LOS ANGELES (AP) - If slasher movies have said it once, they've said it a hundred times: When you're young, lost and weary and you need a helping hand ... the other hand is going to be holding a hook, machete or chain saw.
It's the standard warning preached in most survival-horror flicks, starting with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in 1974 and retold in the likes of "Friday the 13th,""A Nightmare on Elm Street,""Halloween" and the more recent "Jeepers Creepers." The tale has been repeated so endlessly - and with so many sequels - why would anyone want to remake one of the originals? Marcus Nispel, the director of New Line Cinema's new 2003 version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," has a simple answer: repetition is part of the fun. He described the slasher genre as modern folk tales, simple yarns meant to be told and told again, adding detail and embellishment as they grow. So why not pass the "Massacre" onto a new generation? "This is storytelling in the vein of 'Hansel and Gretel.' It's age-old," said Nispel, a first-time feature director whose previous work includes music videos for Janet Jackson and Faith No More. "The metaphor is a simple one," he added. "If you're a kid or young adult in some hick town, some one-horse town, and parents are suppressing you and all you can do is get away, how do you rebel?" While the original was a $140,000 project that built an unexpected cult following ($30 million-plus box office) the remake, starring former "7th Heaven" actress Jessica Biel, retains the low-budget flavor, costing a remarkably low $9.5 million. Biel plays one of five stranded youths who become the prey of a deformed lunatic who repeatedly fails to follow proper safety guidelines when utilizing tree-trimming equipment. Bloody horror films remain so popular - with the recent box-office success of "Jeepers Creepers 2,""Freddy vs. Jason" and "Cabin Fever" - because teenagers and 20-somethings have a seemingly primal fascination with death. "It just seems so lowbrow, but there's a visceral thing to it. It hits you in the gut," said "Chainsaw" remake producer Michael Bay, who is best known for directing "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon." Maybe these movies are metaphors for growing up and breaking free from the horrors of adolescence ... or maybe they're just excuses for two people to get close on a first date. "In the movies, you watch these couples just grab onto each other," Bay said, laughing. Most longtime horror fans acknowledge that slasher films follow the same pattern. But Michelle Inman, a 24-year-old slasher-film aficionado and student at California State University, Northridge, said it's the little variations that make a thriller great. "I like to see people get out of situations, because sometimes they do. And then if they don't get out of it, I like to think 'What would I have done differently?'" she said, adding with a laugh: "It's kind of neat to take note in case you ever come across a psycho." Inman loved the original "Chainsaw," but said she wasn't interested in a faithful remake. She was more curious about the alterations: in the remake, the hitchhiker at the beginning is a victim, not a weirdo; the audience gets to see Leatherface's real mug; and there's a larger family of sickos. The original featured a gritty, gruesome visage of deranged murder that lived up to its stark name. It helped define the slasher genre and stunned unprepared sneak-preview audiences - some reportedly staggered out of theaters sick. Capitalizing on Halloween and the new remake, a special edition DVD release of the 1974 thriller debuted Tuesday. Tobe Hooper, the original's director, refused to be interviewed for this story, but has said previously that he too was inspired by folk tales - and by shopping in a hardware store. He fused his chain-saw motif to the true-life story of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin grave robber and murderer whose 1957 exploits, which involved cannibalism and sewing clothes out of human skin, inspired the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho" and the Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs." Scott Kosar, the screenwriter who adapted the remake "Chainsaw" script, said he had reverence for the original's signature senselessness. "It's not based on plot or clever construction. There was no attempt to explain what was happening," Kosar said. "There's just a murderous beast with a chain saw and he just keeps coming and coming and coming." The same can be said of slasher movies. ________________________________ Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
