The ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ Remake Is More Disturbing Than the Origina
The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may not be as good, but it is more brutal, gritty, and disturbing than the original.
When Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came out in 1974, it was unlike anything audiences had ever seen before. There were outliers, like Psycho and Peeping Tom in 1960, but horror five decades ago was often gothic and centered around monsters, before a wave of religious horror, thanks to 1973's The Exorcist, caused that subgenre to have its moment. This was still a couple of years before Halloween would popularise films about masked men wreaking havoc on innocent people. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a hit, but a controversial one, as many complained of the film's excessive gore. The controversy speaks to how effective the atmosphere was, for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre actually has little of the red stuff, but makes us think it does with closeups of violence just off-center.
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