The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Inspired by a true story.
Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror
Rated: R
Running Time: 98 minutes (1:38)
Director: Marcus Nispel
Cast:
Jessica Biel ... Erin
Eric Balfour ... Kemper
Jonathan Tucker ... Morgan
Erica Leerhsen ... Pepper
Mike Vogel ... Andy
R. Lee Ermey ... Sheriff Hoyt
Andrew Bryniarski ... Thomas Hewitt (Leatherface)
Terrence Evans ... Old Monty
David Dorfman ... Jedidiah
Marietta Marich ... Luda May
Heather Kafka ... Henrietta
John Larroquette ... Narrator (voice)
Summary:
A group of friends takes a detour while traveling through the back roads of Texas and encounter a chainsaw-weilding maniac. What happens next is beyond anyone's darkest imagination and will leave you speechless and horrified.
Review:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: cash grab version, remindin' us that all the guts in the world don't add up to heart. I guess I oughta be glad they even had those since most horror flicks made after the turn of the century've been rated PG-13 to score all that sweet, sweet teenage weekend lawn mowin' moolah, but there just ain't enough consolation in the world when you find yourself watchin' a remake of the greatest horror film ever made. "Oh, I know; let's put Michael 'long as we blow up a lotta stuff we'll turn a profit' Bay in charge of remakin' the most atmospheric movie of all time, yeah, that'll synergize like gangbusters!" Goddamned parasites.
An speakin' of depressin' modern trends, I noticed somethin' while I was out at the tractor pull with Billy Hilliard the other day, an I don't know exactly when this started, but there wasn't a single kid out there big enough to outrun their parents. I guess times've changed since we used to hide in the ditch along Outhouse Creek an huck carp into the beds of passin' pickups, but somewhere along the line the kids decided there wasn't anything for 'em here, an so the instant they hit 18 an get their own set of wheels they take off for some glamorous locale like Kennewick or Meridian for the "educational advancements", "living wages", or the most frequently uttered reason ever sent via phone line into the ear of a sobbing mother: "cause there ain't nothin' to do at home!" It's like they think they're too good to apprentice out at Bondo's learnin' the art of weldin' an aftermarket bumper onto a Trans Am an bullshittin' their way out of it when they get caught. That's the kinda place where you can learn a trade AND customer service skills at the same time, but now alls kids wanna do is spend four years at some technical institute learnin' how to prepare tax returns for guys who can't even understand why they're not entitled to a return when they get paid in pre-paid Visa cards.
An furthermore, I resent the idea that there's nothin' to do around here; there's *plenty* to do, you just gotta have an imagination. When I was a kid we used to come up with our own games, an at the risk of soundin' a little conceited, I don't mind tellin' ya that most of 'em have held up pretty well over the last 40 years. Like, for instance, this past weekend I invited Billy, Cleave Furguson, an Sadie Bonebreak over to play Bat Tennis. Not only is it great fun, but it also helps keep your reflexes sharp. See, whatcha do is run an extension cord out into an open area, light up your bug zapper, an let it sit for about an hour or so. Bonfires are actually better, but our last one got a little outta hand an now we're not allowed to make 'em anymore unless there's a responsible adult with us, an let's face it: around here tryin' to find one of those is like lookin' for a virgin on Bourbon Street. It's not like anybody was USIN' that outhouse when it caught fire anyway, the big babies. Like I was sayin' though, you hang the zapper an let it sit until you've got a good skeeter an moth swarm goin', cause that's when the bats'll home in on 'em an start swoopin' in. I recommend the Flowtron FC-8800 model due to its superior illumination capacity, but some folks like the Hoont indoor model because it eliminates that sizzle noise most zappers make when the insect's brains start fryin' like a squirrel bitin' into a power line. The more wattage the better though, cause you're gonna need it for the next phase of the game, which is slice servin' those incoming bats directly at your friends' faces. We've even got a scorin' system: 1 point for a body shot (bat impacts *any* portion of the human anatomy), 2 points for any shot that results in the bat actually latchin' onto somebody for a full 3 seconds, an 5 points if you manage to knock one inside somebody's clothing. I remember the one time Sadie's girlfriend played with us, an Cleave managed to score 7 points off one bat by backhandin' it down 'er blouse an gettin' it trapped in 'er cleavage, it was damned impressive. Unfortunately that was right around the time the game ended when Cleave started laughin' so hard that he accidentally shot beer out his nose into the zapper an fried the circuitry. What's-'er-name never would play with us anymore after that, but the point is there's lotsa stuff to do around here, even if we ain't got a lotta money for fancy stuff like go-kart tracks or funny car racin'. Sometimes the simplest things in life are the ones you cherish the most, ya know?
