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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre


SYNOPSIS


On August 20th, 1973, police were dispatched to the remote farmhouse of Thomas Hewitt, the former head-skinner at a local slaughterhouse in Travis County, Texas. What they found within the confines of the cryptic residence was the butchered remains of 33 human victims, a chilling discovery that shocked and horrified a nation in what many still refer to as the most notorious mass murder case of all time. Wearing the grotesque flesh masks of his victims and brandishing a chainsaw, the killer, known as “Leatherface,” would gain infamy when sensational headlines were splashed across newspapers throughout the state of Texas: “House of Terror Stuns Nation – Massacre in Texas.”

Local authorities would eventually gun down a man wearing a leathery mask and declare they had their killer, which abruptly closed the case; however, in the years that followed, many close to the grisly murder case would come forward to level accusations that police had botched the investigation and knowingly killed the wrong man.

Now, for the first time, the only known survivor of the killing spree has broken the silence and come forward to tell the real story of what happened on a deserted rural Texas highway when a group of five young kids inadvertently found themselves besieged by a chainsaw-wielding madman, one who would leave a trail of blood and terror that would forever become known as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

New Line Cinema presents The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a terrifying journey into a heart of unimaginable darkness as five young adults are stranded in a rural Texas town, only to find themselves fighting for their lives against Leatherface and his bizarre clan. Inspired by the 1974 classic film of the same name, the new film stars Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel and Eric Balfour. Co-starring are screen veteran R. Lee Ermey, Lauren German, David Dorfman, Andrew Bryniarski, Terrence Evans, Heather Kafka and Marietta Marich.

Marcus Nispel, the mastermind behind many of the most powerful images and story-telling themes in contemporary music videos and commercials, makes his feature film directorial debut. New Line Cinema presents in association with Michael Bay and Radar Pictures a Platinum Dunes/Next Entertainment Production. The film is produced by Michael Bay and Mike Fleiss. The executive producers are Ted Field, Jeffrey Allard, Guy Stodel, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. The screenplay is by Scott Kosar (based on a screenplay by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper).

The creative behind-the-scenes team is led by cinematographer Daniel Pearl
(who also served as director of photography on the original 1974 release), production designer Greg Blair, costume designer Bobbie Mannix, special effects make up artist Scott Stoddard, special effects coordinator Rocky Gehr, editor Glen Scantlebury and composer Steve Jablonsky.

New Line Cinema will release The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (rated “R” by the M.P.A.A. for “strong horror violence/gore, language and drug content”) in theaters nationwide on October 17th, 2003.



PRODUCTION NOTES



The original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has achieved staggering success since it first shocked and stunned audiences in 1974 with its bone chilling realism. The horrifying story, drawn from a series of true events, is considered by many to be one of the greatest thrillers of all time and a landmark of terror that has influenced countless films in its wake. Although the film was made on a budget of less than $150,000, it has grossed more than $100 Million worldwide and established itself as a cult classic to legions of fans around the globe. The film has entered into the iconography of popular culture by way of its menacing evil character, “Leatherface.” The character remains one of the most recognizable classic villains, while the film has become the benchmark of terror by which modern films are measured.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre marks the film debut of production company Platinum Dunes, a joint producing venture between filmmaker Michael Bay and Radar Pictures. Bay founded Platinum Dunes along with partners Andrew Form and Brad Fuller.

“The idea was floated right before we started this company,” explains producer Michael Bay. “I wanted to do The Texas Chainsaw Massacre because of name value alone. It has a mythical quality to it as one of the very first movies of its kind.”

Executive producer and Radar CEO Ted Field also recalls, “when Michael and I decided to go into business together, we quickly realized that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the perfect film with which to launch the Platinum Dunes label. It is an iconic story, one that immediately establishes what Platinum Dunes is all about and sets the tone for what is to come.”

“We loved the idea because the core audience of this movie is males under 25, and although almost all of them have heard of the title, 90% of them have not seen the original film,” adds executive producer Andrew Form.

Though several increasingly diminishing sequels to the original film have been made throughout the years, the filmmakers felt the most chilling elements of the original had been left behind. “The first misconception of the original film is that it was a gory film,” explains executive producer Brad Fuller. “It had many extremely disturbing moments, but only four seconds of blood. It was more conceptually horrifying than it was visually.”

To get the project off the ground and generate interest from film distributors, Bay directed a teaser comprised of a black screen with sounds of Leatherface stalking and chasing a young woman in and around an old house. A quick visual was inserted in the last 10 seconds, along with the whine of a chainsaw. The results were amazingly effective.

The teaser generated incredible buzz throughout the industry, which resulted in deals for domestic distribution through New Line Cinema and international distribution throughout the world with Focus Features.

Ted Field explains, “we were able to raise the money to produce the film with incredible alacrity. While international audiences usually respond well to thrillers, the reactions to Michael’s trailer exceeded our wildest expectations.”

“None of us could have expected the overwhelming positive response the trailer received,” Brad Fuller remembers. “It seemed to hit a nerve with everyone and conveyed the raw emotion we wanted audiences to feel when they were watching the movie.”

There was once a potential complication, though: Radar Pictures and Platinum Dunes had an extremely small window within which to assemble a working project. “We were able to secure the rights for only six months,” explains Field. “We had to come up with a final script and a vision for the production within that time. It was a challenge.”

“We wanted to find a screenwriter who could mix the best elements from the original and inject the basic story with some fresh ideas,” says Andrew Form.
“When The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released nearly 30 years ago, a large number of the people who saw the movie thought it was a snuff film. When audiences use their imagination rather than being shown everything, it really keeps them on the edge of their seats, which is what the original film did so well.”

That mandate led the filmmakers to screenwriter Scott Kosar, who had previously written the screenplay for The Machinist. “We wanted the film to be about psychological fear, as opposed to just being visceral,” Brad Fuller comments. The filmmakers wanted to ground the terrifying elements of the film in a collection of very real lead characters who find themselves in an unreal situation. “When we met with Scott Kosar, he pitched us an opening sequence with the hitchhiker which was so devastating that it completely set the tone that we wanted for the film,” adds Andrew Form.

