As much as I don’t like the Platinum Dunes era of remakes, I can admit that Marcus Nispel* is a good director and that it was cool that Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel served as co-producers, Daniel Pearl returned to be the cinematographer and John Larroquette reprised narration duties.

A significant difference is that the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre only hints at the gore that the Sawyer family inflicts. Here. bodies are slashed in half, people live agonizing moments after being impaled on hooks, faces get torn off and even Leatherface loses an arm.

August 18, 1973. Erin (Jessica Biel), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Andy (Mike Vogel) and Pepper (Erica Leerhsen) have just bought two pounds of weed in Mexico and are on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert when they make the same mistake as another set of teens by picking up a hitchhiker. However, this one is in shock and eventually pulls a gun from between her legs and blows her brains out.

That’s when this movie hit me in the face, as it slow motion had smoke coming from her mouth and pushed the camera out of the bloody hole in the back of their car. That blood, that broken glass, that death — they are no longer in our world of reality but trapped in the deepest, darkest and deadliest place in America.

Welcome to Texas.

Instead of giving us killers to identify with — or sympathize with, as other films in this series seem to do — Leatherface and the Sawyer clan are brutal and uncompromising killers who take what they want and operate with ruthless efficiency.

Meanwhile, this film looks absolutely stunning, with sweeping camera moves and what is probably the best use of the 2000s gunmetal blue color palette I’ve seen. Other movies try and fail at what this film does so well.

Plus, R. Lee Ermey seems to be having a blast here.

Here’s to growing up and giving movies a chance beyond casual dismissal.

*To the director’s credit, he was against the idea of remaking the film and said that it was blasphemy to his longtime director of photography, Daniel Pearl. Pearl, however, had shot the original movie and wanted Nispel to direct the film so that he could start and end his career with the same movie. He also realized that if he just copied the original movie shot-for-shot, there was no reason to make this movie. So, he shot it like a traditional movie, not a documentary.

How weird is it that Pearl shot Chainsaw and Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” and “Butterfly” for Mariah Carey?

The Arrow Video release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible), along with extras such as brand new audio commentary with Dread Central co-founder Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton and co-host of The Spooky Picture Show podcast Chris MacGibbon; archival audio commentary with director Marcus Nispel, producer Michael Bay, executive producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form and New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye; a third audio commentary with Marcus Nispel, director of photography Daniel Pearl, production designer Greg Blair, art director Scott Gallager, sound supervisor Trevor Jolly and composer Steve Jablonsky and a fourth with Marcus Nispel, Michael Bay, writer Scott Kosar, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form and actors Jessica Biel, Erica Leerhsen, Eric Balfour Jonathan Tucker, Mike Vogel and Andrew Bryniarski. There are also new interviews with Nispel, Pearl, Brett Wagner, makeup effects artist Scott Stoddard, and composer Steve Jablonsky; a making of doc; a feature on Ed Gein; a feature on the cut scenes as well as deleted scenes, including an alternate opening and ending; screen tests for Jessica Biel, Eric Balfour and Erica Leerhsen; a behind-the-scenes featurette; cast and crew interviews; theatrical trailers and TV commercials;  and cncept art galleries. It all comes inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Aaron Lea, along with a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Aaron Lea and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Gingold.

You can order it from MVD.