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…
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.
I’ll admit to having not paid any attention to Paranormal Activity prior to it’s national success, as I’m not one for hand held POV films in the vain of Last Broadcast. Something about the style just feels uninteresting and oftentimes lazy to me, so I tend to avoid them. However, first-time director Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity had me intrigued by it’s sudden success with the general public. One friend of mine who had seen the film already told me that he found it difficult to sleep that night. So, driving to the local cheapo Cinemark theater, I got my $2.75 matinee ticket and made my way into what many consider the scariest film they’ve ever seen…
Jigsaw is dead. Amanda is dead. Jeff is dead. Detective Tapp is dead. Detective Kerry is dead. Detective Matthews is dead. Rigg is dead. Agent Strahm is dead. Who the fuck am I supposed to care about now? Oh, the new and slightly pudgy killer Hoffman and Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill you say? Fan-fucking-tastic.
Meh.
In his third and final outing as director for the series, Darren Lynn Bousman took on a script by Feast writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to continue the series while leading it in a new direction. What they created was a gory, fast-paced thriller that marked a beginning to the second Saw trilogy, while shedding light (and a shitload of blood) on Jigsaw’s past.
When the cheaply-made Saw II made bookoo bucks at the box office, it was only logical to assume the sequel was on it’s way. Again it was rushed into production, this time already outfitted with Darren Lynn Bousman as director and writer, with the aid of the first’s James Wan and Leigh Whannel. This collaboration marked the end of what some might call the Saw trilogy and to many more, the end of their quality.
After the success of Saw on the festival circuit, Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate decided to sign a writer and director for a sequel as soon as possible. Taking aside filmmaker Darren Lynn Bousman and his oft-denied script The Desperate, James Wan and Leigh Whannel offered to produce his idea with a few changes under the Saw II title. Bousman accepted the offer and, along with Whannel, rewrote his script and signed on as director. The rest is (Saw franchise) history.
The Saw franchise started out as the Little Engine That Could and quickly morphed into that fucking train that makes you late to work. Starting out as an indie flick produced by Twisted Pictures and based on a previous short by director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannel, Saw was a low budget film starring two actors near the death of their careers and a whole lot of cheap sets and creative set pieces. It’s surprise success began one of the most ridiculously fast strings of sequels ever seen, as well as a resurgence for the previously obscure torture sub-genre.