all crazy negative, I will point out some of the things in Zombie’s Halloween that I like. Visually it is quite good and I hear that is the common thread between other Zombie-directed films (this being the only one I’ve seen, I’m merely going off the consensus). The direction, mostly, is spot on with little dispute from myself and most of the actors are quite good considering they are merely playing stereotypes of previously named folk in other films. Even though I didn’t care for the identical score from the first repurposed for this installment, especially in inappropriate times, the music was good as well. But sadly, for all the praise I can give to the production design or the acting, the story is the weakest link by far.

It almost seems that during the writing phase, Zombie was torn between a retelling of the original Halloween night with its subsequent aftermath and a pretty straight-forward remake of the original complete with the same characters and even identical lines of dialogue here and there. Unwilling or unable to pick between either, these two incomplete films are haphazardly sewn together into one really odd narrative to make a full movie out of. Even more sad is that it still runs way too long for a slasher film, especially considering that our final girl does not show up until almost halfway into the film.

The most aggravating thing about Zombie’s Halloween is that I see where either part of the story could have become a decent movie if separated from the other. Truthfully, I would much rather have seen a feature-length version of Michael stalking Laurie since that is where Zombie really showed the most promise with brutal attacks, not-as-hackneyed moments, and even a healthy bit of nudity (including from Danielle Harris!). My main issue with the front half of the film is that all of the characters are one-dimensional assholes with nary a redeeming quality between them. Laurie and her friends weren’t that well-drawn either but at least they were somewhat sympathetic even though I wanted to murder someone listening to their insipid dialogue about cheerleading or boyfriends or sex. If anything, for that half of the film, Zombie needed a Debra Hill for the adolescent teenage speak but he apparently went at it alone leading to some irritating results.

For every two things I liked, there were three that I did not, including the pointless trucker (Ken Foree!), the random hook-up in the Myers’ house, or the time period ambiguous settings. If he were not so beholden to throw in as many remembrances or re-stagings of the original, Zombie might have made a pretty decent entry in the Halloween franchise. But, the bifurcated nature of the story plus the horrendously drawn-out chase scenes between Michael and Laurie really distract from any enjoyment that may be obtained otherwise. But hey, at least it’s better than Busta Rhymes in Resurrection. At least Zombie has that in his corner.

A remake to the 1990 Paul Verhoeven semi-classic Total Recall is due out sometime next year. It will star Colin Farrell (yawn). It is set to be directed by Len Wiseman (has this guy made a movie I care about?). It will reportedly also feature Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale as the battling female leads and Bryan Cranston as baddie Cohaagen.

I remember reading but cannot seem to recall where (cute, huh?) that the remake was supposed to be more faithful to the Philip K. Dick short than the first movie was. But as I posited long ago, even with the remake window shrinking rapidly, does the world need another Total Recall film? After all, it will have been 22 years since the first came out when the new one is released. If we assume that the new film will be rated R, then that means that the vast majority of the viewing audience was aware of or at least alive when the original was released.

Verhoeven’s Recall is classic Ahnuld and at least quote worthy even though it may not be in the top-tier of late 80s action. So, what is to gain with doing a remake? I can’t imagine it is based off a resounding love for PKD and the desire to do his story right. Nor can I figure there is really an argument to remake this for another generation since those most likely to devour it are likely the same audience as twenty years ago. So, I guess the moral of the story is that Hollywood is full of greedy bastards, even if they manage to incorporate “YOU BLEW MY COVAH!” into the script.

Remind me to keep my mouth shut the next time I say I should have been scarred. 2010′s I Spit on Your Grave is a remake of a 1978 film of the same name. I was unimpressed by the original with its bland characters, lack of tension and surprisingly boring execution of a heinous serious of events. The remake rectifies these issues, but to the complete extreme.

The story is the same; a writer named Jennifer arrives in the deep country to write her first novel. Before she gets to her cabin, she interacts with some locals, a healthy mix of creepy, retarded and seemingly harmless. An embarrassing event occurs at the gas station which establishes part of a motive for some depraved acts. This combined with a retarded chap’s misinterpretation of a kiss from Jennifer, quickly results in the go ahead for those acts. Jennifer is assaulted, mentally tortured, and ultimately raped repeatedly. Before the assailants can kill her, she jumps into the river and disappears. Her body is never recovered. About a month later she returns, to get her revenge.

