Review By: Dan Deevy
(DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com)

If there is one single thing that I have learned from my admittedly limited time in the ‘movie reviewer’ game, it’s that when you make broad sweeping generalizations about a film, be it positive or negative, it is always interpreted by others as a challenge to disprove it. So I am not going to begin this review with my original assertion that, “This is the Best Horror Movie I Have Ever Seen,” because I don’t want a bunch of horror officiandos, as much as I love you guys, writing me telling me that it isn’t for reasons X, Y and Z.

I do not consider myself to be an expert in the horror genre by any means. I do, however, consider myself to be somewhat above average when it comes to pop culture movies and storytelling in general. And based on that knowledge I really must say that this remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the best horror movies ever made. There, I said it! Let the letter writing campaign commence. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back for long.

We have become so numb as a society to violence and death that the ability to truly shock an audience or to seriously disturb them on a psychological level in a movie takes true film making brilliance. We’ve all seen so many horror films that we know when the killer is going to appear. We know who is going to survive and who is going to die generally by the end of the first scene. And we certainly no longer jump back in our seats at the appearance of something on screen, because we obviously knew it was coming. None of this holds true in Texas Chainsaw Massacre! You will jump. You will look away. And you will leave the theater truly disturbed by what you just saw.

I’ve honestly been surprised by some of the negative comments made about the film by some journalists and others who have been fortunate enough to see this film before its release. One comment in particular has stuck with me. One person, who shall remain nameless, was saying how she really didn’t like the movie because it really just wasn’t very good. Her reason…. It scared her too much! (Insert long awkward pause to be followed by a loud resounding… DUH!!!!) I think it’s because we are so used to watered down horror movies that are not scary but instead, laughable with things like the cheesy spewing blood fountains from supposedly severed limbs and such, that no one knows how to handle the genuine article anymore.

The beauty of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that it is not gratuitously bloody or graphic. In fact, for a movie with the word ‘Massacre’ in the title, it is relatively tame in an aesthetic sense. The disturbing images on screen are of course present but they last for only a few moments and then the rest occurs in your ...