Well it was inevitable really, wasn't it. If Scream and Halloween can do it, you can bet TCM can too. I mean, if any of these three franchises actually, truly deserves a competent re-visit, then send me to Texas any day of the week.
Nostalgia has been prevalent more recently than ever in the movie industry and this is not much different, except the expectations of those nostalgic for the seventies horror shocker are likely going to be a good deal older than those that were only recently pining for more Scream.
And what you take into this when you sit down with it will most likely be influenced by your previous experience of the franchise. If you saw the original in the mid-seventies and then lived under a rock, only to resurface this week, then anticipation will be very high, such was the influence and social effect of the film. Whether this feeling has been reproduced since is a personal point of view, most would probably admit that the original was the undisputed highlight so far.
Where some films are polished and edited sublimely, TCM has always felt like the dirt under your cracked fingernails. A grubby, shocking undercurrent amongst the genre's predictable and more familiar siblings and it tries to do the same here, but the shock and awe provided by what was ostensibly a video nasty in the UK at the time, it does take a lot more to scare audiences in these less innocent, enlightened days.
This is gory and bloody, brutal and unapologetic for its visceral horror, much like the original, but I wonder if this had been release in 1974 if it would have received the universally positive response from audiences in the same way the original film did. As it is, whilst it does what it does well, and we're not asking much, the general audience member, even for schlock horror, is decades more sophisticated than they used to be. Hence, some will roll their eyes and not be impressed as they might.
Acted well enough to convince us of the plight of the players who find themselves in dire peril as Leatherface is back again creating chaos with his handy toolset, this is not challenging performance-wise. Some of the scenes are inventive but these are in the minority, with the director/s opting for easy and obvious more often than not. Personally, I failed to be immersed and even at under an hour and a half, this still felt laboured and overlong.
Not anywhere near as bad as it could have ended up being, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't disappoint me in the same way that Scream did this year, although honestly, my expectations for this were not nearly as high. Perfectly average. Fine if this is your cup of tea, but this will not set the horror world on fire like maybe it could or should have done.
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