Kosar was already a fan of the original and relished the prospect of revisiting the setting in a new way. “When I first heard that they were remaking the film I was a little daunted by the idea of trying to rewrite a classic,” the screenwriter comments. “After my first meeting, I realized they didn’t want to delve into an exploitation of the material, but instead were hell bent on making a very frightening version of the original that would operate on the level of suspense and psychological terror as opposed to repulsion.”

With Kosar hammering out the first draft of the script, the filmmakers’ search for a director led them to the highly touted and successful contemporary commercial visualist Marcus Nispel. Ted Field had been a longtime Nispel admirer: he brought him aboard to direct music videos for Interscope Records artists (most notably, No Doubt) and had previously developed several projects with him.

Though there were numerous other directors interested, Michael Bay was immediately drawn to Nispel, as well. “I’ve always liked Marcus’ work,” he says. “Growing up in the business and seeing his work, I always thought of him as a really talented guy and wanted to work with him. He’s got great vision and is an amazing shooter.”

Nispel, who has won almost every award within the advertising and music industry while directing over a thousand commercials and music videos, was drawn to the project by the willingness of the filmmakers to go against the grain in terms of their creative choices. “I like movies that deconstruct,” Nispel notes. “When I first read the script I couldn’t take it out of my hands.” Nispel came well prepared to his first meeting with the producers. “He brought some amazingly twisted photography and magazine photos for reference,” Bay recalls. “He had a lot of good ideas.”

The first time feature director was also excited by the prospect of working with producer Bay. “I felt that it was a unique opportunity to work with somebody who really changed Hollywood by blending the best of both the commercial and film worlds,” he says. “Commercials are sprints and movies are marathons, and like no one else in town he allowed me to utilize the best of the sprinters and the best of the marathoners in putting my crew together.”

The first person Nispel brought onto the project was cinematographer Daniel Pearl, with whom he had collaborated on many of his award-winning commercials and music videos, and who had also previously worked with Michael Bay. Coincidentally, Pearl served as director of photography on Tobe Hooper’s original production in 1974, presenting the cinematographer with a unique opportunity to both re-envision the chilling story and make cinematic history in becoming the first cinematographer to shoot a remake of his first film.

“Daniel had talked about the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre a lot over the years,” says Nispel. “I liked what he did with the original and wanted to bring this film back to it’s realistic vibe yet give Daniel room to add what we had learned through years of working together. After much thought, he responded with an incredible line when he said to me ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is everything I am and if I screw this one up now, I am nothing.’ I knew I could count on him.

For Pearl, it was a serendipitous turn of events that would find him returning to Austin, Texas, the city where he attended college and started his film career. “It was a very strange coincidence that this project fell into place because over the last five or six years I’ve done some my best work and had the most fun collaborating with Marcus on commercials and videos,” says Pearl. “The film wound up in the Museum of Modern Art, so doing a remake of it was such a monumental challenge for me. So much of who and what I am today is based upon where I started with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

The decision to shoot the film in and around the city where the original was shot was one that the filmmakers felt was vital in order to capture the visual authenticity of rural Texas. “The nice thing about Texas is that it has a lot of different looks,” comments Michael Bay. “There is a lot of Americana there, places where time has stopped. Plus, it’s an extremely photogenic place. They’ve got great skies. They’ve also got great crews there.”

Bay sent Richard Klotz, the film’s location scout, to scout Texas locations and take some photographs prior to traveling to Miami to start Bay’s film, Bad Boys II. “He went out there for a week and came back with some amazing photos and creepy places that looked as if they were lifted straight from the script,” says Bay.

Though Marcus Nispel was initially considering shooting the movie in Palmdale, California, to save money, Klotz’s photos won him over. “Marcus was thinking of saving money by not traveling to a location,” remembers Bay, who had shot on location in Texas previously. “But I said, ‘Marcus, you’ve got to shoot in Texas. You’re going to be blown away by what you can get there.’”

Nispel ascribes the film’s high production values to the Texas locations they were able to access. “In Texas, nothing gets thrown away,” he says. “We needed 25 locations for the film, which was problematic considering the 39-day shooting schedule. We circumvented this by finding three main locations that had so many different facets and faces to them, we could shoot a majority of the film in those locations.”

With Austin locked in as the shooting location, the filmmakers began to focus on the critical task of assembling a cast that could bring to life the legendary story of five young college students traveling in a van through rural Texas. “When we first started casting the film, we had to get the message out that we were not making a slasher film,” explains executive producer Andrew Form. “In the first half hour of the original film, not much happens in the way of terror. You meet these kids in a van and you hang out with them and get to know them. We wanted to do the same thing with this film. When people in the film community began to hear that we were tackling the material in an unconventional manner, it opened up a lot of doors in terms of the caliber of actors we were able to approach.”

The first and most vital selection in the casting process was finding an actor who could play the lead character of Erin – a headstrong natural beauty who finds deep reserves of strength and determination to escape unimaginably brutal circumstances. The character is the focal point and driving force of the story.

“When the script was written, Scott Kosar gave a description for each character and Erin’s was she would be Miss Texas if she wasn’t such a tomboy,” recalls Form, who with Brad Fuller, had taken Biel to a Lakers game in order to get to know her. “We were both smitten from the moment we met her,” he remembers.

“This is a tough role to play – a female hero,” Michael Bay says. “You have to empathize with her and believe her when she shows her tougher side. She’s a female hero, and Jessica brought both toughness and sexiness to Erin. She also brought an honesty to her performance that people will respond to and empathize with.”

“I have always loved scary films,” exclaims Jessica Biel. “I’ve been interested in the genre ever since I was a kid because I love being scared and freaked out. I loved the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the script for this film was so realistic. I had no doubt in my mind that I really wanted to play Erin. She is one of the stronger characters in the film because when things really start to go bad for her and her friends, she doesn't lose her mind. She desperately tries to hold everyone together.”

In the film, Erin is the social conscience of her close-knit group of friends. When her boyfriend Kemper (played by Eric Balfour) barely misses hitting a listless young teenager aimlessly walking in the middle of a deserted road, she tries to convince him to turn around and help her out. Kemper must decide between Erin’s Good Samaritan ways and the rest of the group’s selfish desire to keep on trucking to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas. It’s a decision that unknowingly leads the group into life-threatening jeopardy.

