The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Marcus Nispel
Produced by	Michael Bay Mike Fleiss Brad Fuller Tobe Hooper Kim Henkel
Screenplay by	Scott Kosar
Based on	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre by Tobe Hooper Kim Henkel
Narrated by	John Larroquette
Starring	Jessica Biel Jonathan Tucker Erica Leerhsen Mike Vogel Eric Balfour R. Lee Ermey
Music by	Steve Jablonsky
Cinematography	Daniel Pearl
Editing by	Glen Scantlebury
Studio	Radar Pictures Platinum Dunes Next Entertainment
Distributed by	New Line Cinema (United States) Focus Features (International)
Release date(s)	October 17, 2003 (2003-10-17)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$9.5 million
Box office	$107,071,655

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 American remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film was directed by Marcus Nispel and produced by Michael Bay. It was also co-produced by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper, co-creators of the original 1974 film.

This film is the first of many horror remakes to come from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company which also remade The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Though met with negative reception, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre grossed $107 million above its $9.5 million budget.

Plot

In August 1973 where five young adults, Erin (Jessica Biel), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Andy (Mike Vogel), and Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after returning from Mexico. As they drive through Texas, they see a distraught hitchhiker (Lauren German), who eventually gets into their van. After they have tried to speak to the hitchhiker, who talks incoherently about "a bad man", she shoots and kills herself with a .357 Magnum. The group tries to contact the police, then go to a store where a woman (Marietta Marich) tells them the sheriff is at the mill. Instead of the sheriff, they find a little boy named Jedediah (David Dorfman) who tells them that the sheriff is at home drinking. Erin and Kemper go through the woods to find his house, leaving the other three at the mill with the boy. They come to a plantation house where Erin is allowed inside by the owner, an amputee named Monty, to phone for help. When Erin finishes, the old man asks her for help. Kemper goes inside to look for Erin and attacked by the vicious-looking Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), who hits him with a sledgehammer. When Leatherface takes Kemper's body to begin to make a new mask out of him, he discovers a small black box from Kemper; opening it, he discovers a ring meant for Erin.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) arrives at the mill and disposes of the hitchhiker's body, wrapping her in cellophane and putting her in his trunk in which he drives away and tells the youths to leave. Erin arrives and finds that Kemper is still missing. Andy and Erin go back to the Monty's house, where Erin distracts him while Andy searches for Kemper. Monty realizes Andy is inside and summons Leatherface, who attacks him with his chainsaw. Erin escapes and heads towards the woods, but Leatherface cuts Andy's leg off. Leatherface carries him to the basement and hangs him on a meat hook with his feet hanging over a piano, where he rubs salt on Andy's stump of a leg before wrapping it in butcher paper and tying it with human hair.

Erin makes it to the mill and tries to escape in the van, but the sheriff shows up and, after finding marijuana, orders Erin, Morgan and Pepper to get out of the van. The sheriff gives Morgan the gun he took from the hitchhiker and tells Morgan to reenact how she killed herself. Morgan, scared and disturbed by the sheriff's demeanor, and under pressure by Erin and Pepper, attempts to shoot the sheriff only to find the gun is unloaded. Sheriff Hoyt handcuffs Morgan and drives him to the Hewitt house (a drive which includes a brutal beating), leaving the girls in the van. Erin tries to fix the truck, while Pepper holds a flashlight. Erin gets the truck running, but the one of the wheels rolls out. Erin and Pepper stay still in the truck but Leatherface appears on the top of the truck and tries to attack them. After witnessing Pepper's murder by Leatherface, Erin, who sees that Leatherface is wearing Kemper's face over his own, runs to escape and hides in a nearby trailer with two women inside, who offer her tea and try to soothe her. The two women, an obese middle-aged woman known only as the 'Tea Lady' and a younger woman named Henrietta, who is presumably her daughter, act strange and after they tell Erin they don't have a phone for her to call for help, a telephone in the trailer rings and Henrietta picks it up and tells someone on the other end that "she's here". Erin discovers they have kidnapped a child when she sees that the baby with them is the same child in a photograph with the woman who committed suicide earlier. However, the tea is drugged and she passes out when she tries to leave.

Erin wakes up at the Hewitt house surrounded by the Hewitt family: Leatherface, his mother Luda May, Sheriff Hoyt, Uncle Monty, and the little boy Jedediah. Luda May tells Erin that her excuse for her son Thomas' actions, was that her son was tormented by teenagers and that she felt no one cared for her family besides themselves. Erin is taken to the basement, where she finds Andy. She tries to help him off of the meat hook but when he sees he will land on the piano keys and alert Leatherface, he begs her to kill him, which she does, though suffers severe emotional trauma. She finds Morgan, still handcuffed, and Jedediah leads them out of the house. Jedediah rejects Erin's plea to come with them and distracts Leatherface long enough for them to escape. Erin and Morgan find an abandoned house in the woods and barricade themselves inside. Leatherface breaks in and discovers Erin, but Morgan attacks Leatherface, causing him to drop his chainsaw. Morgan grabs him and wrestles him, but Leatherface is too heavy and easily lifts Morgan upwards onto a chandelier before releasing him and Morgan gets tangled in the chandelier by his handcuffs. Leatherface picks up his chainsaw and slices up into Morgan's crotch, killing him.

