The original Tobe Hooper classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre was an exercise in mounting tension, coupled with a barbaric nihilism that has seldom been achieved in horror cinema. The remake to this classic is a fun thrill-ride of a film, but, sadly, not the movie that its predecessor is.

First time feature director Marcus Nispel does a fine job of establishing a mood, whether it is backlighting a distant farmhouse at night, or the overgrown remnants of a mill. These sets are wasted though on what is a fairly pedestrian horror outing that has more in common with Friday the 13th than the source material. What the original did effectively was create the impression that this horror could befall anyone at the wrong place at the wrong time. The 2003 version, however, gives us horny, dope smoking teens who are easy to dismiss as victims. The conventions established by the horror films of the eighteis are adhered to strictly here, down to the beautiful but gutsy heroine who is destined to survive.

That said, the film disappoints on yet another level. This is an exploitation film, pure and simple. As such, it works in providing a few cheap jumps, but the gore is a bit thin. What every drive-in film should provide is a little entertainment shrouded in buckets of blood. The film pulls too many punches and thus appears to take itself too seriously. This is a fun movie in many places, but the lack of real depth in the script and rather sparse gore, not to mention a Blair Witch ending that should have been left in the can, makes this film a good 90 minutes, but unlike its ancestor, is quickly forgotten.