Verdict: Completely watchable, but brings virtually nothing new to the horror/gore table.

By BOB LONGINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It's always disappointing when a movie's preview is five times better than the film itself.

Take the updated “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the big, glossy, gore-happy Hollywood studio remake of the nerve-rattling 1974 low-budget, indie horror phenom known as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

New Line's got a killer preview for the new “Chainsaw,” which sets a band of unsuspecting young adults, led by Jessica Biel in ultra-low-rise denim, smack dab into Lone Star State killer territory.

The preview is full of weird snapshots, unsettling screams, the roar of gas-powered cutting machinery and the same kind of eerie camera-shutter sounds that helped make “The Silence of the Lambs” such a spine-tingler.

The full-blown movie just doesn't have the payoff of the preview. Though completely watchable (especially when compared with flimsy horror films like “Swimfan”), “Chainsaw” hardly holds up to “Chain Saw.”

Mainly what the new film does is art-direct itself to death. Everything's ultra-dark, ultra-dreary and dripping discolored water (when not dripping blood). There's this leg part dangling here and that dismembered finger hanging out over there. There are beat-up old cars, suspended meat hooks and an early gander at a burned corpse in newsreel footage. The latter suggests we'll be treated to a fire scene later in the movie, but one never ignites.

“Chainsaw” is also an unabashed thief. It greedily steals scene concepts from “The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Blair Witch Project” and TV's “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” In order to juice its cardboard characters, it hijacks Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), the loudmouth humiliator from Stanley Kubrick's “Full Metal Jacket.” Ermey shows up in “Chainsaw” as, you guessed it, a loudmouth sheriff, humiliating victims with the same oversize bravado he displayed in Kubrick's film.

The story line, set in 1973, is reminiscent of the original film (though purists likely will be upset over the plentiful changes). Our dope-crazed, sex-crazed, longhaired young victims chance upon a dilapidated Texas house. They meet up with weirdo locals. Before long, that chainsaw gets fired up.

Director Marcus Nispel, known for slick commercials and slicker music videos, is making his first feature films. One thing's for sure: He's in love with the long shot. You can always count on seeing a distant view of, say, a van screeching to a halt or a daytime or nighttime look at the film's house of horror (always backlit at night for full effect).

Still, “Chainsaw” has merit.

One thing really big and Texan about this movie is a huge hole punctured into one poor young woman's head. In an over-the-top genre such as this, that hole is so empire wide and glorious, it stands supremely blessed.

The gore is plentiful and wince-inducing (which, of course, is the point).

The trouble is, everything in the movie seems too orchestrated, too from the mouths of Hollywood suits, too calculated in order to sell. Simply consider the track records of the film's producers: Michael Bay (“Bad Boys II” and “Pearl Harbor”) and Mike Fleiss (TV's “Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People,” “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”).

What was so wonderful about the original “Chain Saw,” the “Evil Dead” films, the Peter Jackson bloodbaths (like “Braindead” and “Meet the Feebles”) and movies like “Cabin Fever,” “28 Days Later” and “Freddy vs. Jason,” is that they embrace the genre. They revel in their excess.

This “Chainsaw” is about box office and exploiting a cultural phenomenon.

Even if you don't think there's anything wrong with that, it's plainly less thrilling.

Inside AJC.COM

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