Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
It’s often Saw or Hostel that credited as the first to usher in the way of excessively gory horror dubbed “torture porn,” but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake deserves more credit. It didn’t just beat them both to the theaters by over a year, but it started the wave of both extreme horror and remakes of well-known properties thanks to its massive success at the box office. While a much slicker production than the gritty documentary style aesthetic of the original, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really went for the jugular in brutal kills and bloodletting.
In this version, the fivesome that will soon find themselves in a battle for their lives are traveling across Texas for a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. Even though it’s set in 1973, it keeps the modern audience in mind by addressing the horrors of hitchhikers straight away in its character introductions. Erin (Jessica Biel) is the clear designated final girl with a heart of gold, and her boyfriend Kemper (Eric Balfour) seems to be the group ringleader. There’s the nerdy friend Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), and horndog Andy (Mike Vogel) who’s getting intimately acquainted with the friendly hitchhiker, Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), the group picked up prior to the film’s opening. She certainly seems normal, so hitchhikers aren’t bad in 1973, right?
So, when they drive past a very despondent and pale young woman on the side of the road, Erin’s heart goes out. She looks more victim than dangerous, anyhow. Once in the backseat of their van, the woman (played by Lauren German) mumbles incoherently, pulls out a gun from between her bloodied legs, tells them they’re all going to die, and blows her brains out in front of them. The camera captures the horrified reactions from the group as it dollies out backwards through the gaping hole in her skull. It’s a visceral proclamation that despite the modern polish, this remake is not going to be for the faint of heart.
The remake dramatically expanded the size of the homicidal family (now named the Hewitt family), and switched up the third act, but it adheres closely to the original in a lot of ways. Leatherface’s first kill is nearly identical to Kirk’s death in the first film, and his second kill also involves a meat hook. The only difference is that the person, Andy, is left to suffer on that hook until the final girl can come put him out of his misery much later. Leatherface also cuts his own leg with his chainsaw in a final act chase sequence, just like in the original. John Larroquette reprised his role as the narrator, and Daniel Pearl returned to handle cinematography, bringing more masterful camerawork to the franchise that kickstarted his career.
But, back to the gore. The effects were handled practically, and it should surprise no one that they were done by Greg Nicotero and KNB EFX Group. If you want hyper-realistic gore, or impressive creature effects, you call the 35+ year veteran. Nicotero’s first brush with this series was with Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, as makeup supervisor. He and KNB’s exemplary work on the 2003 film meant that his company was involved in all of the subsequent Chainsaw films post reboot; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Texas Chainsaw 3D. No matter how you feel about these films, the gore always delivers.
Before making his directorial feature debut in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Marcus Nispel (who also resurrected Jason Voorhees in 2009’s Friday the 13th) was a designer and painter. Between his artistic eye and Pearl’s always stunning cinematography, this remake exists in that weird crossroads of ugly and beautiful. It’s a gorgeous film with a vicious bite. When the question of why remakes have become so prevalent pops up, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the answer. Audiences ate this remake up, making this the highest grossing film of the franchise even with inflation. There were plenty of remakes before, and since, but the Hollywood reboot craze began in earnest with this one.