Kemper is the group’s natural leader, but defers to Erin’s conscience as they struggle to come to grips with the circumstances they have found themselves in. “Kemper wants to do right by both his girlfriend and friends,” explains Eric Balfour, best known for his recurring role of Gabe on the acclaimed HBO series “Six Feet Under.” “He’s strong in an old school kind of way and I think it’s a beautiful thing when you have characters who do things out of desperation because they have no other option.”

As the situation grows increasingly dark, Kemper keeps his head. “He makes the final decision on whether to report the sudden grisly turn of events in their van to the local sheriff,” says director Marcus Nispel. “He loves Erin and knows she expects him to do the right thing and go for help.”

Marcus Nispel specifically asked to see Balfour for the role after first noticing his work on “Six Feet Under,” and then seeing him again playing the devil in a car commercial. “I knew Eric had to be the type of guy who is at his best when he is playing a character who is slightly mischievous,” comments Nispel.

“Eric was completely the character of Kemper,” notes executive producer Brad Fuller. “If you have dinner with Eric, he is the guy at the front of the table telling the jokes and deciding what everyone is going to eat. That is Kemper in this film, he is taking care of his friends and you believe that he can get them through the mess they have gotten into.”

Jonathan Tucker plays Morgan, an acerbic, cerebral college student and self-professed expert on all knowledge that is trivial and meaningless. “Morgan is the ultimate pragmatist of the group,” says Tucker. “He is smart, very sarcastic, witty, pretentious at times, but not overly pedantic. He is always laying out the facts to his friends and saying exactly what he and the audience sees. He is trying to get everybody to pull back and make a more educated decision.”

For Tucker, securing a role in the film was the result of some ingenious and persistent determination. “Even though Jonathan was the best actor we read for the part, he didn’t have the physical look of the character,” explains Marcus Nispel. As Tucker persisted, Nispel described the character to the young actor as “a little bit of John Lennon combined with Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws.” Determined, Tucker enlisted a makeup artist friend to transform him physically by applying sideburns, a moustache and wire rimmed glasses, then read for the part one more time. “I hired him immediately after I saw the audition tape and the look he created for himself,” Nispel comments with a laugh.

Everyone knows somebody who always seems to say the wrong thing at the most inappropriate time. In Erin and Kemper’s group of friends, that honor falls squarely on the loose tongue of Andy, played by Mike Vogel. Kemper’s best friend and a fellow mechanic, Andy’s boy-next-door charm is offset by poorly timed crass comments and behavior. “Andy is a guy that means well, but says the wrong thing at the wrong time,” Vogel comments. “He doesn’t mean to insult anyone, but always ends up unintentionally doing it anyway. Andy also injects moments of comic relief, which disarms the group when everything gets too tense. He always has a stupid comment that is so inappropriate for a particular moment that everyone turns and says ‘I don't believe he said that,’ and then starts to laugh.”

When the film begins, the group has already picked up one hitchhiker – the beautiful, free-spirited Pepper (played by Erica Leerhsen), who forms an instant bond with Andy. “Erica was the first person we cast in the film,” reveals Andrew Form. “Her audition was unbelievable and what stuck in my mind was that she could belt out these blood curling screams.” Adds Brad Fuller, “Erica is the best screamer that I have ever heard in my life, and it was completely disturbing to watch her sit in a blown out fluorescent lit room pretending to be chased around by Leatherface.”

“Pepper is a total hippie,” Leerhsen describes. “She is out to have a good time and just loves Andy from the moment she meets him because they have this intense, passionate connection.”

In the film, Erin persuades Kemper to go back and help the battered and bloodied teenage girl (Lauren German) who they nearly hit with their van as they speed down a rural Texas road. Once aboard the van, the young stranger is eerily silent before a shocking act forces the group to seek help from the local sheriff, played by acclaimed character actor R. Lee Ermey, who Marcus Nispel calls his “secret weapon.”

“When we were looking at actors for the role of Sheriff Hoyt, R. Lee was always the guy we hoped we could get, but didn’t think was possible because of budgetary constraints,” Nispel comments. “He has the ability to bring a demented comedic element to the role, which Michael Bay always felt was vital for the character. Any other actor saying the character’s lines wouldn’t have worked, but R. Lee has the ability to pull it off by making it funny and disturbing at the same time.”

One of the most crucial pieces of the casting puzzle was finding an actor that could withstand the physically demanding role of Thomas Hewitt – aka Leatherface – one of the most notorious mass murderers of all time. Not only did the role require an actor with great athletic ability and strength, but someone who could endure running in the 100 degree Texas heat with both the Leatherface flesh mask and heavy costume.

“What is terrifying about the Thomas Hewitt character is that there is no premeditation to him; he is simply a killing machine,” explains Brad Fuller. “This is a character that has no conscience. There is nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wants.” The executive producer feels one of the most disturbing qualities of Leatherface is his inscrutability. “We want people to make their own conclusions about why Leatherface turned out the way he did,” Fuller notes.

The filmmakers cast Andrew Bryniarski in the infamous role, going through great pains to shroud the actor’s identity in secrecy during production. Rounding out the talented supporting cast of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is David Dorfman (The Ring) as the young Texas boy Jedidiah, Terrence Evans as the wheelchair-bound Old Monty, Heather Kafka as Henrietta and Marietta Marich as Luda May.

Once casting completed, the filmmakers were ecstatic about their ensemble. “After we had finished the first round of auditions, we wrote down a wish list of actors and we ended up getting every single one of those people,” declares Marcus Nispel. “It sounds like a cliché, but it’s the truth. Every person we went after had the same reaction and passion for the material that we did.”

Executive producer Andrew Form agrees, “When we decided The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be the first film Platinum Dunes would produce, our goal was to make a film that was something more than what’s been out in the marketplace. Part of the formula is a great script by Scott Kosar; part of it is having a visionary director like Marcus Nispel helming the film. The last piece of the puzzle is trying to create an eclectic and surprising cast. What we are trying to accomplish with this film is something that really hasn’t been done in a long time, and luckily the actors we cast in the film saw the merit in that.”

