The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Critic Reviews

79%

MovieWeb: 17 reviews

36%

RottenTomatoes: 158 reviews

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Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

50

A remake that turns every kill into an opportunity for overkill.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Dave Kehr New York Times (Top Critic)

20

Rather than exhilaration, this bilious film offers only entrapment and despair. It's about as much fun as sitting in on an autopsy.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Peter Bradshaw Guardian [UK] (Top Critic)

40

It's horrible and explicitly violent, but never authentically scary.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Mike Clark USA Today (Top Critic)

50

Junky and disposable but fast most of the time.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Stephen Hunter Washington Post (Top Critic)

You realize how hard this is on me, to have to tell you what a superb job director Marcus Nispel has done re-creating, yet also revising, 1974's grisly, gristly, protein-centric masterpiece.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Richard Harrington Washington Post (Top Critic)

Weakens, dilutes, disinfects and otherwise undermines the legacy of Tobe Hooper's 1974 original.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Top Critic)

50

This is easily the most gruesome, most pointless, episode of Scooby Doo ever.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Michael Atkinson Village Voice (Top Critic)

An overproduced, video-director remake, slick and grue-marinated and loud as a sonic boom.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jack Mathews New York Daily News (Top Critic)

50

For the new generation of slasher fan, the remake is a true gross-out with plenty of satisfying frights. For the rest of us, it's one more chapter in a neverending story.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Bruce Westbrook Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

50

It's just as guilty as Blair Witch 2 for smothering bare-bones fright with ladles of gore.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Gary Dowell Dallas Morning News (Top Critic)

17

One gets the feeling the movie is little more than product meant to entice the unsuspecting -- neither new nor improved, merely the same wine in a different bottle.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

0

A contemptible film: Vile, ugly and brutal.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Robert K. Elder Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

75

An effectively scary slasher film.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader (Top Critic)

'Inspired by a true story' presumably adds to the sordid thrills; maybe we should look forward to entertainments about Nazis torturing children.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Philadelphia Inquirer (Top Critic)

50

Full Review » 9 years ago
Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top Critic)

25

Drowns in red rivers of excess.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Bill Muller Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

40

This bloody, exploitative mess is the cinematic equivalent of a dumpster fire -- stinky but insignificant.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Dennis Harvey Variety (Top Critic)

Full Review » 1 year ago
Scott Foundas Variety (Top Critic)

An initially promising, but quickly disappointing retread of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's hugely influential horror classic.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Lou Lumenick New York Post (Top Critic)

25

A splatterfest remake that relentlessly assaults the senses and mind with no discernable redeeming social value.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel (Top Critic)

20

The new Massacre lowers the bar much the way the original 'dead teenager' horror flick did way back in 1974, and makes a mockery of that industry self-policing rubber stamp known as the ratings board.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Geoff Pevere Toronto Star (Top Critic)

40

Next to this redundant, pointless and witless retread, the classic status of Tobe Hooper's original version is officially beyond dispute.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Liam Lacey Globe and Mail (Top Critic)

50

Gruesome enough; what it lacks is a distinctive revolting personality of its own.
Full Review » 9 years ago
James Berardinelli ReelViews (Top Critic)

63

There's nothing extraordinary or groundbreaking here, but the film delivers with enough consistency to warrant a qualified recommendation for those seeking a few extra scares at this time of the year.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Michael Rechtshaffen Hollywood Reporter (Top Critic)

This particular reconceptualization actually does an impressive job of capturing the nasty dread of the original.
Full Review » 9 years ago