But I guess I should quit reminiscin' an get back to the business at hand. They say you shouldn't mix business with pleasure, but lemme tell ya: with this flick that's not even possible. Seriously, whose goddamned idea was it to cast an actress from the sappiest, most disgusting show on the CW (which is itself the most pitiful, vapid, phoniest, ass-brained network on what passes for modern television) in a remake of one of the top ten nastiest movies of all time? Nobody in the casting meeting thought this *might* be going against the grain, just a TEENSY WEENSY BIT? An where in the HELL did these people learn how to... never mind. I'm okay now... just gotta focus on the task at hand... there'll be plenty of time to scream into the void of cyberspace later. In the meantime, let's have a look at a few of the least asinine aspects of this flick before I run outta Alka-Seltzer tablets or die from a stress-induced brain aneurysm. First, nothin' says "Texas" like a Canadian moose head mounted on the wall of a B-B-Q joint. Second, hangin' someone on a meat hook barely warrants a slight whimper, but slap a handfulla salt on their wounded leg an you'll get more howlin' than a Lon Chaney Jr. flick. An third, when the flooding in the basement becomes a critical plot point for the purposes of soakin' a t-shirt, there's no pretendin' it's anything less than a bribe to keep the audience in their theater seats.
Now, maybe this's just me, an feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one who thinks there might be a *minor* disconnect when a studio with the word "platinum" in its name tries remakin' a movie that cost $140,000, an was underfunded to the point that nearly all its initial profits ended up in the hands of the New York City mob? Shouldn't that be a hint that you might be pissin' on the legacy of one of the most beloved horror titles of all time with your slick, Hollywood approved approach, even if you do happen to be so blinded by dollar signs that you're incapable of recognizin' that this particular flick doesn't *need* to be remade? Most modern horror remakes tend to be classified as self-proclaimed "gritty reboots" in a desperate attempt to make 'em sound edgy in hopes of makin' people believe they're gonna see something just as good as the original (although the term "gritty remake" can essentially be summed up thusly: "remove the soul that once made this concept work, and then shoehorn in a coupla rape scenes"), but these people seem to've missed the fact that the 1970s were the single grittiest decade for the genre in the history of film. You *cannot* out-grit movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Last House on the Left, or I Spit on Your Grave, and if you try you succeed only in lookin' like the try-hard putz you are. These people wouldn't know grit if somebody backed a truck up to 'em an dumped a metric ton of it into their eye sockets, it's pathetic. I'll vent about this later. For now, we should prolly move on to the plot summary.
The movie begins with most of the classic opening narration from the original Chainsaw, followed by a fresh van of teens headin' to Dallas in the miserable summer heat of August 18th, 1973. Only talkin' about astrology an the odors from the nearby slaughterhouse ain't really enough to pique the interest of a modern audience, an so this time around we got a coupla freaks in the back (Andy an Pepper) makin' an already ripe situation smell like a Samoan tuna cannery, until this dork named Morgan starts throwin' out CDC statistics on the infection rates of promising young American sluts like an Army hygiene film to make 'em stop. Meanwhile, Mary Camden from 7th Heaven (Erin) is up front rammin' 'er tongue down 'er boyfriend/driver's throat like the facehugger from Alien til he (Kemper) just about runs over this girl walkin' down the middle of the road in a stupor like she just woke up in Bill Cosby's hotel room. They can't just leave 'er to walk this empty street on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, even if it *is* the only road that she has ever known, cause it's about 200 degrees in the shade an she already looks like a perch that got pitched out on the bank an left for dead. So they stick 'er in the back of the van, but all she'll say is "I gotta get away," an even after Erin tries convincin' 'er that sometimes we all feel we've got to do that, she just stares catatonically until they pass a roadside advertisement for B-B-Q, at which point she freaks out an starts screamin' about how she "can't go back there" an promptly produces a gun from 'er snatchial region an blows 'er brains out all over the rear window of the van. Needless to say, everyone could use a little air that don't smell like a combination of pistol smoke an fried bologna, so Kemper pulls the van over an everyone launches their Stuckey's pecan logs into the stratosphere. Then they motor on down the road to the B-B-Q place an ask the old lady who runs it to call the sheriff an let 'im know about their little vanslaughter situation, only the sheriff wants 'em to meet him out at an old mill cause he's too busy makin' sure there ain't no cattle out there eatin' grass without a grazin' permit. Trouble is, once they get out to the mill ain't nobody there but the ghosts of unregulated industry past, an so they start arguin' about whether to just trashcan the body like a crackhouse miscarriage until they find this skulking little Gollum child (Jedidiah) who tells 'em the sheriff's house is only a little ways away, but that they'll hafta walk. Which ain't really a bad thing since it means Erin's unchained mammaries'll help to temporarily take our minds offa the fact that nothin' at all about the flick would lead you to believe it was filmed in the 1970s.
