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The easiest way to put down the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is to compare it to original 1974 classic and to point out the utter futility of trying to top that film. When the original film came out, people were not sure quite what to make of it and it danced in the shadows of obscurity and distribution problems for quite some time. But it eventually picked up momentum and has come to be one of the main markers of the horror genre. When the remake was announced, the buzz of controversy began immediately. How dare anyone think of remaking such a classic, the common consensus seemed to read. Many pointed out that the film was sure to fail, artistically and financially. Well, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre opened to wide release on October 17th 2003 and over the weekend became the number one film in America. It exceeded the already-high expectations of box office officials and amazed a lot of people who had felt sure it would bomb. But while the film fared well financially, how does it hold up as a piece of film making? Well, as a fan of the original and someone who has supported the remake along the way, I must say that it does and it doesn't. Yes, the original was sort of brilliant. But a lot of it's greatness came by accident from the utter poverty of the production. The house was real (it was rented from a rural Texas family). A lot of the blood on the protagonist's outfit was real from running and falling for take after take. And it was really gritty. It's kind of hard to breathe while watching that movie the first few times. It was a little exploitation sickie that somehow stumbled into becoming a masterpiece and a lot of it was due to the off-the-cuff way it was made. But considering that film's infamy, you can be sure that the film makers who set out to do it again had a few more dollars and lot more expensive fake blood.

This film was directed by Marcus Nispel (pictured next page left), a music video director who is getting a shot on this movie courtesy of producer Michael Bay (next page right). Bay, who directed Bad Boys (1995), it's sequel and other big bang flicks such as Armageddon (1998) and Pearl Harbor (2001), has expressed interest in giving music video directors a shot at the big time since Bay himself was one in the past. The problem is that while Bay might have seen something in Nispel, I am not sure if Nispel saw anything in The Texas Chainsaw project placed before him. Because while the movie does have the bare ingredients of the original it doesn't have the feeling that it was brought to the screen by someone who had a love for it. Take, for example, that there is no dinner scene here, a scene made infamous by the original and it's sequels. This, of course, is the part in the movie where the victim is forced to sit through a hellish dinner while she is tortured by the family of killers. Or take for example that here Leatherface is not a retarded man with a disturbed mind but instead a cold, heartless killer in the same vein as Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees. These are essential elements that any decent fan of the original would have immediately inked into the script. But they are nowhere to be found. And what of the `chainsaw dance' that Leatherface executed in every one of the previous films, his riveting dance of frustration in which he spun and cavorted with his saw. One snap of the director's fingers and these problems would have been fixed faster than a chainsaw cuts through Kleenex. And what of the house, which looks as if it were assembled from large wooden boxes all stacked up. Or any of the sets in this film for that matter. The original was filmed on location in houses that really existed and still do in Texas. (One was moved to another state sometime over the years.) Geographically, the houses were at the same locations represented in the film. That was what gave the film half of its authenticity. Here, the characters are just running through a lot of movie sets.

Fortunately, sometimes a good cast and a great cinematographer can wrestle a film away from an incompetent director long enough to give an otherwise dispensable picture some merit. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) is a textbook example of this. Jessica Biel, best known thus far for her role on the WB network's 7th Heaven (a show many dismissed but I always enjoyed), is one hell of a horror heroine as she slices, dices and runs over whoever gets in her way. It's surprising that she pulls a decent performance out of a script that gave her little to start with. And this goes for the rest of the cast. Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel and Eric Balfour are equally exceptional as the other victims and each brings at least some semblance of a fresh vibe to worn out stock characters from a secondhand screenplay. But when all is said, the real applause goes to Daniel Pearl, the cinematographer who lensed the original classic and returns here to save the day. He keeps the low angles and superb tracking shots of the 1974 film but also manages to elicit a considerable amount of queer beauty from the rural Texas locations. He makes a cookie-cutter Hollywood haunted house into a disturbing thing of nightmares. The summer sunlight shoots through the trees with a celestial glow that makes the whole thing work while Nispel is busy with Latex masks and buckets of blood. In 1994, Kim Henkel, one of the creators of the original, got a chance to do his own Chainsaw film and it's sad that Pearl did not get his chance with this one. If he can do so much from his limited position on this film it's a wonder to think what the picture would have been like had he been slated to direct.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the stuff of American legend and it dwells in our subconscious in ways at once unsettling and fascinating. There is no reason why no new Chainsaw films should be made so though I am not completely happy with this remake I am in no way against what it sets out to do which is to bring the old story to new generations. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films remind us of the flaws in American life that nest beneath society but also affect it. They are a series of bold nightmares that are difficult to endure and even harder to forget. But the problem with Marcus Nispel's film is that it tells the story with a lot less quality and with a lot of the essential elements missing. It's true that Nispel's film is far more graphic than the original but it's like someone telling you the story of Hansel and Gretel with all the gross bits expanded upon but much of the effect gone. You walk away grossed out and with the basic parts all in place but something is missing.