With the casting process completed, the filmmakers began to prepare for the 39-day shooting schedule that would take place in outlying towns of Austin, Texas. With the start of production growing near, the filmmakers made the unusual decision to shoot the film in script sequence. “I tried to give Marcus every lesson that I’ve learned through all my mistakes,” notes producer Michael Bay. “If you can shoot it in sequence, do it. Any director that can shoot it in schedule would, because not only does it help the performances and how they build, it maintains continuity. You’re opening up a Pandora’s box when you shoot it out of order. But they were able to schedule as much as possible in sequence and I think it was really helpful.”

One byproduct is to prepare the actors mentally for the film’s most grueling, and terrifying, moments. “It helped Jessica’s character arc naturally and made it easier for her to deliver the deeply emotional and physically demanding performance we needed from her,” comments Andrew Form.

Another benefit was that it allowed the production to flow from day to night shoots as comfortably as possible. “Rarely are films shot in sequence, but we thought it made sense to shoot this film that way because it’s timeline starts at two or three in the afternoon and ends at six in the morning,” Form adds.
One of the biggest challenges of shooting the film in sequence was completing all of the dialogue-driven van sequences in the first week of the shooting schedule. This required the actors to quickly acquire the idiosyncratic rhythm of longtime friendships before the start of principal photography in order to give the scenes the truly organic feel the filmmakers desired.

Says Brad Fuller, “If you can achieve that level of character development, it really raises the stakes in the second and third acts. We felt that in order for that dynamic to show up on-screen we had to give the actors time to get to know each other.”

The filmmakers proposed the five leads come to Texas two weeks prior to the start of production to get to know each other as friends. “They rehearsed during the day and we took them out to dinner as a group every night,” Fuller remembers. “After the first week an amazing thing started to happen when they all started to take on the persona of their characters. Their friendships evolved naturally; it wasn't anything we manufactured for the film. When you see them on-screen together it is very palpable that they genuinely like each other.”

Jessica Biel agrees, believing that “it was incredibly helpful that we were able to come to Austin a few weeks before we started shooting and really get to know each other in a social environment. Everyone bonded really quickly and it genuinely felt like we had been lifelong friends. We’re all around the same age, so everyone was in the same kind of headspace in which no one takes themselves too seriously. We were all determined to have a good time and make the performances as authentic as possible.”

With the sweltering Austin summer in full swing and the thermometer topping 105° Fahrenheit, principal photography commenced in a 1970s van traveling on a lonely back road in Taylor, Texas. With temperatures in the van soaring to over 130°, the actors used the difficult conditions to their advantage.

“I knew going into the film that the Texas summers were hot, but nothing can prepare you for spending the day with five actors, director and camera crew in an old sweat box of a van,” laughs Eric Balfour. “It was really tough at times, but it also injected the scenes with an intensity that you couldn’t have gotten without those extreme conditions.”

“That first week was completely draining,” recalls Marcus Nispel. “It was the hottest week of the entire shoot and being cramped in that tiny van with lights and cameras just drained you of all your energy. In those types of difficult conditions, the movie you are making and the production start to become one. The actors are so hot that they forget about acting and just switch into being, which translates into a heightened sense of reality and genuine performances in those opening sequences.”

After the film’s dramatic opening sequence, Erin persuades Kemper and her friends to stop and find the sheriff, which leads them to the ominous Hewitt Farmhouse, which serves as the foundation of terror, one that soon engulfs Erin and her friends.

The farmhouse used for the shoot was built in 1854 on the University of Texas campus and moved out by horse and buggy to a 750-acre farm in Taylor, Texas in the 1930s. Before filming began, the six-bedroom house had been vacant since the 1960s. To the delight of the filmmakers, the production was able to shoot six different working sets on the property.

“The Hewitt House is over 150 years old and is one of scariest, most unsettling houses I have ever seen,” declares executive producer Brad Fuller. “It’s extremely creepy,” Michael Bay adds. “There were bills and checks in there from the 1920s.” “It was a really a disturbing place to be, and if we did our job properly, audiences will feel that emotion,” says Fuller.

Marcus Nispel notes that the locations in many ways define what’s scary about the film. “We were lucky enough to find locations that all came with a lot of history,” he reflects. “When people think of great thriller movie houses, they think of the houses from Psycho, The Amityville Horror and The Silence of the Lambs. Those houses have etched themselves into people’s collective conscious in a way we hope the Hewitt House will.”

From the first day of the shooting schedule, the filmmakers were tremendously impressed by level of commitment and physical presence Jessica Biel brought to the set of the film everyday. “I don’t think we could have gotten this movie done with anyone but Jessica,” declares Andrew Form. “She had a vested interest in her character and cared deeply about the authenticity of what she was doing and saying. Whether it was hotwiring a car or hiding in a meat locker, she was very clear and vocal on how she would do it, which was a tremendous help to us because she literally became Erin and knew the character better than any of us.”

Form adds that Biel insisted on doing many of her own stunts, drawing the line only when safety concerns precluded her from performing them. “She wanted to do everything that basically wasn’t life threatening,” he describes. “It allowed us to shoot scenes where you see the lead of the film and it’s not just a shot of her feet or her back. You can actually see her climbing a wall, jumping down and being chased.”

For Biel, the role tested her physical and emotional limits. “It was really challenging physically,” admits Biel. “Every day I was running through the woods and jumping over things or dragging someone around the house. I’m pretty athletic, but by the end of the shoot I had cuts and bruises all over my body. It was hard work, but it makes it so much scarier when audiences are able to see a character’s face in those situations.”

The shoot was equally challenging for Biel’s costars, including her unflappable onscreen boyfriend Kemper, played by Eric Balfour. “It’s been a wild ride,” laughs the actor. “I broke my hand during the first weeks of production and had this special little cast that I could take off when we shot. I also got to spend a couple of hours hanging upside-down as they poured water and blood all over my face. Every once in awhile, I would remind myself that this is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was a dream come true for me because I grew up watching The Exorcist and Poltergeist and have always wanted to be in a movie that had the potential to completely terrify audiences.”