There are some improvements from the original. There actually is a clearly established motive for these men to commit the acts that they do. In the original, they seemed to be a result of mostly them just being country psychos. Also, in the original, the men were lured in to the most ridiculous of traps and met there demise. The remake has them being ambushed for lack of a better term and dispatched in fairly quick and bizarre fashions. Having said those things, this version seemed more realistic.

However.

This film (I watched the unrated version) is quite vile. Needless to say, the crimes committed against Jennifer were most certainly uncomfortable and heinous. Not just the rape, but the mental abuse and games they play with her were just as evil. But, also the crimes committed against the men. Horrible, elaborate deaths. Disturbing at best.

This leads to the ultimate debate that should occur if both men and women view this at the same time. Were Jennifer’s actions justified? It’s clearly obvious her actions are revenge driven, but in case you may not pick up on that, she says the same things to each victim that were said to her during her ordeal. But does that make her right in her actions? If, not what would be fitting? Arrests and eventual death chamber? Same end result. Just not as inhumane. Possibly. I say that the debate “should” occur because it certainly will not. Everyone will be too busy washing their brains in hot water in an effort to remove some of the images. The film seems more interested in shock value than healthy discussion. Not that all films should result in a healthy discussion, but man. You have quite a controversial subject to not want to spark one.

The film is better acted, directed and just plain is better than the original. But is it good? Unfortunately, no. It goes too far. Instead of say, the A Time to Kill approach about justifiable homicide, which mostly involves a deadly reaction to something and then a trial, this film just shows repeated horrible acts, which leaves you too jarred to even discuss the subject.

Unlike the previous reviews, I will not be giving you a recap of the finale of Freddy vs. Jason. Only because it has nothing to do with the continuity of the Friday the 13th. For this is a re-something involving several of the early films.

During the credit sequence of this film we see Pamela Voorhees chasing a a young girl. It is  June, 13, 1980. She tells the girl that she must pay for letting her son Jason drown. Unfortunately for her, the young girl chops her damn head off. After the credits end, we transplanted to “present day,” which is 20 years later according to some dialogue. A group of young people are hiking, and stop near Camp Crystal Lake to find some marijuana that they heard was being grown in the woods. As tradition dictates, there is an obligatory camp scene and the legend of Jason is told.  The same poor choices are made;  some have sex, some wander off and find Camp Crystal Lake. Jason kills everyone except for Whitney. He keeps her. Flash forward several weeks later, Whitney’s brother Clay comes to town with missing person flyers, hoping to find her. Also arriving are a random group of more young people, going to Trent’s father’s cabin (Trent is a rich dick, thus we immediately hate him). Then the death. Oh my goodness, the death.

Most of the issues with this film are the same as the Nightmare remake. It is unclear what kind of “re” this is supposed to be. We never go further back than the original film. In fact, this version only shows us the decapitation of Pamela Voorhees during the credits, then moves on. Jason was never in the original film (present day), and his mother was the murderer. In this film, after the credits are over and we are in present day, Jason is the killer, wearing a sack on his head, which was in part 2. At some point in this film, Jason finds a hockey mask, which did not happen until part 3.

Also, what’s with the timeline? This time around, Jason’s mother is killed in 1980 and then we flash forward 20 years. The original timeline separates the first two films by 5 years. So at this point, I peg 2009 F13 to be in the year 2000, 2 years before Freddy vs. Jason. Platinum Dunes seems to purposely mix already established storyline with “new” storyline (or stealing, but changing certain things). So, are you rebooting, re-imaging, consolidating or what?

The first 23 minutes of the film (if you can view this ignoring the other films) is awesome. Brutal deaths. Frightening scenes. Jason runs quite fast as opposed to slowly chasing you and magically appearing someplace else. There is very little comedy and it is just a dark film during this time. This was more than likely done to quickly establish a back story so that the rest of the film could linger establishing stereotypes and pretending it was like the rest of the franchise. Guess what? Uneven!

