Post by obliv326 on Oct 11, 2006 1:08:25 GMT -5
so sue me. i'll watch almost any horror movie. to the point, i saw every nightmare on elm street movvie. everyone but the first in a theatre. i didnt like any of them. including, and myab e especially, the 1st one.
i didn't like the remake of the texas chainsaw massac re either. so why did i go? maybe b/c when theyt work, there is nthing so great and fin and epoch making as a horror movie. i remember those films like i remember those rare times when a movie was so good, i actually got excited after it was over. i can remember being a kid ands riding home after seeing movies like raiders of the lost ark, gremlions, aliens, and knowing that i was alive! and that, more than anything in the world, i wanted to make movies, just so i culd give some of that feeling back.
so i go to movies that i know will be bad, hoping against hope that they will buck the odds and be that diamond splinter in the rough, although a surprising amount of the time, i actually end up halfway enjoying the film for what it is anyway, so i cant say its a complete waste of either time or money.
but then there are movies like this one. ive never been a huge tcm fan, even of the 1st one. i can certainly appreciate it, and i, like everyone else, was aghast when they remade it. right now, that movie has 2 redeeming features, jessica biel's butt, and another reason to hate michael bay.
then there is this one. a prequel. i was hoping that maybe we would get to see how leatherface and the family came to be like they are...and we see this...for 5 minutes...
SPOILERS...although, really, do you care?
they start off w/leatherface being bborn. apparently, he was deformed, and left in a dumpster by the owner of the abatoir that employed hbis mother. he is found by some lady and the we get the credits, playing over the only thing of interest that this film had in any way shape or form. when the credits are over, we learn:
1) in some ironic twist of fate, or maybe because they liked tghe set so much, leatherfcace works in the same slaughterhouse where he was born, abandoned, and found. the economy being what it was, the place is going out of business. the owner charges the other employee to tell leatherface, who goes by the name tom hewitt...but then again, sinmce he never speaks, how would you know this. leatherface kills both the men. now, what i want to know is why they were at all surprised by this...or, more to the point, why he hadnt killed them before. sure, ine insults him, but these guys dont seem like the sensitive types that would refrain from name calling. im sure they had bad mouthed him before. was it the loss of his only outlet of killing, the butchering of the meat, that sent him over the top? whoi knows. what WOULD have been kind of interesting would be to see the workers in a business interact with a gigantic man who just happens t wear a mask made of human flesh. how this didnt strike anyone as odd or, i dont know, disoncerting is just one of many plot holes the size of saturn.
there seems to be no event that sets him off, and we never learn anythinng more about him. what a complete and utter waste of an opportnity to do something intersting.
we also see r lee ermey kill the sheriff and assume his identity, making his character 1000000X less interesting than before. the only thing rem otely interesting about bthat guy was that he was a seriAl killer employed by the state to uphold the law. how ironic. now he's not even that.
so, 5 minutes into the ovie, you have run through every slightly interesting or unusual opportunity to do something new w/the characters and the genre, and they are, essentially, the same exact characters they were in the lkast movie...
and therin lies the biggest weakness of this movie...and mind you, the wasted opportunity to show the b/g of leatherface is pretty f**&ing huge in my book...see, now, having introduced no new members of the family, and having established itself as a prequel...we know not only how it ends, but what happens to every character in it.
see, in the firs remake, we are told that there was a survivor, who prompted the police to investigate. IF anyone had survived beforer, then, well, the police would have investigated before.
and since there arent any new people who werent in the first one, we know none of them die.
see, its just exactly like the first remake, except there is no dramatic tension at all. if there has ever been a more pointless movie ever, i cant think of it. they would have been better off making his a sequel, since they ruined the potential for that premise inside of 5 minutes in their hurry to get back in safe grouynd....\
so, there are a bunch of kids. they stop in a town. they end up getting stopped by a cop. he takes them to a house and kills them one by one.
abd by the way, i walked out abouit 1/2 in...yet i can still tell you exactly what happened (i checked w/a friend who saw it, i was able to desc ribe the plot almost point by point)
if you are unlucky enough to decide to see this, hopefully there will be a screening of he departed, like i did.
i am giving it 2 out of 10, simply b/c if you want to, you could study the technical stuff, ie the photography, the editing...it does some nice things visually on occasion...
but you could write books...hell, you could publish years worth of magazines dealing only with the crap they did wrong on this film
dont waste your time...im sure grudge 2 will be better, as will saw 3...
