TPN Spain

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 2003 remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name. The 2003 film was directed by Marcus Nispel

and produced by Michael Bay. It was also co-produced by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper, co-creators of the original 1974 film.

This film is the first of many horror remakes to come from Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes production company which also remade The

Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Plot

In the beginning of the film, there is archive footage of a police search of the Hewitt house. The two officers survey the house

and descend into the basement, noting the fingernail scratch marks, human blood and hair embedded into the walls.

We are then brought to August 1973 where five young adults, Erin (Jessica Biel), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker),

Andy (Mike Vogel), and Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after returning from Mexico. As they

drive through Texas, they see a distraught hitchhiker (Lauren German), who eventually gets in their van. After trying to speak to

the hitchhiker, who speaks incoherently about “a bad man”, she shoots and kills herself with a .357 Magnum. The group tries to

contact the police, then go to a store where a woman (Marietta Marich) tells them the sheriff is at the mill. Instead of the

sheriff, they find a little boy named Jedediah (David Dorfman) who tells them that the sheriff is at home drinking. Erin and

Kemper go through the woods to find his house, leaving the other three at the mill with the boy. They come to a plantation house

where Erin is allowed inside by the owner, an amputee named Monty, to phone for help. When Erin finishes, the old man asks her for

help. Kemper goes inside to look for Erin and is killed with a sledgehammer to the head by Thomas Hewitt aka “Leatherface” (Andrew

Bryniarski). When Leatherface takes Kemper’s body to begin to make a new mask out of him, he hears something hit the bottom of the

tub where Kemper is hooked upside down. Leatherface picks up a small black box; opening it, he discovers a ring meant for Erin.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) arrives at the mill and disposes of the hitchhiker’s body, wrapping her in cellophane and

putting her in his trunk in which he drives away and tells the youths to leave. Erin arrives and finds that Kemper is still

missing. Andy and Erin go back to the Monty’s house, where Erin distracts him while Andy searches for Kemper. Monty realizes Andy

is inside and summons Leatherface, who attacks him with his chainsaw. Erin escapes and heads towards the woods, but Leatherface

cuts Andy’s leg off. Leatherface carries him to the basement and hangs him on a meat hook with his feet hanging over a piano,

where he rubs salt on Andy’s stump of a leg before wrapping it in butcher paper and tying it with human hair.

Erin makes it to the mill and tries to escape in the van, but the sheriff shows up and, after finding marijuana, orders Erin,

Morgan and Pepper to get out of the van. The sheriff gives Morgan the gun he took from the hitchhiker and tells Morgan to reenact

how she killed herself. Morgan, scared and disturbed by the sheriff’s demeanor, and under pressure by Erin and Pepper, attempts to

shoot the sheriff only to find the gun is unloaded. Sheriff Hoyt handcuffs Morgan and drives him to the Hewitt house (a drive

which includes a brutal beating), leaving the girls in the van. Erin tries to fix the truck, while Pepper holds a flashlight.Erin

gets the truck running, but the one of the wheels rolls out. Erin and Pepper stay still in the truck but Leatherface appears on

the top of the truck and tries to attack them. Leatherface grabs Erin’s head and the chainsaw almost impales Pepper. Pepper gets

out of the truck, which distracts Leatherface from killing Erin. Leatherface raises his chainsaw, but misses Pepper and cuts a

barrel in half by mistake. Erin tells Pepper to run, and she does so. But Leatherface slashes her back and she falls down to the

ground screaming. Pepper gets on her back and Leatherface ultimately kills Pepper by cutting her in half. Erin sees that

Leatherface is wearing Kemper’s face over his own. Erin manages to escape and hides in a nearby trailer with two women inside, who

offer her tea and try to soothe her. The two women, a morbidly obese middle-aged woman known only as the ‘Tea Lady’ and a younger

woman named Henrietta, whom is presumably her daughter, act strange and after they tell Erin they don’t have a phone for her to

call for help, a telephone in the trailer rings and Henrietta picks it up and tells someone on the other end that “she’s here”.

Erin discovers they have kidnapped a child when she sees that the baby with them is the same child in a photograph with the woman

who committed suicide earlier in the kid’s van. However, the tea is drugged and she passes out when she tries to leave.

Erin wakes up at the Hewitt house surrounded by the Hewitt family: Leatherface, his mother Luda May, Sheriff Hoyt, Uncle Monty,

and the little boy Jedediah. Luda May tells Erin that her excuse for her son Thomas’ actions, was that her son was tormented by

teenagers and that she felt no one cared for her family besides themselves. Erin is taken to the basement, where she finds Andy.

She tries to help him off of the meat hook but when he sees he will land on the piano keys and alert Leatherface, he begs her to

kill him, which she does, though suffers severe emotional trauma. She finds Morgan, still handcuffed, and Jedediah leads them out

of the house. Jedediah rejects Erin’s plea to come with them and distracts Leatherface long enough for them to escape. Erin and

Morgan find an abandoned house in the woods and barricade themselves inside. Leatherface breaks in and discovers Erin, but Morgan

attacks Leatherface, causing him to drop his chainsaw. Morgan grabs him and wrestles him, but Leatherface is too heavy and easily

lifts Morgan upwards onto a chandelier before releasing him and Morgan gets tangled in the chandelier by his handcuffs.

Leatherface picks up his chainsaw and slices up into Morgan’s crotch, killing him.

Erin runs out of the shack and escapes through the woods. Leatherface trips and cuts his leg while pursuing her. Erin finds a

slaughterhouse and hides in a locker; Leatherface opens the locker across from hers and she attacks him with a meat cleaver, and

chops off his right arm. Erin runs outside and flags down a trucker, whom she tries to convince to go away from the Hewitt’s

house, but he stops to find help at the eatery. Erin sees Luda May and watches as Sheriff Hoyt arrives and talks to the trucker.

Erin sees Henrietta watching over the kidnapped baby in a highchair. When Henrietta walks outside to join Luda May and Sheriff

Hoyt whom are talking to the truck driver, Erin sneaks the baby out of the eatery and hot-wires the sheriff’s car before running

him over repeatedly until he is dead. Leatherface appears in the road and tries to stop her, but Erin and the baby escape

unharmed.

The police archive footage continues to play. The officers inspect the basement noting the hanging meat hooks when suddenly one of

the officers is grabbed and severely beaten. A blurred figure viciously shakes the camera and the other police officer is heard

screaming. The narrator states that “The crime scene was not properly secured by Travis County Police. Two investigating officers

were fatally wounded that day. This is the only known image of Thomas Hewitt, the man they call Leatherface. The case today still

remains open”.