Anyway, Erin an Kemper hoof it over to the sheriff's run-down 1850s plantation house an meet this old cuss with no legs whose face looks like a topographical map of the Amazon River Basin (Monty), an he tells 'em Erin can come in an use the phone, but that Kemper hasta stay on the porch on account of he's got a slightly dark complexion an might try liftin' the family's collection of confederate civil war medals. Apparently the sheriff don't live here, but the dispatch tells 'er he'll be over at the mill in half an hour an so she turns to leave just as she hears Monty's wheelchair spill over like a display of Dinty Moore stew at the Winn Dixie, an when she finds the old guy he's layin' on the floor without a leg to stand on. Course by now Kemper's gettin' a little irritated about havin' to wait on the porch when they ain't even got a sofa to sit on, so he heads inside, passes judgment on the interior decorator, an whips around just in time to see Leatherface swingin' a sledgehammer that caves his skull in like the eye sockets on a meth addict. Elsewhere, Sheriff R. Lee Ermey's finally arrived out at the old mill an orders all the namby pamby jackwagons to wrap the corpse up in saran wrap like a leftover pork chop, deposit it in his trunk, an to quit eyeballin' 'im like he's crazy before he hasta gouge their eyeballs out an skull fuck the lot of 'em. Not surprisingly, Erin can't seem to locate Kemper on account of his bein' down in Leatherface's sewin' room gettin' a makeunder, so after a brief search outside the house she heads back to the van where everyone's drawn to the sound of a car horn that's been depressed by some dyslexic tryin' to attach The Club to its steerin' wheel, an inside they find an old Polaroid of their dead hitchhiker stuffed into a bottle of formaldehyde. I'm not sure how effective this really is as an attempt at preservin' a precious memory, but whoever done it had their heart in the right place. Course the whole point of comin' back to the rig was the assumption that Kemper'd be there, an since he's up an vanished like a Cheeto into the Tanning Mom's cleavage, Erin an Andy hafta head back to Monty's place so she can focus his undivided attention on 'er mammorial divide, while Andy sneaks in the back to look for Kemper an all those kids that keep showin' up on the side of the milk carton. Unfortunately, Andy ends up knockin' over a trunk fulla Ma'amburger Helper mix back in the family test kitchen, an next thing you know they're fleein' for their lives through a gauntlet of KKK uniforms dryin' on clotheslines until Leatherface closes the gap an saws off one of Andy's legs to help kickstart a support group for Monty.