Over the years, countless rock stars have taken breaks from music to act. But the problem is, as we all know, that very few rock stars can act and vice versa. Remember Mick Jagger in Freejack?) But in 1997, when Courtney Love made her acting debut in Milos Forman's The People Versus Larry Flynt it was a pleasant surprise. She had the character down to a T. Now, love her or hate her (I'm a fan) you had to admit it was dynamite. She proved she had it and I couldn't wait to see what was next. Well, sometimes actors can act but can't pick their roles. Such has been the case since the success of People Vs. Larry Flynt. Well, there was 200 Cigarettes, a semi-sucessful all-star party movie. Okay. But then there was Man On The Moon, a Milos Forman film, and that turned sour. She was idling in the shadows playing the stock character love interest. Not that she lost the spark but there was nothing there for her to do. Now comes Trapped, a formulaic suspense film starring Kevin Bacon. And what of Kevin Bacon, a great actor who is left here to play an incompetent, boring role. Trapped needs to go back to the factory. Being fans of both actors I gotts say I'm not impressed. Bacon spends the whole movie dawdling with Charlize Theron while Love keeps finding ways to stumble backwards and throw her robe off. Come on, guys... we can do better than this.

There is an unspoken sort of rule that different genres can be combined but two different types of the same genre should not. Allow me to clarify. Duplex comes off like if the Farrelly brothers did a black comedy. Sure there are bodies thrown into rivers, an old woman being thrown down a flight of stairs and half a movie devoted to attempted murder but there is also enough vomit and chicken guts hitting the wall to give us the impression that we may be getting two movies for the price of one whether we like it or not. There is a lot of black comedy here and there is a lot of brainless gross-out comedy. But the blender isn't working. In the end, the audience feels like it may have stumbled into the wrong movie when in actuality it is the movie that has stumbled into the wrong movie.

And the movie works as neither types of comedy. The dark side comes off as forced and recycled and the gross-outs come frequent enough to be forgettable. But there is no sharp satire at play here. There are no surprises. The filmmakers need to remember that satire has always been a good friend of black comedy; not vomit and mouse turds. Which is not to say that I am putting down either type of film. But both kinds have been done endlessly and need to be handled carefully in order to work. When Ben Stiller had semen dripping from his ear in There's Something About Mary it was hilarious and strangely provocative. Here, when he has a sinkfull of turkey gunk dropped on him it's just not funny. And it does not help to have another character vomit on him almost immediately. It's one thing thing to have an unfunny moment in a comedy (even the greatest ones have a few) but to follow it with a consecutive and equally-unfunny moment is a crime.

But the talent involved here is a help to the film. Stiller is good but he should have been given more to work with. He is great in scenes in the movies he is in when his character is put in uncomfortable social situations. Or when he is pushed beyond the breaking point and he lashes out at the weirdos around him. (See Flirting With Disaster) But here he has too much chaos going on around him to take a second and be funny. Barrymore is also good here but I would have liked to seen her talents pushed. I wish she would have been given a better part. Not a different one, just a better one. Eileen Essel should be proud. She is absolutely great here as the old woman who drifts from the haze of old age to the conspiratorial nature of an international spy. And sure Swoozie Kurtz and Justin Theroux are there but there characters are cold and uninteresting.

The film was directed by Danny DeVito who has made movies in the past. After seeing Duplex I looked at his director filmography here on the database and was reminded of a 1987 film he did called Throw Momma From The Train. There is a scene in that film where a character shows another character his coin collection. The one character begins taking out the coins which we immediately see are standard nickels and dimes. The other character points this out. But as the scene goes on we find out that the catch is the coins were all given to him as a child by a father who was soon gone. It's subtle and it works but it is not presented as a key scene in the movie. By the end, it gets lost among the jumble. This also applies to Duplex. The more effective moments are the subtle ones but the movie is too busy with fart jokes and collapsing floors to let us enjoy them.

All said, Duplex is nowhere near horrible. It just doesn't work and, with all the talent at hand, that is disappointing. It's not less but it isn't more, if you get my drift. But DeVito , Stiller and Barrymore will make more movies. They will get more chances. They are still great and I will keep going to see anything they are involved with. Duplex is nothing special but no one involved with it should be ashamed.