While I may not have gone through with my original plan to review each Nightmare, Craven, and Platinum Dunes film prior to this, I’m not too sure it was that big of a loss. With the premiere of the original trailer for this latest Dunes remake, as well as the previous news of Jackie Earle Haley’s casting, I was ecstatic. Being a very critical fan of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, what I saw was a remake with true potential. It looked darker, it looked grittier, and it looked serious. Plus, Freddy actually looked like a fucking burn victim! How could things possibly go wrong?
With my current schedule being filled to the point that I’ve more than slipped away from my reviewing process, it’s nice to come back and enjoy the soothing nature of the wordsmith. Rather it be tearing into an old Ulli Lommel vehicle (see 
After their 2003 attempt at remaking Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and a 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror (review coming soon), Platinum Dunes gave in to fan demands and decided it best to develop a prequel to their first big hit with Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, as directed by Darkness Falls‘ Jonathan Liebesman. Of course, we all know that Darkness Falls was a horrendous piece of shit, even without the Puppet Tooth Fairy of Death, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if The Beginning was equally horrendous and shitty. Lucky us, it would seem that Darkness Falls was indeed a fluke, and that the South African director really does know what he’s doing.
Here we are at the beginning of our Platinum Dunes marathon, leading up to April’s month-long Wes Craven coverage, in turn leading up to my April 30th review of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Here we have the first film produced by Platinum Dunes: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the 2003 Marcus Nispel-directed horror flick based on the 1974 classic. As it will be with all further entries spread over the next few months, I’ve already gone over the original film and it’s sequels, and now it’s time to get into the remake. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it strike fear into our pitiful hearts or does it suck the paint off a Cadillac? Let’s dig in and find out…
Apparently not happy with the direction of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series after the original’s release, co-writer Kim Henkel decided to take over and direct the fourth installment of the series, aptly titled Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After a tumultuous release history with Columbia Pictures resulting in a change of title to Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, the film was dumped into a handful of theaters and faded into obscurity. Unfortunately, this would be much more surprising if Henkel wasn’t a fucking lunatic.
Damn it, Jeff Burr. Just when I’m starting to like you after Stepfather 2, I go back and watch Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and remember just how damn flawed you really are. It’s gonna fucking suck when I review the Pumpkinhead series…
After 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, director Tobe Hooper quickly found himself on a bumpy road through Hollywood. Working interchangeably on schlock like Eaten Alive and The Funhouse while also developing classics like Salem’s Lot and Poltergeist, he cemented his mark while also proving himself to be a highly flawed director. Some might say he was simply given the proverbial shaft by the Hollywood system, who wouldn’t allow him the budget or creativity he required, but it’s nonetheless obvious that his talent behind the camera was like a game of throwing darts. As his career continued, this became more and more factual, with films like The Mangler and later Mortuary coming off more as meaningless drivel than the work of a master of horror. Finally, the two episodes of “Masters of Horror” he directed, which apparently gave him complete creative control, were terribly uneven, with “The Damned Thing” being laughably stupid and “Dance of the Dead” feeling like a hollow shell of another film. The man has not had a well-received career post-Chain Saw, so it only made sense in the middle of his career for him to return to his roots in 1986 with the underrated gore-com The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
In 1974 John Carpenter’s slasher opus Halloween hit theaters and became an instant horror classic, jump starting the slasher genre and becoming the most popular number one horror flick on fans’ lists. That same year brought the release of the less cited but equally popular and influential Texas Chain Saw Massacre, directed by future horror icon Tobe Hooper. While some lists calling it one of the scariest films ever made may be a tad bit overblown, it should nonetheless be agreed by all parties that TCM is a legitimately great horror flick. Anyone who disagrees is probably an asshole.