On the set of 2002's 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'

ON LOCATION; 'Chainsaw' production revving up; Filmmakers hope they'll end up with a terrifyingly beautiful movie

Austin American-Statesman
(Sept 6, 2002): pE3.

By Joe O'Connell
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN

It's almost midnight at a closed mental hospital on the outskirts of Austin. A curvaceous blonde in flared jeans and a tight T-shirt tears across a field and bangs her open palms on the door of a rotting trailer home.

"Please let me in!" she screams. "Please help me!"

Cut. Marcus Nispel, director of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," yells for more smoke and what looks like a Weed Eater on steroids whirs to life in front of a giant fan. On the video monitor this hillside spot under a giant oak tree gets suitably eerie.

"Quiet all around, guys!"

The blonde, Jessica Biel of television's "7th Heaven" fame, bangs on the door again. This time it is opened by Heather Kafka, an Austin actress best known as Chloe on the late MTV series "Austin Stories." Biel seeks refuge in the trailer from you know who, the man who's fond of wearing human skin.

In a case of truth neatly aligning with fiction, the former home for the mentally infirm is real. A hillside field of sunken graves belonging to its former residents overlooks a prison just a few feet from the make-believe of the set. All goes unnoticed by the hive of crew members trying to get the perfect, scary shot.

Welcome back to Austin, "Chainsaw." After a handful of sequels, this time the gang from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company is in town to remake the 1974 low-budget creepy that is either the scariest film of all time or a goofy, hippie-generation memory of the Austin that was.

"I hope everybody gives it a chance," Biel says between takes. "Just give us a shot. I think we'll shock people by how good we make this. We're really trying to make it realistic, terrifying and beautiful at the same time."

Biel was attracted to the part for its action, and the strong character she plays in the film.

"We don't really think about it," she says of Tobe Hooper's original film. "This is a different interpretation. We do want the cult following of the movie to be able to respect it."

For the generation that doesn't know the original but was weaned on grinning homages like "Scary Movie," Biel sees a clear motive: "We want to scare them to death."

Count Morgan Dover-Pearl, a recent Southern Methodist University theater grad, on the list of "Chainsaw" virgins. And her uncle Daniel Pearl is The Link.

Sure, original director Hooper and his co-writer Kim Henkel are credited as co-producers and provided the first draft of a script. But Pearl, the 23-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears cinematographer on the first film, is back in the same role at age 52, his goatee streaked with gray, his head now shaved clean.

"People ask me, 'Is it going to be as gritty and grainy as the last one?' No. I did that," Pearl says. "There's no point in making the exact same film with the exact same look."

And his return has more to do with a long working relationship with Nispel on music videos such as The Fugees' "Ready or Not."

"The intended audience -- I shoot for them," Pearl says. "It's not a stretch."

Proud mom Marietta is on the set today. Her other son, Austin lawyer Tom Pearl, is playing a detective -- and she was there with advice about Daniel Pearl's return to "Chainsaw."

"I said, 'I think you should do it. It's been very good for you on your resume,' " she says as the family joins the movie crew under a tent during a dinner break.

What did she think of the original?

"I thought it was funny," she says.

"It was supposed to be," Pearl responds.

"Well, you made it," Marietta says.

Brad Fuller, clad in a Hutto track team T-shirt, surveys the set and looks more like a gaffer than one of the guys in charge. He and fellow producer Andrew Form have fallen for Hutto, the tiny town they drive past on the way to film locations in Taylor, Circleville and Walberg. Shooting continues in the area until, appropriately, Friday the 13th.

"The Fighting Lady Hippos," Fuller says. "You've got to love that."

Fuller joined with Form and college pal Bay to create Platinum Dunes with a goal of making films for less than $15 million each. "Chainsaw" should come in at under $10 million, he says, and the horror genre fit perfectly with their plans.

Filming days are long, but Nispel is efficient, Fuller says.

"A lot of people think remaking a classic film is a no-win proposition," Fuller says.

"We don't agree. In our minds we are retelling a story based on Ed Gein's life. We're trying to tell a little different story than they told in the original."

Gein, a 1950s mass murderer from the Midwest who wore the skin of his victims, is seen as the inspiration for film characters ranging from Norman Bates in "Psycho" to Buffalo Bill in "The Silence of the Lambs" to Leatherface in the many "Chainsaw" films.

Leatherface isn't on the set as Biel runs from him to the door of the decrepit trailer. If he were, you likely wouldn't be reading this because the media has been kept at a distance from the villain's latest incarnation. A Texas Monthly writer was asked to leave for fear he'd reveal Leatherface's newest look. Rumors are that his human skin mask is kept hidden until the camera rolls.

But there is no doubt he is somewhere lurking behind Biel as she cowers in the trailer. Cut. A production assistant hands out Krispy Kreme doughnuts, while another doles out mosquito spray. Biel exits the trailer and prepares for yet another take. Smoke billows across the set and dissipates among the very real graves of the dearly departed.