However, Jason was quite sinister in this. He does not waste time, nor does he seem to have spent time thinking of humorous ways to kill people. In fact, Jason seems very human. He has traps and a sort of alarm system set up in the woods to let him know when potential victims are present.   This was quite enjoyable.

This film’s downfall is its constant references (stealing) from  multiple earlier films, but insistence on also having original material. It is not at the same level as the Nightmare remake was, but it is in the same vein.

If you are going to update a classic (which at this point the original was) that’s fine. If you want to remake it, great. If you even want to re -imagine it, I don’t care. But, pick one. And stick to that.

Favorite kill: Jason seals up Amanda in her sleeping bag, then hovers her over the campfire and she burns.

The original was not necessarily a bad movie to my hazy recollection but it certainly did not have the prestige or fan base as some of PD’s other endeavors. In fact, I don’t recall much outcry when this was announced comparatively to their other projects. The story is largely the same in both versions, re-emphasizing the production company’s reliance on remaking instead of reimagining. Here, young couple Jim and Grace are traveling through the southwest to meet up with some friends. On the way, they almost strike a man standing in the middle of the road. Being in the middle of nowhere, Jim wants to stop and give the man a ride but Grace objects and the two carry on.

Later at a gas station, Jim is approached by the man in the road who introduces himself as John Ryder. He has hitched a ride with a trucker but now needs a ride to a motel. Jim agrees but not long into their trek Ryder goes crazy and threatens Grace with a knife before he is kicked from the moving car. Ryder targets the pair and begins a path of death and mayhem which he successfully frames them for. The bulk of the movie is Jim and Grace trying to not only stay away from the suspecting police but also the crazed mad man on a somewhat clichéd, but still terrifying spree.

We’ve already established with Battle: Los Angeles that I do not necessarily need my movies to be groundbreaking to be enjoyable. In fact, just like that movie, I could see most of the relevant plot points coming a mile a way. I just need something to keep my short attention span engaged and shockingly, The Hitcher actually delivers. There are a fair amount of car chases and shoot-outs to be had and even if some of the ancillary characters are incredibly stupid (cops who just look while being shot at), everything is fairly straight-forward and shockingly restrained considering this film’s remade cinematic brethren.

Sean Bean plays Ryder pretty terrifically as equal parts bat-shit insane and just diabolical. He is never really given a true motive or reason for targeting the couple but that does not matter much when random cars are falling from the sky and people are dropping dead every few minutes. The story by Eric Bernt and Jake Wade Wall start the action very early and the direction by Dave Meyers gives the film a frenetic pace as Ryder ups the ante while upping the body count as well.

Sophia Bush and Zach Knighton as Grace and Jim respectively portray their characters absent the standard clichés you would expect in this type of movie. Relatively speaking, they are proactive and smart and even have a nice chemistry together. When the shit hits the fan (or the torque of a tractor trailer), Bush is fairly convincing as a badass as well. Neal McDonough as the lead lawman pursuing the kids/murderousmadman/whichever is pretty entertaining with a few choice lines and a solid performance.

I must say that given the output of the production company, I expected The Hitcher to be a half-realized, shameless ripoff of a previous film. To an extent, it was but that doesn’t stop the film from being a tense, yet amusing way to kill an hour and a half.

But who in the hell thinks a remake of Kevin Coster’s The Bodyguard is a good idea? Based on my hazy recollection from fifteen years ago or so the film itself isn’t necessarily bad albeit a little cheesy and overly-romanticized for my tastes. But is this such a high concept that it warrants a remake?

Hell, what is to stop Warner Brothers from taking the same concept, casting Usher and Lady GaGa, and calling it Absurdity: The Movie? People complain all the time that recent movies are blatant rip-offs of previous films (most recently The Roommate = SWF). I guess film studios are now going to acknowledge that something is a remake (you know, because any similarities are then intentional). Sadly, I’m sure that this will be a surefire hit just like the original was almost twenty years ago.

But I wonder, where are all the movie goers demanding to see something they haven’t already seen before? Oh, they’re probably seeing that Justin Bieber “movie.”

