TCM: The Beginning

Okay, either you loved or hated the TCM remake in 2003. I loved it. I respect the original and can see it's place in annals of horror movie fame. But I don't like it. I can't get through it. I find it slow and dull overall. But, like I said, I can see how it pushed the envelope for its time and how it opened a lot of new doors for the horror movies that came next.

That said, the trailer for TCM: The Beginning is up with the (supposed) marketing ploy that its too intense to be seen during the day so they're only showing it at night so the kids won't see it. Ummm... apparently the MPAA never heard of summer vacation?

Anyway, the trailer (found here, no matter what time it is, http://movies.apple.com/movies/newline/tcm_thebegining/tcm_thebegining_h.720p.mov)
which I did not find too intense or disturbing, was interesting. A lot of what is shown was information I expected to be in the 2003 TCM. The movie has reatained the look and quite a bit of the feel of the 2003 TCM as well. Perhaps it will be a nice bookend with the 2003 film?

My concern is Jonathan Liebesman. I'm not sure he's up to the task. I really enjoyed what Marcus Nispel did visually and stylistically with the 2003 TCM. He's going to be a tough act to follow.

It has my attention but not because of the marketing ploy. I honestly can not see how the MPAA would issue the trailer saying it was approved for all audiences and then restrict its online viewing.
 
I loved the original version. I also liked the remake (although not as much).

I'll definitely be checking out The Beginning when it opens.


The time constraint on viewing the trailer is definitely a marketing ploy IMO.




dmc
 
The only thing that bugs me about TCM is that it set a precedent for freakiness, which entails constant screaming and yelling on the female part. I mean, literally fifty percent of that movie is screaming and whatnot, and yeah, it was intense, especially at the time it was made in, I s'pose. But, now people believe that the key to a good horror movie is torture and SCREAMING.

I was watching Masters of Horror yesterday, and saw Don Coscarelli's short. Let it be known that the only Coscarelli movie i have watched is Bubba Ho-Tep. So when I read that the movie he made for MoH was based again on a Joe Landsdale short I was somewhat jazzed. And it was pretty interesting. Had a twist, cool flashbacks, even the killer looked fake but neat. However, there was a five or so minute sequence of girls just yelling out of fear, andI know that's what would happen in real life, but he wasn't going for reality up until that point, so why start then? It just became an annoyance to me and everyone else that was in my house at the time. That's probably why I don't watch borderline-"hardcore" horror movies so much anymore.

Well, I also don't watch horror movies cuz most of them are bad. They use the screaming and wailing to bring an intensity to a movie with bad acting and a bad story. I get that. It's brutally apparent, especially when you put it up against movies that are the same style but actually good. Let's take a fan favorite here, The Devil's Rejects. If there is one thing I remember about the movie, it's not the fact that there was a lot of screaming. In fact, I don't remember a lot of screaming. I remember some brutal and visceral scenes achieved without screaming (which acutally added to the realism, because if someone has a gun to you and says shut up, you'll probably shut the **** up), I remember some maniacal laughs, and I remember some one liners on the part of Otis that despite the fact that I wanted to hate him, made me chuckle; the offhand comment about puking getting someone off was too funny, and then following that up later with a Willy Wonka referrence made a great scene even better and more characterized. See, that movie established characters which instilled fear and horror. Most horror movies establish a screaming contest between twenty something girls who are very attractive, and that's why no one really digs them besides the uber gore hounds.

What was this thread about, again?

Oh, yeah, the TCM prequel.

I don't know, I only watched like five minutes of the remake (it came out when i was fifteen and some bastard was watching the door the first night). It looked allright (better than the Fog remake). The trailer for this one looks pretty creepy, but it could be a screamfest ya know? In a bad way, a screamfest on screen, a "shut the hell up" fest in the audience.

I'll probably see it though.
 
I don't think that's the case at all. If you go back and look at a lot of the old b/w horror movies and even foreign horror movies pre-TCM, the female lead does a ton of screaming. It is, after all, horror is it not? Just think about Fay Wray in King Kong. Horror heroines are called scream queens for a reason, and I don't think TCM is that reason.
 
i thought the remake of TCM did a good job of being so gory it shocked the audience even by todays terms.

which is exactly what the first one did when it first came out.

i can only assume the prequel is going to attempt to come out and blow the 2003 TCM in terms of gore and disgustiness. should be fun to see what happens.
 
The first TCM was not gory per se. A lot of the horror happened OFF camera--ie: the meat hook scene. It was shocking, but not gory.

I thought the TCM remake was...intense (?) but not so much gory. I have seen a lot gorier. I thought it was brutal at times, but nothing in terms of having the ripple effect that the original TCM had. The remake did not have the same impact on the genre that the original had. Not even close.
 
The remake was good, I liked it. Original is a classic of course.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning: when I saw this trailer last night, I thought it was too similiar to the 2003 remake, everything seemed the same to me, nothing changed. I honestly think this is gonna blow.
 
Ought2bCommitted said:
I don't think that's the case at all. If you go back and look at a lot of the old b/w horror movies and even foreign horror movies pre-TCM, the female lead does a ton of screaming. It is, after all, horror is it not? Just think about Fay Wray in King Kong. Horror heroines are called scream queens for a reason, and I don't think TCM is that reason.

You vastly overestimate my knowledge of cinema--I have never seen a movie made before 1968.

Sad part is, that's almost entirely accurate.

Maybe TCM was the first horror flick I noticed with real visceral screams as opposed to movie screams. old horror flicks were always kinda "ok, now scream!" and the ladies tried to look as pretty as possible whilst still being scared. Or like in night of the living dead, she screamed, but most of the time she was sniveling and crying and freaking out.

In TCM, on the other hand, there's that one scene at the dinner table that's just the girl screaming incessantly and as loudly as possible, then there's leatherface kinda moanin around, his brother yelling like a jackal, and other freaky noises. I believed the fear much more, I suppose, which is why it's unsettling with me, and I don't like it. But yeah, that's what horror does. Maybe I'm just into horror where you can tell the line between reality and non-reality.
 
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