The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD

There is an urban — no, global — myth that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a true story, possibly because Tobe Hooper's 1974 original and this remake pretend it is.

Let's dispose of that now: both movies, and possibly the whole slasher genre, take their "inspiration" from the ghoulish story of Ed Gein, a reclusive Wisconsin farmer who is known to have dug up or murdered at least 15 women in the 1940s and 50s.

Gein was the basis for the character of Norman Bates and Hitchcock's Psycho. Hooper heard the stories as a youngster visiting relatives in Wisconsin and subsequently admitted he was forever scarred.

The new version, by Marcus Nispel, who has previously been allowed only to make music videos, opens in 1974 as a van-full of hippies is driving home through Texas after a dope-smoking vacation south of the border. They pick up a hitch-hiker, and from there the story descends into a gory, special effects-laden, teen-scream cliche that has no purpose except to shock.

Which wouldn't be bad, except that this movie does it so badly. The scary noise that turns out to be a cat. The car / van / truck that won't start when someone really needs it to. The girl who turns around and sees the slasher behind her. As anyone who's seen the original will tell you, youngsters, in that movie you had to imagine most of this. And you did.

And just when you've seen and heard more than you need, the DVD adds more gore and the movie-makers' self-justification.

Show you're human. Avoid this.

DVD, video rental, out now