Deadline Hollywood: Warner Bros Remakes ‘The Bodyguard’

Now, with all that out of the way, this movie opens with a team of archaeologists exploring a cave and some of the most horrific line deliveries in recorded history. Throughout this picture the acting ranges in quality from stiff and unnatural to hammy and laughable, but what we get inside the first five minutes of screen time is absolutely terrifying.  Thankfully, the acting never gets any worse than this and most of these guys in the cave get torched after one of the diggers hits a glowing rock with a hatchet. A couple of years later, one of the surviving archaeologists from earlier, Dr. Campbell, (Richard B. Livingston) is heading an excavation to unearth a massive dinosaur skeleton. A photojournalist is dispatched to the sight who’s name escapes me because he serves no purpose to the plot other than to introduce the audience to other, more important characters. He meets Campbell’s sometimes British assistant Holly, (Donna Philipson) and Campbell’s old and seemingly insane associate Dr. Hughes. (Harrison Young) Hughes has come to warn everyone that the skeleton they are uncovering, which he calls Yonggary, will destroy mankind. He apparently learned this from some unexplained prophecy written in hieroglyphics in that cave from the opening scene. Of course no one buys this prophecy crap, not even I do and I watched the whole movie, and Dr. Hughes is escorted out of the camp. It turns out that there have been a lot of ominous and plot convenient fatal accidents happening around the dig site, but Dr. Campbell acts like a monomaniacal ass hole the entire time and tries to play them off as run-of-the-mill industrial accidents and threatens people to keep quiet about them.

At the same time the military, represented here by the very fictional United National Defense Agency, is having trouble with some missing satellites. Turns out there’s a big, badly rendered alien spaceship special effect orbiting the Earth, and the hand puppet aliens inside, that also speak English, are here to wipe out humanity and conquer the planet. For what reason, we don’t know, but they intend to do this thing by reanimating the giant fossilized skeleton. The evil insectoid aliens, because there are no good insectoid aliens, fire a massive energy beam down to Earth that resurrects Yonggary and puts muscle and skin back on him. In typical monster movie fashion, Yonggary, who is being controlled by the aliens via a diamond shaped device on his forehead, is set loose to destroy humanity. Let me just recap that. The aliens came to Earth two hundred million years ago, found a giant monster (apparently the only one of its kind) fitted it with a brain control device, then let it die and waited for hundreds of millions of year to come back to Earth, which they knew would eventually be controlled by the human race, and then bring a fossilized monster, which has just recently been conveniently unearthed, back to life to kill all humans. That is their master plan. Why not just return to Earth while humans are still living in caves and conquer the Earth then? How about invade Earth with more than one battleship and wipe out civilization yourselves? But it’s this flimsy premise that finally gets us to the giant monster wrecking stuff portion of the film. Anyway, after the fake army throws helicopters and jets at the monster to no avail, they turn to a newer, more high-tech option to take the monster down. That option is to send in guys wearing jet-packs and fly around Yonggary like tiny, foul mouthed gnats and shoot at him with assault rifles. The strike vehicles with missiles and large caliber guns didn’t work, so they send in smaller, less well armored troops with smaller guns to finish the job. How does this make any logical sense? Needless to say, there are a lot of holes in this plot. It’s just to bad that the giant monster they’re shooting at is so bland, unoriginal, and badly made. If I was director Shim Hyung-rae and I saw these lifeless, rubbery, completely unnatural looking creature effects during production, I would have scrapped those scenes and re-shot them with a man in a foam-rubber Yonggary costume. This computer generated abomination actually looks worse than the worst guy-in-a-rubber-suit effect.

