Main cast: Jessica Biel (Erin), Jonathan Tucker (Morgan), Erica Leerhsen (Pepper), Mike Vogel (Andy), Eric Balfour (Kemper), Andrew Bryniarski (Leatherface), and R Lee Ermey (Sheriff Hoyt)
Director: Marcus Nispel

I have never actually seen blasphemy in action until I sit down, watch this so-called “remake” of the 1974 cult classic horror movie, and realize that “remake” in this case means Marcus Nispel and gang taking a chainsaw to the movie and ripping to shreds any morbid humor or intelligence in the original movie. This latest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a braindead movie tailor-made for basement mothball-eating geeks.

Incidentally, did someone start a Redneck Southern Cannibal Freakshow Revival while I’m not looking? Just these few months alone we have so many silly movies like Wrong Turn and Cabin Fever, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just another tedious addition to an already pointlessly stupid genre. It’s the same thing: five stupid teenagers drive straight through some redneck area with drugs in their stash, pick up a woman (instead of a redneck guy in the original movie), this woman kills herself, the idiots decide to go around searching for a sheriff, and a masked weirdo with a chainsaw (the town golden boy, it seems) go around chainsawing the idiots up one by one for the family dinner.

Instead of a low-key horror movie that was the original, this version is a ramped-up rip-off of bad sequels, with Leatherface turning into the masked Energizer gargoyle that just won’t die. Everyone in this movie is either a vile redneck caricature or an idiot teenager just begging for death. R Lee Ermey must be vying for the annual Jon Voight Award for the most despicable facial expressions and vocal nuances on the big screen. It will be easy to shut my eyes and pretend that I am not watching this movie, were not for Jessica Biel’s screaming that comes this close to shattering my eardrums.

Is it a new rule in horror movie-making to create wholly infuriatingly stupid or nasty people so the audience will cheer for the death of everyone in the movie? As it is, this remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is drenched in gore and severed limbs but it is an ineptly executed paint-by-numbers teen slasher movie that fails to deliver any irony or humor to make the whole affair palatable. Everyone else wishing to keep intact fond memories of the 1974 original, do yourself a favor and give this one a wide, wide berth.