BackFire's TCM Remake Review
As is well known throughout this site, I have not been an avid supporter of the remake of my favorite horror movie. I thought from the beginning it would serve no purpose other then tarnishing and spitting on the greatness that was the original. Sadly, after seeing it tonight, my fears and predetermined feelings were realized.
I'm not going to bother with a synopsis, it's so incoherent that it obviously doesn't care about story, but rather trying to gather as many cheap scares and 'thrills' as possible over the course of 90 minutes. This includes crappy gore, crappy scare tactics (you know the type, a shadow walking across the screen accompanied by a big noise created for an easy scare) and some of the most redundant and unflowing story I've ever seen. Trust me when i say that there is not one quality scare in this movie. They are all cheap jump scares that basically only affected dumb girls who were just itching to scream for any reason, simply because it was a horror movie. They would scream at the most basic and predictable moments, a cat scurrying across the grass acompanied by a loud noise would create some of the loudest and obviously false screams I have ever heard. It was very annoying.
Now to LeatherFace, the greatest character ever to grace a horror movie, but in this one, the most generic and typical villian you could imagine. He is more like Jason then LeatherFace. He is nearly super human in strength and in his ability to take pain. He was messed up pretty bad during the movie, but he just kept going as if he didn't care that much, this was made glaringly obvious by his overdone and over the top look, which was a far cry from his simple and believable look of the original. Also he was lacking his childlike and innocent mentality that made him so creepy yet likeable in the original. Also they showed his face at one point in the movie, at which point i said louder then i meant too "Unacceptable". That word basically sums up the whole movie. It was just unacceptable. It couldn't be accepted as realistic, psychological, gory or any other adverbs that could be used to describe a horror movie. The only word i can think of to describe it, was bad.
Now to the only plus i could give it. R. Lee Ermy (also known as the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket) is the movies only savior. He pretty much stole the show as the comic relief. His character was demented, funny, and just downright awesome. He kicked ass as usual. That is the only plus side, the rest was a study and meditation on cliche's.
In a genre that has already had so many bad and repetitive movies, i can't help but ask myself, was this one really necessary. The answer to this question is simple. No, it was not.
Go watch the original, you won't find anything new or improved in the remake. Complete waste. Luckily I snuck into the movie after paying to see Runaway Jury, which was actually good, go see that one instead.