Customer Reviews

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (New Line Cinema)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is GREAT! I loved it. If you enjoyed the movie, I recommend you buying this book. It contains lots of the original screenplay. It is like the extended version of the film, as it has stuff that wasnt in the movie. I think this was based on the original first draft of the movie. I couldn't put the book down, it very scary too!

I'm a fairly big fan of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, but a bigger fan of horror literature. I hadn't read a book that was based on a movie before, so I thought I'd give it a shot, plus I was interested on how Mr. Hand would describe it all.

Overall, I'd say Stephen Hand did an excellent job at what he was assigned to do. Put the movie into words. However, there were a few things that bugged the heck out of me. Firstly, he used "to" instead of "too" once, as well as spelled "opossum" wrong. Those, of course, are easily overlooked, _but_ there were some things he did that almost made me throw the book across the room.

1. He used exclamation points in all the wrong places. What was obviously an attempt to get the "Surprise Effect" the movie had, Hand used exclamation points. For instance (these aren't exact quotes from the book, but close enough) "Erin could hear the chainsaw coming closer. She had to find a place to hide. She looked for a closet--but there was no closet!" Maybe it's just me, but using an exclamation point to make her need of a closet more urgent doesn't work at all. All it did to me was make me exclaim over the word "closet" when I read it. However, that isn't the worst.

2. Like above, Hand would also use capital letters to try and make things more "shocking" or "surprising". The result infuriated me. This is a direct quote from the book: "Slowly, Erin got up, her backsliding against the wall as she rose to her feet. If she just see out through the gashes he'd made--
TWO ARMS BROKE THROUGH THE RUINED WALL BEHIND HER AND GRABBED HER BY THE SHOULDERS--LEATHERFACE!"

Here we see the annoying "!" as well as Extremely annoying capital letters. This sequence could be brilliantly described and actually be scary. Instead, Hand makes the reader think there is dialog where a character is screaming. It is ridiculous, and irritating.

---The Good Things---
Okay, so despite a misspelled word here and there, and horrible uses of punctuation, Stephen Hand accurately described the movie to a tee. While even adding a scene or two. Plus you get to get inside the minds of those crazy killers a little bit too. You understand things you didn't understand in the movie. I know a lot of people thought the teens acted stupidly in their situation. In this book, you can understand why they did some things the way they did.

Ultimately, I would have to say that unless you are the hardest core fan of the movie, skip the book. It is so close to the movie it is a complete waste of time, especially since it is the farthest thing from good literature.

This book is a pretty good adaptation of the screenplay by Scott Koslar. Stephen Hand doesn't copy the movie on the screen, but the movie the way the screenplay was orginally written. Overall I think it is a great book and adaptation of the movie.

i am a huge fan of the series and when i heard there was a book i was so excited. i bought the book and read it in a week and i have to admit its better than the new tcm(2003). it shows more detail and dialog. It is truly scary

The novel really expands on the characters & events from the film, which are great for a TCM fan like myself. The writer is very capable & the book itself reads good. Suspense is fair, story is good, characters are great, plus very vivid descriptions!

It's not horrible, but you won't miss any sleep if you miss it.

A fan of the movie I am, but the novelization of the movie just isn't nearly as fun, scary or exciting. I did enjoy Mr. Hand's previous horror tie-in (Freddy vs. Jason), but it took me over two weeks to read this, I kept telling myself "you have to finish it", and I did. It felt like a job to finish reading it though, instead of pleasure reading. Just my 2 cents.

Sorry, the title just came to mind and I felt i had to use it. This book isn't brilliant, it is a bit muddled, with exclamation points and capital sentences where it's not needed, but if you just read it without paying attention to it, it's not that bad a book. Unfortunately, I just feel at the end it could of been better.

Other than the induction of the crazy Sheriff Hoyt (memorably played by R. Lee Emery) into the horror villain pantheon the 30th Anniversary remake of Tobe Hooper's classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really did not have much to offer. It was just another slick and empty slasher movie that resembled the dozens of TCM knock-offs that have cluttered the grindhouses, drive-ins and video rental shelves since the original film's release. A group of youths (each of a distinct stereotype) are returning from Mexico, via a trip to Dallas to catch a rock concert, when they almost run over a disoriented girl walking in the middle of the road. The traumatized girl commits suicide in their van and that is only the beginning of the nightmare as they search for help, but only find the persons responsible for putting the delirious-with-fear girl into her final mental state. There are a few minor differences in the story (mainly Henrietta living alone in the trailer rather than with yet another member of the crazy clan) and an odd anti-meat stance, which basically infers that anyone who delights in the eating of meat is no different than any of the Hewitt's. Was the term Vegan even around in 1973, when this story is supposed to take place? I don't recall hearing it until the nineties, at the earliest. Fans of the movie might enjoy reading this, but it really isn't an improvement on the experience of the film - which wasn't all that to begin with.

Is This Like The movie? I Was Wondering If It's Like The Old Or New One? And If It's Like The Old One At The End Does It Have The Girl Go In The Track With Latherface Having A Fit?

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a really good book. It was based on the new TCM (2003). If you read the book and think it's better than the original movie than just wiat until you see the new movie!