Leatherface is gonna be in some seriously deep doo-doo when the Grand Dragon sees what happened to his vestments, too, it's not a pretty sight. But while that's goin' on, Erin's haulin' bust back to the van to warn everybody about the attack of the P.O.'d lumberjack, only by the time she rejoins the group Ermey's back on the scene rootin' through the van demandin' to know why the little compartment under the 8-track's been nicknamed The Hashtray. Ermey ain't been this P.O.'d since he woke up in that Da Nang whorehouse with a case of Vietcong Dong, an he makes that perfectly clear by shovin' the girls' faces in the dirt an makin' Morgan show 'im exactly how the suicide girl went about tankin' the Kelley Blue Book value of the van, until Morgan finally musters up enough anti-establishment gumption to take the gun out of his mouth an point it right directly between those two garden shrubs Ermey calls eyebrows an pull the trigger. Oh dear, emptier'n an Iranian abortion clinic; well that's prolly not gonna get 'im added to Ermey's Christmas card list. So Ermey drags Morgan off an leaves the girls sittin' in the dirt like discarded Tonka trucks, only to realize moments later that they got even bigger, hairier, inbredier problems when the Leatherman shows up an starts choppin' an moldin' the frame on their ride with his Turkey Carver 2000, an it don't take 'im long at all to run down the slutty girl an turn 'er into Peppermint Splatty. That's not even the worst of it though, cause when he turns around to finish the job Erin can't help but notice that he's wearin' Kemper's face like a ski mask. This'd make your average person crack like a plumber's ass in a pair of parachute pants an start singin' "hey la-di-da, my boyfriend's back," but Erin survived 10 years on 7th Heaven so she's already a few Corn Flakes shy of a casserole, an she ends up runnin' over to this trailer house where some gal who looks like Mia Farrow on chemotherapy gives 'er a cuppa Mickey's Hard Iced Tea an tells 'er not to worry about Leatherface cause he's really a pretty good kid when he's not sawin' up doors like a damned fool. Unfortunately, when she wakes up in the publishing office of the bi-monthly Waylon Jennings newsletter she finds 'erself surrounded by the average New Yorker's idea of every human bein' in America who lives more'n half a mile from a Starbucks, an once Ermey gets tired of gropin' 'er face like a blind man at a Joseph Merrick meet an greet, Leatherface tosses 'er down the basement steps like a pair of old dirty underwear.
Then she finds Andy hung out to die an tries helpin' 'im down off the meat hook but mostly just succeeds in rupturin' a new organ every time he slips back onto it, an she ends up havin' to put 'im out of his misery like a tourist hung up in a barbed wire fence. Fortunately, Morgan's only partially pickled in a bathtub fulla brine, an right about the time she manages to get 'im to quit takin' swings at 'er like like a drunken construction worker, Jedidiah pokes his little malnourished mug out from behind a support beam an shows 'em how to get out via the cellar entrance, an the two meals on heels manage to make their way to an old machine shed with Leatherface right behind 'em layin' down a smoke screen of incinerated bar oil. Kind of an exercise in futility though, cause there ain't a hell of a lotta places to hide in a building with two rooms, an it don't take too long for Leatherface to find 'em an hang the wussletoe from a ceilin' lamp an give 'im a free vasectomy. Then he takes off after Erin again but gets hung up in a barbed wire fence an accidentally carves up his leg like a Thanksgivin' drumstick, causin' 'im to howl at the moon like a dingo with inflamed hemorrhoids. Eventually Erin finds 'er way to the local slaughterhouse where she hides in the meat freezer hopin' to avoid havin' 'er chest racksadermied an possibly find some help, but we're still three years away from Rocky beatin' the crap outta cow torsos in cold storage while trainin' for the Apollo Creed fight, so she hasta go it alone an give Leatherface the cold shoulder when he comes in after 'er, before makin' 'er way to the employee locker room to hide. I guess Leatherface musta slipped on a bloodpuddle or somethin', cause by the time he catches up Erin's managed to stash a loose pig in one of the lockers, grab a meat cleaver, an squeeze 'er fanny into an adjacent locker. So when Mr. Hide comes around the corner an hears Arnold Ziffle rootin' around in the compartment across the hall an swings the door open to turn Erin into a slashed pile, she lunges outta her own locker an literally disarms Leatherface with the cleaver, bringin' an end to a promising loggin' career an leavin' one hell of a mess for the janitorial staff. I think we'll go ahead and end the summary here, but there's still a whole lotta cantankerous cannibals out there, so if you've made it this far without stoppin' to write an angry letter to Marcus Nispel an Michael Bay, you may find it worthwhile to grab a copy an see how it ends.