With the deeply disturbing content of the material and spine-chilling practical locations that included abandoned houses, cotton gins, a functioning meat packing plant and long stretches of deserted rural roads, the lines between fact and fiction often became blurred during the intense night shoots which made up the final six weeks of the film’s shooting schedule.

“In my personal life, I am constantly in a scary movie state of mind,” admits actress Erica Leerhsen. “I’m just naturally someone who gets scared by everything. Marcus was very meticulous about putting us in a working environment that captured the harsh reality of what was happening to these five kids. I was constantly getting freaked out because the entire cast had become so close that I honestly felt that I was trying to save my friends.”

Director Marcus Nispel notes that the weather and rigorous action in the script challenged cast and crew alike but brought a dimension of reality he was seeking for the film. “It was either so hot, which was mentally draining, or you were exhausted from shooting nights in the rain,” he recalls. “Whether we were shooting in a location ankle deep in mud or in the rain late at night, the environment we created affected the performance of the actors in a positive way. By the end of the shoot, Jessica had lost her voice from screaming and her eyes were swollen like a prizefighter’s from infections and crying. When you combine that kind of reality with the terrific performances, it infuses the film with a heightened sense of reality that captivates audiences and makes them feel like they’re part of this terrifying journey into darkness.”

Despite all of the challenges that arose from an ambitious shooting schedule, director Nispel’s often imitated infectious battle cry of “We shoot!” became the adopted catchphrase that motivated both cast and crew to push themselves to their physical and artistic limits.

“Marcus was as committed to directing this film as anyone could humanly be,” says executive producer Brad Fuller. “He lived this movie for six months and his passion and energy for maintaining the quality of the film while creating an engaging experience for everyone involved was unsurpassed. He is so visceral, which enabled he and cinematographer Daniel Pearl to take a film like this and implement a visual style filled with colors and textures that you just don’t see in a lot of films these days.”

Having previously collaborated with Nispel on many of the director’s award-winning commercials and music videos, cinematographer Daniel Pearl shared an invaluable shorthand with the director during the short and intense preparation schedule for the film.

“Marcus is a very proficient in what it takes to tell a story and has a very strong graphic sense,” says Pearl. “We have worked together 25 or 30 times a year over the last four years and in that time have developed a visual shorthand that allows us to discuss things very honestly. We essentially arrived at a high style of shooting and lighting that was more of a continuation of the work I had been doing with Marcus over the years, but with a dark, edgy big screen twist.”

For Nispel, having Pearl behind the camera gave the director a strong second eye. Pearl also didn’t hesitate to inject his own creative ideas into the mix. “Daniel’s strongest attribute is not being afraid to speak up for what he thinks is right,” says Nispel. “That’s very important to me because I am very strong willed and need to work with someone who is willing to tell me what they need to get the shot. It’s almost like having another director on the set, which is a great bonus for me.”

To capture the film’s signature look, Nispel and Pearl’s shorthand enabled some enterprising techniques. “I like to light through openings in windows, doorways and holes in roofs as much as possible because it allows a director to move freely within the space,” comments Pearl. “The tone of the film was established through a combination of lenses, camera angles and most importantly, lighting. We used mostly 14mm and 17mm lenses and the style of lighting was minimalist, generally with a single source key light combined with a back or rim light.”

The unique stylistic approach Nispel and Pearl used in capturing the characters and moments in the film effected and infused the production design of several key locations and set pieces.

“First and foremost the practical locations and use of color were the key elements in determining the production design of the film,” says production designer Greg Blair. “We wanted to drain the film of color and keep the palette in the range of sepia, gray and rust. We kept all of the sets in those muted tones and the only color we wanted to introduce was the red of the blood. We also built and designed many of the sets in terms of how Daniel Pearl could light them. In the basement set, we put Leatherface’s work table right in front of the only window so he could be silhouetted while he was working on his victims.”

With many of the film’s sets located in practical locations, production designer Blair took advantage of the hidden treasures that came with shooting in locations that were 100 to150 years old. “A lot of the practical locations lent themselves to giving us a great starting point in terms of the production design,” he describes. “There were so many great locations, each with their own unique history, but the Hewitt House and Leatherface’s basement were my favorite sets to design.”
Nispel wanted the Hewitt house to contain “shrines to death.” “The idea for the basement set was that metaphorically you were going into the belly of the beast,” says Blair. “We wanted it to drip and ooze like you were entering the bowels of Leatherface.”

An added bonus of the Hewitt House was that production adopted a lot of the original furniture and contents of the house, in addition to cutting holes in walls, removing floors, and adjusting the house at will. “It was the best of both worlds because we were able to shoot in an authentic location that we could alter and maneuver in like it was on a studio soundstage,” Nispel comments.

Adds Blair, “the house was actually more of a found treasure in my mind because most of the furniture and set dressing we used was already in the house. We had to completely rearrange it, but most of it was there to start. We also sanded and stained the hardwood floors so we could get some good sheen off of it when it was backlit. We also added wallpaper in Leatherface’s bedroom because Marcus wanted to show that he had grown up in this house and still had the cowboy and Indian wallpaper from when he was a child.”

Like Daniel Pearl, production designer Blair was also part of the filmmaking team on many of Nispel’s previous directorial efforts. The prior collaboration proved invaluable for Blair, who was designing his first feature film. “Greg is a great problem solver,” says Nispel. “We didn’t have to talk a great deal about the details because we work largely by osmosis. He did a great job at taking full advantage of what Austin naturally offered to us.”

“Marcus is so visual and knew exactly what he wanted, and Greg Blair did an amazing job in deciphering his ideas,” says executive producer Andrew Form. “Greg and his art director Scott L. Gallagher were able to make all of the locations in the screenplay come to life in a manner which added so much to the physical look of the film. They didn’t have the luxury of being able to build anything they wanted and were forced to find practical locations that they could tailor and change for the film.”

Although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre takes place over the course of one day, the film presented many unique challenges for costume supervisor Kathy Kiatta. Like the production design, the colors in the clothing were to be washed out earth tones. They also had to have a vintage look but go through as much of a transformation as the actors themselves. “It would have been nice to do real 70’s vintage pieces,” notes Kiatta. “But because we needed doubles, triples and quadruples of everything, we had to buy new stuff and make it look old by aging the clothes.”