the only worthwhile thing about this is the decent reissue of the original movie, plus the sequel if you think its any good...
i didn't like the remake of the texas chainsaw massac re either. so why did i go? maybe b/c when theyt work, there is nthing so great and fin and epoch making as a horror movie. i remember those films like i remember those rare times when a movie was so good, i actually got excited after it was over. i can remember being a kid ands riding home after seeing movies like raiders of the lost ark, gremlions, aliens, and knowing that i was alive! and that, more than anything in the world, i wanted to make movies, just so i culd give some of that feeling back.
so i go to movies that i know will be bad, hoping against hope that they will buck the odds and be that diamond splinter in the rough, although a surprising amount of the time, i actually end up halfway enjoying the film for what it is anyway, so i cant say its a complete waste of either time or money.
but then there are movies like this one. ive never been a huge tcm fan, even of the 1st one. i can certainly appreciate it, and i, like everyone else, was aghast when they remade it. right now, that movie has 2 redeeming features, jessica biel's butt, and another reason to hate michael bay.
then there is this one. a prequel. i was hoping that maybe we would get to see how leatherface and the family came to be like they are...and we see this...for 5 minutes...
SPOILERS...although, really, do you care?
they start off w/leatherface being bborn. apparently, he was deformed, and left in a dumpster by the owner of the abatoir that employed hbis mother. he is found by some lady and the we get the credits, playing over the only thing of interest that this film had in any way shape or form. when the credits are over, we learn:
1) in some ironic twist of fate, or maybe because they liked tghe set so much, leatherfcace works in the same slaughterhouse where he was born, abandoned, and found. the economy being what it was, the place is going out of business. the owner charges the other employee to tell leatherface, who goes by the name tom hewitt...but then again, sinmce he never speaks, how would you know this. leatherface kills both the men. now, what i want to know is why they were at all surprised by this...or, more to the point, why he hadnt killed them before. sure, ine insults him, but these guys dont seem like the sensitive types that would refrain from name calling. im sure they had bad mouthed him before. was it the loss of his only outlet of killing, the butchering of the meat, that sent him over the top? whoi knows. what WOULD have been kind of interesting would be to see the workers in a business interact with a gigantic man who just happens t wear a mask made of human flesh. how this didnt strike anyone as odd or, i dont know, disoncerting is just one of many plot holes the size of saturn.
there seems to be no event that sets him off, and we never learn anythinng more about him. what a complete and utter waste of an opportnity to do something intersting.
we also see r lee ermey kill the sheriff and assume his identity, making his character 1000000X less interesting than before. the only thing rem otely interesting about bthat guy was that he was a seriAl killer employed by the state to uphold the law. how ironic. now he's not even that.
so, 5 minutes into the ovie, you have run through every slightly interesting or unusual opportunity to do something new w/the characters and the genre, and they are, essentially, the same exact characters they were in the lkast movie...
and therin lies the biggest weakness of this movie...and mind you, the wasted opportunity to show the b/g of leatherface is pretty f**&ing huge in my book...see, now, having introduced no new members of the family, and having established itself as a prequel...we know not only how it ends, but what happens to every character in it.
see, in the firs remake, we are told that there was a survivor, who prompted the police to investigate. IF anyone had survived beforer, then, well, the police would have investigated before.
and since there arent any new people who werent in the first one, we know none of them die.
see, its just exactly like the first remake, except there is no dramatic tension at all. if there has ever been a more pointless movie ever, i cant think of it. they would have been better off making his a sequel, since they ruined the potential for that premise inside of 5 minutes in their hurry to get back in safe grouynd....\
so, there are a bunch of kids. they stop in a town. they end up getting stopped by a cop. he takes them to a house and kills them one by one.
abd by the way, i walked out abouit 1/2 in...yet i can still tell you exactly what happened (i checked w/a friend who saw it, i was able to desc ribe the plot almost point by point)
if you are unlucky enough to decide to see this, hopefully there will be a screening of he departed, like i did.
i am giving it 2 out of 10, simply b/c if you want to, you could study the technical stuff, ie the photography, the editing...it does some nice things visually on occasion...
but you could write books...hell, you could publish years worth of magazines dealing only with the crap they did wrong on this film
dont waste your time...im sure grudge 2 will be better, as will saw 3...
the only worthwhile thing about this is the decent reissue of the original movie, plus the sequel if you think its any good...
