Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.
The 2003 remake of TCM is a slick but largely hollow retread of the 1974 classic. The plot is thin even by slasher standards — five friends, a hitchhiker, and Leatherface with little dramatic development. Acting is serviceable at best, with Jessica Biel doing competent work but the rest of the cast being fairly forgettable. Cinematography is a genuine bright spot: Daniel Pearl's gritty, desaturated, sun-baked Texas aesthetic gives the film a grimy, oppressive atmosphere that elevates the material. Novelty is low — as a by-the-numbers remake it adds little beyond a grimier aesthetic and a bigger budget to the original's formula. The ending is weak, resolving too conveniently after sustained tension without real payoff.