The costume supervisor notes that after initially creating a worn look for the clothes, by beating them and over dying then washing them, the costumers had to launder the clothes after their use in a set-up. “We finished every piece of clothing off by applying dirt to them,” says Kiatta. “Every time we did laundry we had to reapply the dirt, which made it a very intensive show. Jessica’s character alone had her clean look, her dirty look and then her almost dead look which required three different stages of aging her tank top.”

Though the budget is modest by Hollywood standards, Michael Bay feels the artistry and care Marcus Nispel and his team infused into the film will transcend any preconceptions audiences have about it. “That’s the school I come from,” Bay comments. “Even though we had no money to do this, we had to have high production values. Marcus is a great shooter and it starts with him. But I had to beg, borrow and steal, and call in every favor I had in terms of sound mixers and musicians. I guess [New Line Cinema co-chairman and CEO] Bob Shaye said it best. He said, ‘You can tell it was very lovingly produced.’ We took care. I think it’s a really good-looking movie.”

With the production schedule – which included practical locations in the Texas towns of Austin, Taylor, Martindale, Hutto and Walburg – nearing its final days, cast and crew alike grew to emulate the characters’ bonds in the film. “I didn’t go into this with too many preconceived notions of what this film was going to be,” says Marcus Nispel. “I had definite ideas in terms of authenticity, performance, and a certain reverence where death was not peppered with a joke or anything gratuitous. Sure, I wanted to do some damage and break a lot of things and make a lot of noise, but almost from the first day it turned into something where the main focus of the film was these five young adults. They were not just cannon fodder for Leatherface. They suddenly became people who you want to root for and hopefully everyone will really care about what happens to them.”

As principal photography wrapped in Austin, Texas on September 21st, 2002, all involved felt they had shared in a unique film experience. “Everything about this film totally surpassed all of my expectations,” Jessica Biel reflects. “The material really tested my emotional and physical limits, but one of the things that gave me great comfort was having filmmakers like Marcus Nispel and Michael Bay at the helm. Everyone involved had a really great time making this movie, which usually tends to bleed into the final product. I hope that everyone who sees this movie, along with being completely terrified, gets a sense of the great enjoyment that our cast and crew had making it.”

“What we’re trying to do is create a visceral experience,” says Michael Bay. “We want a no-holds-barred, not-joking-around movie about your worst nightmare. You’re stuck in this town and you can’t get out. It’s like a bad dream. I just wanted to go back to the thrillers that I grew up with, where the terror was real.”

“Audiences are going to be devastated by what happens over the course of the movie,” predicts Andrew Form. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about raw emotion and terror, and with the exception of The Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist, I can’t remember a movie where the terror and fear resonate so deeply as they do here. This film isn’t about flying limbs and blood spurting at the camera, it’s about watching these characters make decisions that every audience member would make in those life and death moments.”

[Murphy3]

Mystic River


SYNOPSIS


IN THEATRES: OCTOBER 8, 2003 (LIMITED)
OCTOBER 15, 2003 (NATIONAL)

In Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER, a murder mystery in South Boston unites three men who have been friends since childhood. Grippingly powerful performances from the entire cast--Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, and Laura Linney--combined with gritty photography, an exceptionally emotional script, and a convincing working-class Boston setting make this film one of Eastwood's most consistent and penetrating works.

Though they live in the same houses where they grew up, Jimmy (Penn), Dave (Robbins), and Sean (Bacon) have drifted apart over time. Their distance is due to a disturbing and violent episode that occurred when they were children. Even now, as adults married with kids, they have never managed to overcome their fear and guilt about what happened. Dave and his wife (Harden) still live next door to Jimmy, who is married to a tough-sexy blond (Linney) and has three daughters. When Jimmy's 19-year-old girl is murdered, he turns to Sean, who works as a policeman, and delivers an ultimatum: find the killer fast or I'll go after him myself. Little do they know, the culprit is the last person they'd ever suspect.

This movie screened in October 2003 as part of the 41st New York Film Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.



PRODUCTION NOTES



STORY AND CHARACTERS

From his very first reading, director/producer Clint Eastwood knew he wanted to bring Dennis Lehane's best-selling novel Mystic River to the screen. "I read the book and optioned it immediately," he recalls. "It's a riveting story with enormous potential as a film. The characters are complex, interesting and well defined."

Eastwood, who won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his landmark Western Unforgiven in 1993, brings a classically spare, candid approach to Mystic River. "This film is about real people trying to come to terms with who they are under very tough circumstances. It needs to be done honestly and it needs to ring true."

Mystic River explores the interwoven history of three men, the terrible events that tainted their boyhood and shaped their futures, and the irrevocable choices they are ultimately forced to make. Individually, these characters must come to terms with their own personal demons, struggling with issues that bring an alarming momentum into the mix.

"Murder mysteries are usually only about solving the crime," says Eastwood, "but in this case the story shows how, beyond the murder, all of the participants' lives have been altered by the crime. One gets to see the impact a violent act has had, many years after the fact. It's that tragic circle - all three of these men have unresolved issues in their lives. They have all been traumatized by the past. All became damaged goods."

Childhood friends Jimmy, Dave and Sean grew up together, living and playing on the same neighborhood streets of South Boston. But when a shocking tragedy befell one of them, the boys stopped spending time together and eventually grew apart, each keeping his distance as if the others were living reminders of that devastating time. But while their lives may have led them in different directions, they were all turning away from the same painful place.

When Eastwood began considering what writer could best bring Dennis Lehane's haunting novel to the screen, "Brian Helgeland immediately came to mind. He really liked the book and after conferring with him briefly, I said, 'Why don't you just dig in?' He ripped right into it, writing the first draft in two weeks. I looked at it and felt it was a terrific interpretation of a complex book, filled with so much discussion and detail."

Casting decisions reflected Eastwood's sense of purpose and desire for quality without compromise, and a stellar cast was quickly assembled. "I sent the script to Sean Penn and he loved it right away," Eastwood recounts. "Tim Robbins called, and as the word got out, other actors began calling. Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney are both terrific actresses with whom I had previously worked. This was a very pleasant experience because the actors all resonated so well together."