Alrighty, well, wasn't that just the slickest, cutest, most sacrilegiously, phony excuse for a cash grab you've ever seen? Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's a poorly made movie, because generally speaking it isn't, the problem lies in the fact that no one was/is *ever* going to get anywhere close to the mystique of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Even if you had everyone from the original crew back doin' a shot-for-shot remake it couldn't be done. Tobe Hooper caught lightning in a bottle back in 1973, with the perfect cast and crew (who were not only talented, but also willing to do things most people wouldn't do), during a blazing hot, miserable Texas summer that was so instrumental to the movie's success that it might as well be considered a character, in an amazingly authentic location, during a period of time where it was easier to get away with guerilla filmmaking, on a budget that left no room for things like fabricated props (thus, *real* bones and various other unpleasantries became commonplace when things needed to be acquired cheaply). So the bottom line is: a remake of the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre should never have even been attempted. Furthermore, minimal effort is put forth to make a film that's supposed to be set in 1973 (the same year the original was shot) actually look as though it was. They did at least shoot it on film, but the cinematography looks precisely like you'd expect a film shot in 2003 to look, despite Daniel Pearl returning as the cinematographer. The camera is shaky (as is not only common but normal for modern movies/tv shows), the cuts come fast and furious, and as a result, the clinical documentary style look of the original film has been utterly discarded in favor of your average cookie cutter camerawork which attempts to generate suspense through fast cutting and shaky movements, rather than having faith in the fact that what's happening in the scene can do that on its own. Basically, we're talkin' all flash and no substance here. I think what really did them in (if you're able to look past the fact that this was doomed from the beginning) is that they tried making a movie that could be enjoyed by fans of the original *and* people who'd never seen the original, and that *never* works. You've already got a sizable portion of the audience who're just as grumpy as I am, who're already pissed off that you'd even attempt such a thing, and no amount of little homages (say, hiring John Larroquette to reprise his role as the narrator) are gonna matter when your movie looks stylistically like every big budget horror film of the new millennium. The mere fact that this remake cost over 70 TIMES what the original cost (less inflation) should be evidence enough that it misses the point of the original, but let it never be said that *any* film is too sacred to be remade if there's money to be made off its name, and if all that's a little too detailed for ya, I can describe this remake in one word that'll tell you everything you need to know about it: soulless.
There, I think that pretty well sums up my disgust in a broader sense. Now let's see if we can't find more specific things about it to hate. The plot is altered in various ways to give it a slightly different presentation format, and the atmosphere tends to suffer for it because some of the scenes/characters that've been taken out were big parts of why the original was so great. For instance, the Hitchhiker character is removed entirely in favor of an escaped victim of the family (I love how she freaks out about the kids going the "wrong way" when it's the exact same direction she was walking down the road earlier), and while the remake's vision is more dramatic, the original's is far more unsettling and keeps the movie from overplaying its hand too soon. The framing device is pretty stupid as well (black and white film footage with god awful overblown grain and phony scratches are used to represent police footage of the aftermath, even though it was supposed to be 1973 and *nobody* was still using black and white film footage by that time), although the device itself is to be expected since they were leaving the door open for a sequel. You can also nitpick some of the anachronisms too if you want, like the fact that "Sweet Home Alabama" wouldn't be released for another year, but that's really small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. So, for the record, I do feel legitimately justified in dinging the crap out of the plot for failing to present an accurate representation of what they set out to. The acting isn't bad, if you look at it as a movie shot in 2003, that is also *set* in 2003. Of course, if you look at the way each actor carries his or herself, delivers their dialog, or reacts to new developments, it's nothing at all like a '70s movie. Some people might consider that nitpicking, but from my perspective, if you're gonna set something in a specific era (particularly one from the not-too-distant past that can be studied), I'd like to see effort made at actually following through on that. Again, if you think that's unfair, all they had to do was set the movie in the present day, and that criticism becomes invalid. But then doing *that* might have reduced the amount of asses in the theater seats. That said, R. Lee Ermey is very entertaining (as always), and I'd also like to give credit to Terrence Evans for a fantastic performance as the cantankerous, wheelchair-bound Monty. As for whoever thought casting *anyone* from 7th Heaven in a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a good idea, well, please just stick to other genres from now on. Please.
