I read here people praising this film. I must say this really does baffle me! Why? Because it is such a bad movie!
Okay, let's forget for a moment that it's a remake (basically in name only) of a well-loved and honored classic. Let's just take the line that this is another horror film pumped out of the dreamfactory by businessmen who have no love of film and certainly no respect for the people who go to watch them and see what we get; TCM 2003 starts with a black & white sequence showing the events leading up to the story the film tells. Now, the film is set in 1974, so why would the footage be black & white and look as though it was shot in the fifties? Then the film starts proper with Daniel Pearl's stunning but highly inappropriate 21st century pop art/video photography (I wonder if he shot Fairy Tales this well?) Then we meet our cast of characters who look, talk, and behave nothing like they would were they living in Texas in the early 1970's. So far so bad! Then comes the hitchhiker sequence with the ridiculous revelation of where the badly traumatized girl keeps the gun. Then the director has his camera zip out the hole in the girl's head and out the shattered window, and you know from there that this is going to be all style over content, in fact, he was so impressed with it that he does the same shot a second time. Then, from the moment the teenagers (cough, cough) decide to head into town and pull up at the service station to ring the police the film was in drastic trouble. First off they go to a place they were never given directions to, the Old Mill, and find it no troubles at all? Then they are introduced to a young boy whose character is solely in the film to help out with a few dodgy plot points. Then they go to the massive house on the hill, which looks like a Chinese laundry there are so many sheets hanging on the line. Why? Simply for visual effect!
Characters are introduced but make no sense. And on it goes; they meet a sheriff who is so obviously a nutcase, although he does have a nasty sense of humour, which I liked, even though R. Lee. Ermey was miscast, as he's played the same character way too many times. Then Leatherface is introduced, and would have to be the lamest introductions in cinema history. Then when Jessica Biel escapes, after the ridiculous crap going on in the basement, she ends up at a caravan inhabited by two women and a baby. Now, from the moment we meet these two new characters we know who and what they are, but this still doesn't explain how they had the drugged tea already to go? And I could go on and on pointing out bad plot point after bad plot point, all the way to the less than stunning denouement.
In summary: The acting was bad, the directing was worse, and the script was vile. The productions only redeeming factor was Daniel Pearl's photography, but even that was used in the wrong film. Where was Daniel Pearl when they were shooting Wrong Turn? Which was a fairly decent horror flick that definitely could have used a bit of inspiration in the photography department. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good horror film with a nasty streak of black humour and TCM 2003 had that nasty streak all right but cocked everything else up in the process.
As a horror film TCM 2003 sucks. As a part of a legend it sucks even more. In my opinion most genre films today are absolutely woeful. Certainly anything made by Steven Summers, Roland Emmerich and or Michael Bay are huge piles of puss. The only trouble is their films, like TCM 2003, continue to make money.
Dawn of the Dead shows how real filmmakers re-image a classic. Now, do you think it is too much to expect that the new versions of The Hills Have Eyes & 2001 Maniacs (which should really be called 2004 Maniacs?) will be any good? Yah never know, but I doubt it.
Snoggett
Okay, let's forget for a moment that it's a remake (basically in name only) of a well-loved and honored classic. Let's just take the line that this is another horror film pumped out of the dreamfactory by businessmen who have no love of film and certainly no respect for the people who go to watch them and see what we get; TCM 2003 starts with a black & white sequence showing the events leading up to the story the film tells. Now, the film is set in 1974, so why would the footage be black & white and look as though it was shot in the fifties? Then the film starts proper with Daniel Pearl's stunning but highly inappropriate 21st century pop art/video photography (I wonder if he shot Fairy Tales this well?) Then we meet our cast of characters who look, talk, and behave nothing like they would were they living in Texas in the early 1970's. So far so bad! Then comes the hitchhiker sequence with the ridiculous revelation of where the badly traumatized girl keeps the gun. Then the director has his camera zip out the hole in the girl's head and out the shattered window, and you know from there that this is going to be all style over content, in fact, he was so impressed with it that he does the same shot a second time. Then, from the moment the teenagers (cough, cough) decide to head into town and pull up at the service station to ring the police the film was in drastic trouble. First off they go to a place they were never given directions to, the Old Mill, and find it no troubles at all? Then they are introduced to a young boy whose character is solely in the film to help out with a few dodgy plot points. Then they go to the massive house on the hill, which looks like a Chinese laundry there are so many sheets hanging on the line. Why? Simply for visual effect!
Characters are introduced but make no sense. And on it goes; they meet a sheriff who is so obviously a nutcase, although he does have a nasty sense of humour, which I liked, even though R. Lee. Ermey was miscast, as he's played the same character way too many times. Then Leatherface is introduced, and would have to be the lamest introductions in cinema history. Then when Jessica Biel escapes, after the ridiculous crap going on in the basement, she ends up at a caravan inhabited by two women and a baby. Now, from the moment we meet these two new characters we know who and what they are, but this still doesn't explain how they had the drugged tea already to go? And I could go on and on pointing out bad plot point after bad plot point, all the way to the less than stunning denouement.
In summary: The acting was bad, the directing was worse, and the script was vile. The productions only redeeming factor was Daniel Pearl's photography, but even that was used in the wrong film. Where was Daniel Pearl when they were shooting Wrong Turn? Which was a fairly decent horror flick that definitely could have used a bit of inspiration in the photography department. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good horror film with a nasty streak of black humour and TCM 2003 had that nasty streak all right but cocked everything else up in the process.
As a horror film TCM 2003 sucks. As a part of a legend it sucks even more. In my opinion most genre films today are absolutely woeful. Certainly anything made by Steven Summers, Roland Emmerich and or Michael Bay are huge piles of puss. The only trouble is their films, like TCM 2003, continue to make money.
Dawn of the Dead shows how real filmmakers re-image a classic. Now, do you think it is too much to expect that the new versions of The Hills Have Eyes & 2001 Maniacs (which should really be called 2004 Maniacs?) will be any good? Yah never know, but I doubt it.
Snoggett