Erin runs out of the shack and escapes through the woods. Leatherface trips and cuts his leg while pursuing her. Erin finds a slaughterhouse and hides in a locker; Leatherface opens the locker across from hers and she attacks him with a meat cleaver, and chops off his right arm. Erin runs outside and flags down a trucker, whom she tries to convince to go away from the Hewitt's house, but he stops to find help at the eatery. Erin sees Luda May and watches as Sheriff Hoyt arrives and talks to the trucker. Erin sees Henrietta watching over the kidnapped baby in a highchair. When Henrietta walks outside to join Luda May and Sheriff Hoyt, who are talking to the truck driver, Erin sneaks the baby out of the eatery and hot-wires the sheriff's car before running him over repeatedly until he is dead. Leatherface appears in the road and tries to stop her, but Erin and the baby escape unharmed.

Cast

• Jessica Biel as Erin Hardesty
• Jonathan Tucker as Morgan
• Erica Leerhsen as Pepper Harrington
• Mike Vogel as Andy
• Eric Balfour as Kemper
• R. Lee Ermey as Sheriff Charlie Hoyt
• Andrew Bryniarski as Thomas Hewitt / Leatherface
• David Dorfman as Jedidiah Hewitt
• Lauren German as Hitchhiker
• Marietta Marich as Luda May Hewitt
• Terrence Evans as Old Monty Hewitt
• Heather Kafka as Henrietta
• Kathy Lamkin as Tea Lady in trailer
• Brad Leland as Big Rig Bob
• Mamie Meek as Clerk
• Scott Martin Gershin (uncredited) as Voice of Leatherface
• Harry Jay Knowles (uncredited) as Victim on silver platter

Connection to actual events

This film, like the 1974 original, as well as Psycho, was inspired by Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein. Gein skinned human bodies and made up furniture out of it, but he acted alone and did not use a chainsaw. Most of his "victims" were already dead and he only personally murdered two people. The film's opening claims the events are factual, a use of the false document technique (filming of the first film was from July 15, 1973 to August 14, 1973, while the event took place on August 18, 1973).

Reception

Critical response

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received negative critical consensus. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes shows a rating of 36% for it.Metacritic, another review aggregator, calculates an average of 38%.

Box office

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in North America on October 17, 2003 in 3,018 theaters. It grossed $10,620,000 on its opening day and concluded its North America opening weekend with $28,094,014, ranking #1 at the box office. The film opened in various other countries and grossed $26,500,000, while the North American gross stands at $80,571,655, bringing the worldwide gross to $107,071,655. All based on a $9.5 million budget, the film was a commercial success.

The film's box-office success was notable for starting a long line of remakes of 70s/80s horror films that continue to the present day.

Home media

The film was released on VHS and DVD March 30, 2004 through New Line Home Entertainment. Special features include seven TV spots and trailers and a music video for Suffocate by Motograter. A two-disc Platinum Series Edition was also released that same day, containing a collectible metal plaque cover, 3 filmmaker commentaries with producer Michael Bay, director Marcus Nispel and others, crime city photo cards, deleted scenes, an alternate opening and ending, Chainsaw Redux: In-Depth documentary, Gein: The Ghoul of Planifield documentary, cast screen tests, art gallery, 7 TV spots & trailers, Suffocate by "Motograter" Music video, and DVD-ROM Content including script-to-screen

A UMD version of the film was released on October 4, 2005 and on Blu-ray on September 29, 2010.

Novelization

Stephen Hand wrote a novelization that was published March 1, 2004 by Black Flame. Hand previously wrote the novelization for Freddy vs. Jason, also for New Line and Black Flame.

Music

There were two soundtrack albums released by Bulletproof Records/La-La Land Records for the film; the first was meant for regular audiences featuring popular rock music and was released on November 4, 2003. The second was the film's original score as composed by Steve Jablonsky. This was released on October 21, 2003 and has a run time of 50:25.

Trailers and TV spots used This Mortal Coil's cover of "Song to the Siren", which was originally performed by Tim Buckley.

In the beginning of the film, the protagonists are listening to "Lynyrd Skynyrd"'s "Sweet Home Alabama". This is a continuity error as the song wasn't released until June of 1974, and the teens should not have a recording of it.

Soundtrack

1. "Immortally Insane" by Pantera
2. "Below the Bottom" by Hatebreed
3. "Pride" by Soil
4. "Deliver Me" by Static-X
5. "43" by Mushroomhead
6. "Pig" by Seether
7. "Down in Flames" by Nothingface
8. "Self-Medicate" by 40 Below Summer
9. "Suffocate" by Motograter
10. "Destroyer of Senses" by Shadows Fall
11. "Rational Gaze" by Meshuggah
12. "Archetype (Remix)" by Fear Factory
13. "Enshrined by Grace" by Morbid Angel
14. "Listen" by Index Case
15. "Stay in Shadow" by Finger Eleven
16. "Ruin" by Lamb of God
17. "As Real As It Gets" by Sworn Enemy
18. "Five Months" by Cortez

Score

1. "Leatherface" (2:45)
2. "He's a Bad Man" (4:02)
3. "Erin and Kemper" (1:07)
4. "Hewitt House" (1:09)
5. "Driving with a Corpse" (1:24)
6. "Kemper Gets Whacked/Jedidiah" (1:56)
7. "Crawford Mill" (1:50)
8. "Interrogation" (3:50)
9. "Andy Loses a Leg" (1:41)
10. "You're So Dead" (3:33)
11. "Hook Me Up" (2:40)
12. "My Boy" (3:15)
13. "Morgans Wild Ride/Van Attack" (4:35)
14. "Mercy Killing" (2:59)
15. "Prairie House" (3:13)
16. "Final Confrontation" (5:25)
17. "Can't Go Back" (3:55)
18. "Last Goodbye" (1:00)

External links

• Official website
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the Internet Movie Database
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Box Office Mojo
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Rotten Tomatoes