Five cast members are prior Oscar nominees: Penn for Best Actor in I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking - a film that also garnered Robbins a nomination for Best Director - Fishburne for Best Actor in What's Love Got to Do with It, Linney for Best Actress in You Can Count On Me and Marcia Gay Harden, who won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Pollock.

"I don't think I could have found a better actor for any of the parts in this film," says Eastwood. "Sean, Tim, Kevin, Laurence, Laura and Marcia are all simply outstanding. I had no doubts about the talent of this cast."

In turn, the cast had no doubt that they were in extremely capable hands. "All of us had the sense that Clint's storytelling would give the film a clear humility," says Penn, "so our readings were done in order to make ourselves as familiar as possible with the material. In that way, whatever had to do with nuances and character choices became just a shorthand exchange with Clint and we wouldn't have to refer back to the script. It becomes a cleaner, more decisive process because you know with each take that you can give it everything you have."

"The key ingredient in this film is Clint Eastwood," Robbins agrees. "Clint is a true artist in every respect. Despite his years of being at the top of his game and the legendary movies he has made, he always made us feel comfortable and valued on the set, treating us as collaborators and equals. We never got the feeling that he believed in his legend or asked us to honor it, although we did. It was a really great experience. There was never any kind of pettiness on his set; no screaming or stupid emotional displays from anybody, a very professional, adult environment. There is nothing condescending about the man or his crew and it invigorates you, making you feel like you did when you made your fist movie."

Robbins plays the deeply troubled Dave. "Dave is one of these guys who finds a way to survive and exist despite a past filled with horrific events," the actor muses. "Maybe what he should have done is left that neighborhood and started fresh somewhere, but he didn't. He's internalized his painful experience and not talked about it or dealt with it, so it has festered and festered for years. It's not particularly fun, going to that dark place for long periods of time while you're working, but fortunately, Clint provided such a professional and efficient environment to work in that it was a pleasure to be able to bring this character to life."

Haunted by the devastating events of his childhood, Dave stayed in the poorer section of town, working menial jobs and eventually starting a family with his wife Celeste. When Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter Katie is inexplicably murdered, the details of the crime slowly emerge and Celeste begins to break down under the weight of her uncertainty and dread.

Harden, who arrived in Boston early to immerse herself in the blue-collar world of Mystic River, felt a kinship with her character. "The story has an immediate, personal connection for me," says the actress, "because Celeste has a young son, and I'm a mother with a four-year-old daughter. It also greatly appealed to me because it questions that moment in life when innocence is lost."

While Dave was just trying to survive and get by, Jimmy followed a more turbulent route, developing into something of a criminal mastermind over the years. Running his own gang at the tender age of seventeen, he seemed untouchable. He married the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood and the two soon had a young daughter. Things might have gone on that way forever, until an associate rolled on him, ratting Jimmy out in exchange for a lighter sentence and condemning him to serve two years at Deer Island.

Tragically, his young wife was stricken with cancer while he was locked up, and when Jimmy got out he found himself a 22-year-old widower and the sole parent to a little girl who barely recognized him as her father. With 5-year-old Katie as his motivation, Jimmy determined to turn his back on his criminal past. Returning to the neighborhood to run a corner grocery, he re-married and had two other daughters. As their family continued to grow, Katie remained the light of his life. On the day she is found dead in Pen Park, that light goes out forever.

"Mystic River deals with a kind of unimaginable pain," says Sean Penn. "I found myself drawing from the writing and the other actors. We spent a lot of time together, reading through the script and trying to find a kind of peace with the things that occur and the choices that are made. Our job was to make these impossibly painful situations dramatically understandable."

Jimmy's anchor throughout the tragedy is his love for his daughters and the strength of his fiercely devoted wife, whose loyalty to those closest to her knows no bounds. "Annabeth is tough; very, very tough," says Laura Linney of her character. "She's like a mother lion, very protective, with a huge sense of pride and entitlement. She's always on guard - she's got an 'I dare you' quality about her."

As Jimmy was serving time, his boyhood buddy Sean aligned with the other side of the law, becoming a Massachusetts State homicide detective. Increasingly alienated from humanity by the never-ending indiscriminate cruelty he sees in the course of his investigations, and separated from his wife except for her painful, silent phone calls, Sean has come to question the meaning of his efforts.

"As adults, all of these men have disconnected from one another," relates Kevin Bacon, who plays the conflicted cop. "Sean moved away and now he spends all of his time trying to solve homicides. His wife has left him, he's living alone and he has no friends - he's just walking through life like a zombie."

Sean's only remaining personal connection is with his partner Whitey. Laurence Fishburne plays the homicide detective, who serves as his partner's objective reality check. "Whitey is truly the outsider amongst all of these people," says Fishburne. "He doesn't have any familial or friendship connections."

"A big part of the job for Laurence and myself was to have a real kind of chemistry and complexity to our relationship," says Bacon, "as two dedicated cops trying to solve this murder, which, for Sean, brings him back into his old neighborhood and childhood friendships."

Fishburne stresses the partnership that is the underlying force in their success. "The way I would describe the characters is this: Sean Penn is married to Laura Linney, Tim Robbins is married to Marcia Gay Harden and I'm married to Kevin Bacon. The partnerships that cops have are really like marriages."

Sean has come a long way from the old neighborhood, where Jimmy and Dave chose to remain and raise their families. The three might have lived out the rest of their lives without reconnecting, but they are violently reunited by Katie's senseless murder. Sean is assigned to the case, and instantly faced with a ticking clock: Jimmy is obsessed with revenge, his rage at the murder of his daughter disguised by a cool, methodically succinct execution plan.

"The story is the most important aspect of the entire project," says Eastwood. "I don't like intrusions or distractions on the set, and I'll follow the script as closely as I can. I try to create a comfortable environment where the actors can do their best work and the film can be made in the most direct way possible."

Eastwood was adamant that Mystic River be shot on location in Boston, Massachusetts - even the score was recorded there with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. "I never seriously considered any other location," he relates. "This project belongs in Boston. The city and its neighborhoods are as much a part of this project as the actors. There is no Mystic River anywhere else."