Here's who matters and why (less R. Lee Ermey and John Larroquette, who should be pretty well known to anyone with taste): Jessica Biel (Total Recall 2012, The Tall Man, Next, Blade 3), Jonathan Tucker (The Ruins, Pulse 2006), Erica Leerhsen (Wrong Turn 2, Blair Witch 2, Mischief Night, Phobia 2013, The Butterfly Room, Living Hell), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield, Open Graves), Eric Balfour (Skyline, Little Dead Rotting Hood, Backcountry, Cell 213, Dinoshark, Rise of the Gargoyles), Andrew Bryniarski (Batman Returns, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Mother's Day 2010, Dracula's Guest, Rollerball, Cyborg 3, Dragonfight), David Dorfman (The Ring 1 & 2, Galaxy Quest), Lauren German (Hostel II, The Divide, Dead Above Ground), Terrence Evans (Terminator 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Pumpkin Carver, Crocodile 2000, Alien Nation: Dark Horizon, Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, The Curse II), Marietta Marich (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, House of Good and Evil, Children of the Corn IV), Kathy Lamkin (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), Brad Leland (Hancock, The Return 2006, Blood Rage), Scott Martin Gershin (Pacific Rim), Harry Jay Knowles (The Faculty, Ghost of Mars). Of course, being a slick Hollywood feature masquerading as a gritty reboot, you've gotta expect a *lot* of mainstream credits, so if you'll all hold your noses for a moment I'll run through them as quickly as possible. Jessica Biel (Sophie in The Illusionist, Charissa Sosa in The A-Team movie, Mary Camden on 7th Heaven), Jonathan Tucker (Jay Kulina on Kingdom), Mike Vogel (Bobby in Blue Valentine, Dale Barbara on Under the Dome), Eric Balfour (Duke Crocker on Haven, Milo Pressman on 24), Lauren German (Belinda in A Walk to Remember, Chloe Decker on Lucifer, Leslie Shay on Chicago Fire), Brad Leland (Kaluza in Deepwater Horizon, Buddy Garrity on Friday Night Lights).
The special effects, I must concede, are actually really good. To the credit of the effects department, I only recall seeing two uses of computer generated effects, and one of those was pretty insignificant. The fake "Bubba" style teeth on the little kid are pretty goofy, but for the most part all the practical special effects were excellent. Good color and consistency on the blood, the severed leg looked fantastic, the puncture wound in Jonathan Tucker's back looked good, the skull shot from the sledgehammer (despite having lost all the impact of scene it duplicates) is well timed, and Jessica Biel's frenzied hacking off of Leatherface's arm (despite its implausibility) was also excellent. And I dunno if Terrence Evans was legitimately missing his legs from the knee down, but if not, they did a great job concealing them. This is actually one aspect of the movie where I don't feel mistakes were made, because with absolutely zero chance of recreating the atmosphere of the original, it NEEDS the gore. The shooting locations are alright, and again, to their credit, they did at least film the movie in Texas, unlike, say, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. I personally don't like the fact that the family's house is as large as it is, as it tends to lose the claustrophobic tension of the first movie and simultaneously imply that at some point in the past the family may have been well-to-do. But then, if the movie had a different title, the house would probably go from just good to great, because it is a pretty interesting place. You've also got an old car graveyard (with authentic cars that predate 1973), a beat-up old trailer house, an old barn, and what at least looks to be a real slaughterhouse. These are all excellent settings that provide a much needed sense of authenticity for a flick that's sorely lacking in that department, so kudos to the location scouts. The soundtrack was composed by Steve Jablonsky, who seems to be attempting to make an entire career out of composing music for remakes of classic horror films. He did the score on The Amityville Horror (2005), Friday the 13th (2009), A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), The Hitcher (2007), and of course The Island (2005), which isn't a remake so much as grand theft cinema, having ripped off Parts: The Clonus Horror to the point of being sued. It's not a bad soundtrack, and to Nispel's credit he seems to know not to crank it to the point that it becomes the focus of any given scene, but ultimately it's just another example the filmmakers failing to understand what made the original as good as it was, because it barely had a soundtrack, and that silence at pivotal moments created more suspense and tension than *any* music composition ever could. Overall, it's okay on a technical level, and, as you've long since deduced, a flick I dislike intensely for attempting to ride the coattails of what is in my opinion, the greatest horror film of all time. Having now completed this review, it is very likely that I'll never watch it again.
Rating: 46%