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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Poster of the film.
Directed by Marcus Nispel
Produced by Michael Bay
Mike Fleiss
Brad Fuller
Tobe Hooper
Kim Henkel
Written by Scott Kosar
Starring Jessica Biel
Jonathan Tucker
Erica Leerhsen
Mike Vogel
Eric Balfour
R. Lee Ermey
Music by Steve Jablonsky
Distributed by New Line Cinema (United States)
Focus Features (International)
Release date(s) October 18, 2003
Running time 99 minutes
Language English
Budget $9.5 million
Gross revenue $107,071,655
Preceded by Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Followed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 American slasher film, and a remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film, also serving as a reboot of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, 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. It is the fifth installment in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, and the first film to be its own separate continuity, renaming characters from the 1974 film and disregarding its events, thus remaking them.

A sequel was planned, but was later made into a prequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. The prequel was released in 2006 to negative reviews from critics.

Narrator[]

"The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of 5 youths. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected, nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them, an idyllic summer afternoon became a nightmare. For 30 years, the files collected dust in the cold-cases division of the Travis County Police Department. Over 1,300 pieces of evidence were collected from the crime scene at the Hewitt residence. Yet none of the evidence was more compelling than the classified police footage of the crime-scene walk-through. The events of that day were to lead to one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." - Nod to 1974 narration (and also narrated again) by John Larroquette

Plot[]

On August 18, 1973, five teenagers, Erin, her boyfriend Kemper, Morgan, Andy, and Pepper, are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after returning from Mexico, where they were supplying themselves with drugs for the concert. As they drive through Texas, they spot a distraught hitchhiker, who eventually gets into their van. After they have tried to speak to the hitchhiker, who talks incoherently about a "bad man", she pulls a gun, a .357 Magnum, out of her vagina, which is covered in blood, and proceeds to shoot herself in the mouth.

After the startling shock, the group tries to contact the police, they then go to a store where a woman tells them the sheriff is at the mill. Instead of the sheriff, they find a little boy named Jedidiah, 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 falls from the wheelchair and asks her for help, Monty takes advantage of the situation to grab Erin's ass. Kemper goes inside to look for Erin and is attacked by the vicious-looking Leatherface, 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; Kemper was intending to propose to Erin.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) arrives at the mill and disposes of the hitchhiker's body, wrapping her in plastic wrap and putting her in his trunk. As he drives away, he tells the youths to leave. Erin arrives and finds that Kemper is still missing. Andy and Erin go back to Monty's house, where Erin distracts him while Andy searches for Kemper. Monty realizes Andy is inside and summons Leatherface, who attacks Andy with his chainsaw. Erin escapes and heads towards the woods, but Leatherface slices 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 spotting marijuana on the dashboard, 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 and begins to drive, but one of the wheels falls off. Erin and Pepper stay still in the truck, but Leatherface appears on the top of the truck and tries to attack them by chainsawing the roof.

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 strangely. 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 "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 the trailer.

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 Jedidiah. Luda May tells Erin that her excuse for her son Thomas' actions is 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 suffering severe emotional trauma.

Afterwards, she finds Morgan, who is still handcuffed. Jedidiah, who clearly does not agree with the actions of his family, leads them out of the house. Jedidiah rejects Erin's plea to come with them, rather staying there, and distracts Leatherface long enough for them to escape. Erin and Morgan find an abandoned shack in the woods and barricade themselves inside. Leatherface breaks in and discovers Erin, ,but before he can slice her in half, Morgan attacks Leatherface, causing him to drop his chainsaw. Morgan grabs him and wrestles him, but Leatherface lifts Morgan upwards toward a chandelier, where Morgan becomes entangled by his handcuffs, and is left hanging and defenseless. Leatherface picks up his chainsaw, slicing up into Morgan's groin, killing him.

Erin runs out of the shack and escapes through the woods. Leatherface trips on a fence 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, chopping 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 places her in the sheriff's car and hot-wires it. Hoyt notices her and tries to stop her, but she runs him down and runs him over repeatedly until he is dead. Leatherface appears in the road with the chainsaw and tries to stop her, but he is too slow, and Erin manages to escape with the baby unharmed, and he watches in frustration as she drives away. Two days later, two investigating officers are killed by Leatherface while doing a crime scene investigation of the Hewitt house, and a narrator states that the case still remains open.

Cast[]

  • Andrew Bryniarski as Thomas Hewitt / Leatherface, a serial killer who wears human flesh-made mask over his own face. He has a rare skin disorder that has made him disfigured and judged by others.
  • Jessica Biel as Erin Hardesty who, along with her boyfriend Kemper and her 3 friends, make an ill-fated trip to Texas which leaves her as the only sole survivor.
    • Despite her last name, she is not related to Sally Hardesty and is instead her reincarnation in this separate timeline/alternate continuity.
  • R. Lee Ermey as Charlie Hewitt Jr. / Sheriff Hoyt, the brother of Thomas Hewitt / Leatherface and the only sheriff in the town left.
  • Eric Balfour as Kemper Sterling: Erin's boyfriend who drives the van and the first of the survivors to die.
  • Jonathan Tucker as Morgan Hardesty: Erin and Kemper's stoner friend who accompanied them on their trip to Mexico, He is generally the nerd of the group and the fourth and final survivor to die.
    • Like Erin to Sally, he is only the reincarnation and is thus not related to neither Sally or Franklin Hardesty, his parallel, whom he reverses in this separate continuity and alternate timeline by not being disabled.
  • Erica Leerhsen as Pepper: a hitchhiker who the group met a few days prior to the events of the film and the second survivor of the group to die.
    • Parallel to Pamela from 1974 film.
  • Mike Vogel as Andy: Erin and Kemper's friend who accompanied them on their trip to Mexico and the third survivor to die.
    • Parallel to Kirk from 1974 film.
  • David Dorfman as Jedidiah Hewitt: A member of the Hewitt family. He is possibly an orphan from one of the Hewitt's victims over the years but it is not known.
  • Marietta Marich as Luda Mae Hewitt
  • Terrence Evans as Monty Hewitt
  • Heather Kafka as Henrietta Hewitt
  • Kathy Lamkin as The Tea Lady
  • Lauren German as Jessica Crawford: This is a reverse of both the Hitchhiker in the 1974 film and Sally Hardesty in the ending of the 1974 film, as well as an homage to the eventual death of Sally, also due to psychological trauma (retconned in sequels, especially 1986, 1990 and 1995 films).
  • Brad Leland as Big Rig Bob
  • Mamie Meek as Clerk
  • John Larroquette as Narrator (voice)
  • Scott Martin Gershin as Leatherface (voice) (uncredited)
  • Harry Jay Knowles as Victim On a Silver Platter (uncredited)
  • ???? as Detective Wallace (uncredited)
  • ???? as Detective Adams (uncredited)

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).

Trivia[]

  • During the movie, a cartoon: "Much Ado About Mutton (1947)" is shown on the Hewitt TV.
  • Continuity Error: The phones used throughout the film are impossible since the film takes place in 1973 and the first telephone was designed three years later in 1976.
  • This film is the second out of five in the franchise, preceded by Next Generation, in which its cast would later or during, become notable celebrity names (whether actors or others) and Hollywood actors/actresses such as:

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 metal music and was released on November 4, 2003.[11] 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.[12]

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 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 Coretez

Score[edit][]

  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)
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