Filmed entirely in and around the city, Mystic River depicts the local neighborhoods and surrounding environment with almost documentary accuracy. The same is true for the interior sets, which were built in a warehouse located in Canton, Massachusetts, a suburb just south of Boston.

Academy Award-winning production designer Henry Bumstead, who won Oscars for his work on To Kill a Mockingbird and The Sting, as well as receiving nominations for Vertigo and Unforgiven, had the responsibility of replicating all of the interiors of the neighborhood homes, as well as constructing the fateful Black Emerald Bar, the location of Mystic River's most pivotal scene.

Situated at the water's edge with a breathtaking view of the city skyline near the Mystic River Bridge, the Black Emerald Bar was built from scratch on an empty industrial lot to evoke the setting described in the script.

"I trust Henry Bumstead completely," Eastwood explains, "and I really believe he is the best production designer working in film. His ability to solve creative problems, particularly under deadline, is remarkable. He's helped me out with western towns, newsrooms, space ships and ocean trawlers. Now, what he's done with a weathered New England bar is a perfect fit, with just the right visual ingredients. Henry is a special talent and I'm lucky to have him on this project."

In addition to working with the Massachusetts Port Authority, virtually all of the scenes filmed in the city of Boston were done in conjunction with Mayor Thomas Menino's Office of Special Events, which helped coordinate all permits, traffic control and security. Notable events during production included the closing of three incoming lanes on the Tobin/Mystic Bridge for the shooting of a scene in which Sean and Whitey respond to a road rage accident.

"I'm very happy with the picture's look," says Eastwood. "The piece was lit to look like a day ending. Before our cinematographer Tom Stern was the director of photography on Blood Work, he had been a chief lighting technician for years, working on many of my pictures under Bruce Surtees and Jack Green."

Another note of interest is the inclusion of Mystic River author Dennis Lehane in the neighborhood Columbus Day parade sequence. Lehane was cast as a local politician, waving to the crowd while sitting on the back deck of a convertible.

The single most unpredictable variable in the film's production was the New England weather. Fortunately, Eastwood's focused directing style and the high level of professionalism displayed by the cast enabled the Malpaso company to efficiently complete key scenes, minimizing the necessity for retakes. Likewise, in many instances the New England Fall weather, characterized by intermittent rain and autumn leaves, helped enhance specific scenes.

"I have a great crew and wonderful actors, which makes my job much easier and much more enjoyable, regardless of weather problems or other external circumstances," Eastwood explains. "This affects everything else involved, from set-up to wrap, and limits multiple takes. Sure, we've run into rain and wind and some freezing cold nights, but that's to be expected and with this story, it can work for you. The most important thing is that I have a good team. We get in and shoot what we need and move on. These people know what they're doing - it's impressive and sometimes I catch myself watching as much as directing."

Eastwood anticipates that the film will be an entertaining, intriguing and ultimately thought provoking experience. "The story can satisfy the audience on several different levels," he considers. "The 'whodunit' fans may be happy with just the mystery and absorb the other content in the periphery. Others will get into the background of the characters and the detective story will be meaningful only in relation to the overall tragedy. The story is layered and as each layer gets peeled off, more is revealed. Every time a question is answered it only raises more questions… I'm looking forward to peoples' reactions."

[Murphy3]

Runaway Jury - not much info on this one


SYNOPSIS


A member of the jury for an explosive trial against a gun manufacturer joins forces with a beautiful woman to manipulate the panel. With millions of dollars at stake in the precedent-setting lawsuit, the mysterious jurist finds himself battling a high-priced and ruthless jury "consultant" who will stop at nothing to secure a verdict. -- © 20th Century Fox

[Murphy3]

To be honest, I'll catch all three of these. Not necessarily this weekend, but sometime in the next couple of weeks along with Kill Bill and School of Rock

[Rhylan]

I'll watch Runaway Jury. Don't know about Mystic River. Jury's out. Chainsaw - hehe, sorry. No thanks. Maybe if someone pays me to go. Otherwise I'll watch ESPN Classic, TYVM.

[Murphy3]

Not to take my own topic off topic..
BUT

i'm curious...what Texas based horror/thriller/suspense type movies can people come up with?

I'm wanting to check out as many as i can.

obviously, there's
Frailty
Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies
Dusk 'Til Dawn

what else?

[irontoad]

No way I'm seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no movie deserves to have 2 remakes done of it... The trailer for Mystic River has me intrigued, though. Look forward to seeing that.

[Murphy3]

personally, i'm less intrigued by Mystic River after seeing the trailer than I was before. but, i'll still check it out i suppose

[ames7]

I loved Runaway Jury the book. I'm going to see the movie either way, but I really hope it's good. It's got 69% positive ratings on RT.

Let's see, still want to see Kill Bill, might want to see Veronica Guerin, pass on TX Chainsaw Massacre. Has anyone seen School of Rock? Worth paying for? Or wait for dollar theatre?

[Murphy3]

Ames, who said anything about paying for them?

[MavsFanFinley]

I'll see The Runaway Jury this weekend.

I enjoyed the book so much I don't want the movie version ruining Mystic River for me.

I'm not sure about Texas Chainsaw Massacre now. The reviews are horrible. Not that I go by those, but this is pretty one-sided that the movie is awful.

[Murphy3]

on Rottetomatoes.com
the critics are giving it about half good reviews and about half bad reviews.

but how often do critics actually like horror movies?

[Big Boy Laroux]

ebert gave texas chainsaw massacre 0 stars.

school of rock was awesome, ames. i highly recommend it.

i'm probably going to see kill bill tonight, so i'll give me evaluation on the other kill bill thread... still not excited about the 2 movie thing...

a friend of mine read mystic river and said it was a GREAT book. funny thing about it. in the book, the lead detective wonders if a movie will be made out of the criminal case they are working on. He said that if one is made, he'd want kevin bacon to play him. and that's who kevin bacon plays in the movie.

[Murphy3]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre racked up almost $30 million this opening weekend
Runaway Jury racked up around $12 million
Mystic River sputtered in at around $10 million