| 80 |
Washington Post
What a superb job director Marcus Nispel has done re-creating, yet also revising, 1974's grisly, gristly, protein-centric masterpiece.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Has no pretensions about sneaking up on you -- it simply charges, motor humming and blades flying, carving the spot where masochism and entertainment meet.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
Adding R. Lee Ermey to the Leatherface clan was a masterful move.
|
| 63 |
Premiere
Manages to pull off an adequate amount of scares, when compared to most horror flicks in theaters this Halloween season.
|
| 63 |
ReelViews
The film delivers with enough consistency to warrant a qualified recommendation for those seeking a few extra scares at this time of the year.
|
| 60 |
Empire
The look, created by Hooper’s cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and expert art direction is persuasively nasty… but somehow that buzzing saw doesn’t sound as scary as it used to.
|
| 60 |
The Hollywood Reporter
This particular reconceptualization actually does an impressive job of capturing the nasty dread of the original. It certainly is a vast improvement over those previous remakes/sequels.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
The gruesomely unnecessary remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is such a smorgasbord of slimy grunge that to call the movie gross wouldn't do it justice -- it's downright sticky.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
A lot more violent and a tad less creepy than the 1974 original, the much-changed remake delivers enough gory, belligerent mayhem to keep horror fans screaming.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
The new version has a few jolts, some occasionally effective smoke-and-mirrors photography and a lead (7th Heaven's Jessica Biel) who could teach a grad course on walking provocatively in blue jeans.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Director Marcus Nispel, a rock video vet making his feature debut, knows how to ratchet up the tension. His remake is a far, far better-looking thing than the original. There's also more humor, especially in the over-the-top performance of drill sergeant-turned-actor R. Lee Ermey as the loudest of the inbreds.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
While it’s far from bad, it also falls far short of the icy frissons produced by the original.
|
| 50 |
Boston Globe
As the eviscerations ensue, the truth becomes undeniable: This is easily the most gruesome, most pointless, episode of "Scooby Doo" ever.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Gruesome enough; what it lacks is a distinctive revolting
personality of its own.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
The remaining twisted population that likes this kind of movie will enjoy a horror film that is surprisingly stylish.
|
| 50 |
Rolling Stone
Chainsaw is produced by Michael Bay (Bad Boys I and II), which explains its soullessness. But nothing explains the flaw in this bad boy: How can a movie scare you when you’ve seen it all before?
|
| 50 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Seems to understand its source material, but has no idea how to improve on it.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Still and all, the makeup special effects are as over the top as anything in Hooper and L.M. Kit Carson's 1986 Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and -- for those of us without the sense to steer clear of this sort of thing -- that's saying something.
|
| 40 |
Film Threat
Kevin Carr
Everything that made the original Chainsaw a classic is ground into the dirt in this new version.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
There's nothing wrong with remakes, but as this movie amply proves, there's often nothing right about them, either
|
| 38 |
Baltimore Sun
Simply go out and rent the original. In the thin ranks of killer-power-tool flicks, it's still the standard to beat.
|
| 38 |
Miami Herald
This new, presumably improved Chainsaw is just as humorless as the original, but it's also slicker, glossier and resoundingly artificial.
|
| 33 |
Portland Oregonian
For those who've seen the original, no surprises will be unearthed other than an altered story (not for the better) and more gore.
|
| 30 |
Variety
Initially promising, but quickly disappointing.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Richard Harrington
Weakens, dilutes, disinfects and otherwise undermines the legacy of Tobe Hooper's 1974 original.
|
| 30 |
Village Voice
An overproduced, video-director remake, slick and grue-marinated and loud as a sonic boom.
|
| 30 |
The New York Times
Rather than exhilaration, this bilious film offers only entrapment and despair. It's about as much fun as sitting in on an autopsy.
|
| 25 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Efforts to expand the envelope of grotesquery make the film repulsive and suspenseless, and it sorely misses original director Tobe Hooper's grisly, wily sense of humor.
|
| 25 |
Charlotte Observer
I don't know if Nispel and Scott Kosar, who make their feature film debuts here, are the worst director and writer in the world, though they might well represent the United States if anyone holds a competition. I do know they deliver a total of zero laughs, scares or surprises in this remake of the infamously creepy 1974 picture.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
Significantly more gruesome and noisy than its predecessor, and boasting more nasty-looking fluids than all the works of David Fincher combined, this version leaves few corpses unturned in its unstinting campaign to please gorehounds.
|
| 20 |
TV Guide
This new SAW film is so utterly unimaginative it doesn't even count as hommage; it's just a smudgy copy of a still chilling original.
|
| 20 |
Chicago Reader
Offers the same crudely effective variation on the hatred and fear of hillbillies in "Deliverance."
|
| 0 |
Chicago Sun-Times
A contemptible film: Vile, ugly and brutal. There is not a shred of a reason to see it.
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