On top of all the acting, writing, and special effects problems, this movie is so full of cliches and scenes that seem almost completely ripped off from other films that I had to watch it twice just to find them all. It follows all of the giant monster movie tropes that have been cultivated over three decades of kaiju cinema. Aliens start out in control the creature to use as a super weapon to crush humanity. The monster runs a muck in a major city. All of the major human characters are either scientists, in the military, or in the news media. And, after Yonggary is freed from his alien overlords, those aliens bring in another monster so the two beasts can slug it out in a major metropolitan area. However, the film seems to take more inspiration from certain Roland Emmerich movies than it does from classic monster films. The aliens bare a striking resemblance to the invaders from Independence Day, and there are several scenes involving fighter pilots firing missiles and spouting jargon that sounds like it was lifted right out of that film. The director also makes the mistake of trying to recreate several scenes from the 1998 American Godzilla, including Yonggary dueling with a squadron of helicopters and many instances of missiles failing to lock on to the creature and striking nearby buildings instead. I’m sure one could make a wonderful drinking game out of this movie. Every time the old crazy guy mentions something about the supposed prophecy that no body cares about, take a shot. Every time you see a bad composite image, take a shot. Every time Holly forgets to talk with her British accent, take a shot. Every time there’s a scene where the stupid aliens talk about something that we just saw happen on screen thirty seconds ago, take a shot. Come to think of it, where is my bourbon? I need to drink the pain away.

**THIS RANT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ANY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET MOVIE**

A remake/reboot/reimagining/whatever is truly not a bad idea at the surface. There are many films or even ideas that are not fully realized in their original form whether it suffered from technological limitations, poor production, or other issues. Other than the George Lucases of the world, most filmmakers or companies are not able to retroactively go back and fix problem areas in an already released movie. The problem comes in when a remake offers nothing over the original other than a polished look, a slew of teen actors, and a more modern setting. The Nightmare on Elm Street remake is one of those offending movies.

For any movie, whether it is based on an existing property or somewhat original idea, the goal should be to create something not only enjoyable but a film that can stand on its own. The Nightmare remake (which PBF did a wonderful job summarizing my thoughts before I had them in his review) leans far too much on the existing films to be seen as anything other than a money-grab from nostalgic fanboys like myself.

To find the essence of a good, nay spectacular, remake let’s look at 2004′s Dawn of the Dead. It had zombies and people in a mall. Other than cameos and a few repeated lines, there was little else in that remake that was ripped from the remake. In contrast, I would guesstimate approximately 68% of everything in the NOES remake was either directly lifted from at least one movie of the original series or a sometimes subtle, and at other times not, homage.

Like PBF said before, if you are going to rip off iconic shots from a movie, do it shot-by-shot like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. It might not turn out well but at least it had a clear intention. Others, like Dawn, take the mere essence of the story and branch off. Would I have been upset to have a movie titled “A Nightmare on Elm Street” that had the burned-face Freddy Krueger hunting kids in their dreams? No, as long as the story was something that I hadn’t seen before.

Where I will give the remake credit is that the underlying story was different than the original films and largely interesting. A group of kids have similar nightmares, discover that at one time they knew each other, and have to piece together both their connections and the man of their dreams.

In fact, the main crux of the tale is what would stop me from labeling it as crap. In fact, it was pretty cool. It takes the pop-culture knowledge of Freddy and further vilifies him as Krueger is not merely a child killer but a child molester. Add to that the guilt that the characters feel thinking that their accusations may have killed an innocent man and we’ve got a pretty decent story going. Why does Freddy then have a razor-blade glove in the flashbacks? Oh, just another stupid allusion to its source.

What isn’t cool is to rip me out of this story to have gratuitous callbacks to the original movie (and even the sequels which I really did not understand). For the sake of nostalgia, I was willing to forgive the inclusion of the bathtub scene or the hallway that turns into a blood-red sea of unwalkable sludge like the stairs from the original. What I was not forgiving of was random quips like “How’s this for a wet dream?” or pointless shots like Freddy coming out of Nancy’s wall (albeit in horrible CGI) which quickly cut to another scene with no further reflection.

I hate that movie producers are so quick to harp on those that bash a remake because it is a remake. Well, geniuses, if you weren’t reminding me every three minutes that you are unoriginal enough to fill your movie with pointless references to another film, I might be more open-minded. That argument holds as much water as someone remaking Star Wars as ‘Star Battles’ with a character named Jon Soho complaining about the constant comparison.

