It was a tough call: Do we review the reviews for Employee of the Month (current Rotten Tomatoes rating 26 percent) or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (25 percent fresh at post time)? The decision was easy after reading James Verniere’s take in The Boston Herald: ”Have you ever watched a movie with a crowd you wished you had a restraining order against? I have, and it is called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.”
Kyle Smith of The New York Post won us over with his commentary on the film’s casting: ”Backing things up to 1969, the movie presents four USDA prime victims — two girls and two boys muttering about how they’re going to drive to Mexico to save the guys from the draft, as though we cared. They’re played by three actors you’ve never heard of and Jordana Brewster’s butt.” The Hollywood Reporter, also noted the lack of big-name talent, only in a slightly less humorous way: ”This incarnation suffers from the absence of a star like Jessica Biel.”
Props also go out to The New York Times for evoking the name of Mel Gibson: ”The movie exists to brutalize. Like The Passion of the Christ, it is an invitation to hard-core sadism. Mel Gibson tried to turn atrocity into spiritual catharsis. The producers of The Beginning merely package it, sell it to the masses and hope they don’t vomit in their nachos.” And to Hollywoodbitchslap.com for referencing Police Academy: ”After six installments of the Leatherface saga, the idea of more kids getting lost in the hidden interstates of Texas, lining up for the slaughter is, frankly, fairly boring. I mean, come on… even Police Academy went to Miami Beach for their fifth film.”
Finally, I’d like to give a special shout-out to the woman sitting behind me in the theater when I first saw The Beginning trailer, who summed it up best: ”Didn’t this already come out?”
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The people who give such negative reviews to horror films time and time again are not people that enjoy horror movies. I LOVE horror movies, and while I admit that there are as many clunkers as there are really good horror movies, I tend to still enjoy going to the horror movie even if it is bad. So, I will be lining up tonight to see Texas Chainsaw, even if the critics think it is bad, and I will probably have a great time.
Isn’t this movie a remake of the Mathew MaCaugnehey/Renee Zelweger sequel to the original chainsaw massacre movie? From my recollection, the Renee Zelweger version was awful, so I’d expect no less from the remade version.
Thanks to the success of Saw and Hostel, everything’s gone gruesome, as the stories get more out of wack, the locales get more remote, and the young victims get prettier and more naive with every movie.
Ep Sato,
That’s what I said to my man. This is T.C.M. 3! Or this is pieces of T.C.M. 3 thrown in with bits of the other direct to video sequels. It was so bad, it was comical.
And most horror films have always been about chasing around the big boobed virgin with something that would cause blunt force trauma or severe tissue and organ damage.
The fight for the Box Office: The Departed and tcm3. It shouldn’t be a contest. But, I’m afraid it will be.
Why would anybody want to watch such sick stuff like Friday the 13th on and on and on? All those “normal” people say “It’s ONLY a movie”- Do they still feel that way if something gory actually happens to them ,or a family member or friend in real life? I suppose it’s “normal” to want to see people being butchered; I suppose Charles Manson was “normal”?-Dan Baker, Deland, Florida.
Well, my reading of it is that folks like the “escapist” nature of horror movies. It’s the thrill of being scared, but at the same time being in control. Like riding a motorcycle, taking a roller coaster, driving fast, eating spicy food, painting graffiti, playing xtreme sports, or watching other escapist movies (Like gangster flicks or science fiction). Horror movies aren’t for all of us, but my guess is that they provide a similar thrill to horror fans as a Judd Apatow movie would provide to a slacker comedy fan.
But I think Dan’s got a really valid point. To someone who is related to the victim of a sadistic crime, this sort of movie would probably come off as offensive and insensitive. And these newer movies make no apologies for the sick scenes they make us sit through.
Back in the days of Alien, you didn’t need really gory stuff to scare people, just a lot of offscreen innuendo, creepy sounds and tense moments. Why is it so hard to create that feeling without the gross out factor?
I have plenty of friends who were “grossed out” when that alien baby broke through that woman’s stomach in Aliens. So, even back then, there was a gore factor.
I think the media has desensitized everyone to violence, so movies that are looking to push the scare buttons, like TCM, have to add even more gore than before to get a reaction out of audiences.
The Devil’s Rejects and House of 1,000 Corpses were both very gory, but they were also really well done movies. So, I think you can have a good movie – WITH gore if it is done right.
Ep:
I agree that the Hitchcok factor has wrongfully been eliminated. But, if you saw Hostel some of the gore was darkly comical. Remember the one of the scenes with the gang of young Czech boys? The scene where the college frosh had to bribe the boys with a ziplock bag of bubble gum to get passed them? Afterwards when the big bad Czech mobsters tried to get the frosh, the gang of boys beat the crap out of them. One even stomped on a mobsters head and busted it open like a pinata. I am not sure how that got passed the American censors, but when I saw it, the whole entire audience was laughing really hard.
Embarrasing as it is to admit, I thought Hostel and Saw were both pretty fun to watch. But House of Wax and the remade Hills Have Eyes to me were a little overdone on the “ewwww” factor. But Paul’s right. Horror movies have always pushed the envelope of what is acceptable for people to see onscreen. But I am amazed at how far that envelope’s been stretching lately.
Why the hell can’t Hollywood make a decent horror film these days?!
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