BC-KRTEENS-TEENREVIEW:FL - youth, lifestyle, entertainment

BC-KRTEENS-TEENREVIEW:FL - youth, lifestyle, entertainment
Prepare to be truly scared by latest 'Massacre'
(PHOTO)
By David Hanan
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
(KRT)
The hairs on the neck stand to attention, the pupils in the eyes dilate in disbelief and a sudden hunger for fingernails or whatever can be mashed between your teeth begins to develop. These are indicators of fear and anxiety, not symptoms of sitting in a movie theater. After all, it takes a lot to shock someone when the nightly news in scarier than 90 percent of horror movies.
Yet sometimes, out of the shadows of the bottomless pit that once was a heap of originality for horror movies, crawls a remake or rendition of a classic that moves on sheer name recognition alone and can scare the living daylights out of viewers who thought they have seen everything.
But how scary can a chainsaw-wielding, inbred butcher with a lust for killing be after all the different creatures in horror movies following the original & quot;Texas Chainsaw Massacre & quot;? Not that scary, but the art of storytelling is the most revolutionary quality of the new rendition of & quot;The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. & quot; It takes a seemingly unrealistic scenario and sets it up in such a credible manner that moviegoers can walk out of the theater believing they are survivors of this horrific incident.
The movie follows five teens on their way through Texas to a rock concert. On the way, they are brought into a town's malicious ways after picking up a girl who is terror-stricken over what she saw. After a brief stop at a local & quot;sheriff's & quot; house, one by one members of the teen party end up missing. The culprit behind the missing teens is Leatherface, a deformed psychopath who hunts his prey with a chainsaw.
The special effects are flawless, which makes some scenes very disturbing for the weak-willed but adds to the overall realism. Yet what makes the movie so monumental is the humor. The concept of humor in such a graphic, disturbing movie seems ridiculous. (We saw what it did for & quot;Cabin Fever. & quot; It made a terrible movie worse.) We were constantly anticipating the next thrill in the high-strung suspense of & quot;Texas Chainsaw Massacre. & quot; But nothing lowers the defenses like a belly laugh. And once the guard is let down, the next thrill is even greater and scarier.
& quot;The Texas Chainsaw Massacre & quot; embodies everything a scary movie should. The gore is realistic, as is the situation, and the suspense is so great that even little moments like a tap on glass or a flash of a shadow will send shudders down your spine and cause your fists to clench in fear. Few movies can truly frighten, and & quot;The Texas Chainsaw Massacre & quot; is a rare treat because if it were any scarier, there would be warning signs in the concession line telling the faint of heart to beware.
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David Hanan is a student at South Plantation High in Plantation, Fla.