Going back to the Dawn remake, it had rather subtle references to the original movie. Ken Foree had a brief part as a preacher. A store was called Gallen Ross (one of the actors in the original). These sorts of things are homages, not blatant plagiarism. There was some subtly here though with Nancy driving a Volvo station wagon (that type of car shows up at least three times in the original series) or a particular shot of Kris driving in her convertible that mirrors a shot in Nightmare 4. I’m convinced these cannot be accidentally but purposefully included for the fans like me who grew up on this series.

Why then must the characters of Kris and Jesse (obviously patterned after Tina and Rod but named after previous series characters) have expanded storylines? They die. We know this. But every minute they are on screen, we have less time with Nancy (Nancy) and Quentin (Glen) which makes their time together so awkward that their casual conversation consists of “What’s your favorite color?” Whereas in the first film, we had a firm grasp on Nancy and her personality as it slowly became unraveled, no one character gets time to expand because of another stupid reference shoehorned into the movie!

To summarize, I agree with PBF’s assessment that you cannot like both the new and old NOES. If you like the old, you will find the new one irritatingly different and similar at the same time. If you like the new, you have not seen the old. If that is the case, you should rectify that as soon as fucking possible.

/endrant

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the first of many remakes by Platinum Dunes. While I feel it is better than most of their others, I still question the need of making any sequel, remake or otherwise to the original.

In this “chapter,” we are taken to August 18, 1973, two days before the police archive video we watch takes place, complimented with narration by, once again, John Larroquette. 5 young people are travelling to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in a van all stoned and having a good time. The driver, Kemper (Eric Balfour), almost hits a girl wandering in the middle of the rural road they are travelling. They pick her up, only to be subjected to her ramblings about a “bad man” and eventually her suicide, via a handgun produced from her crotch. Traumatized they attempt to find local law enforcement in the backwoods that they are travelling in and come across a gas station. The old lady working there says that the sheriff is at the mill but he will be there in 2 hours. Not wanting to haul around a carcass, the group of young people seek out the mill, with the hitchhiker’s body in tow. They come across a young boy, who tells them that the sheriff is at home getting drunk. Erin (Jessica Biel) and Kemper go the house, which merely produces an amputee in a wheelchair, who states that the sheriff does not live there, but Erin, and only Erin may go in to use the phone to call the sheriff. She is told that he will be there in 30 minutes, but he (R. Lee Ermey) actually shows up at the mill, “investigates,” and wraps up the hitchhiker’s body in cling wrap, stuffs her in the trunk  and drives off. While this is going on, Kemper is killed by Leatherface (now called Thomas Hewitt, as opposed to just Leatherface, or  Leatherface “Bubba” Sawyer, Leatherface  ”Junior” Sawyer or Leatherface Slaughter as he has been up to this point) unbeknown to Erin as she makes her way back to the mill. Guess what? More chainsaw massacre!

I am really over this shit. Not only does the bizarrely weird timeline of this franchise bother me, I just don’t get the point of going on. I mean, I can buy that this one could be an attempt to redeem the series from where it went awry, but even so I can’t help but compare it to the original from which it is a supposed remake. If I do that, it sucks. Indeed, there are not many films (of any genre) if any at all, that compare to such a film as the 1974 original.

As an autonomous horror film, it isn’t bad. Jessica Biel, and everyone else is good.  I mean it doesn’t stand out, but it plays the formula well. False scares, gruesome murders. But, the original is special (at least to me). Why keep attaching its name? Oh, I see. Because Leatherface is in every one. Doesn’t matter that he seems to float through time and end up with different families.  Doesn’t matter that the story may change or stay the same or even be non linear; as long as his name is on it, who gives a shit? Well, it bothers me. And as each one applies the TCM name, it just angers me more that it is related to such a perfect film as the original.

I mean, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th (both remade by Platinum Dunes) were not aesthetically great films, but their sequels were in kind. The original Chainsaw was a brilliant vision. Years ahead of the aforementioned less quality sequelheads, and it just seems to be an insult a chapter.

You could definitely do worse as a horror film in general, but this remake only serves to show the gore that the original did not (and incidentally was so successful for not showing) in quite a less tension filled execution. It really feels like we are getting robbed more, each film after another.