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With the recent box-office success achieved by the latest remake of 1974's `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' it's worth looking back at Tobe Hooper's original horror classic.

The movie tells a fairly simple tale at heart. A group of five teenagers driving through rural Texas happen upon a deranged, cannibalistic family. Psychological terror and chainsaws ensue.

Yet despite this simplicity, what is it about `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' that continues to succeed so with its audience? Outside of one memorial scene involving a meet hook; the movie is not particularly gory by today's standards. The film's characters and actual scares are not that remarkable.

The power of `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' lies in its atmosphere and in what H.P. Lovecraft called `the oldest and strongest kind of fear': the fear of the unknown. The later of these two staples of great horror is often cast aside in modern horror movies-especially in those churned out by the great Hollywood engine. Instead, every mystery must be explained away, every mask ultimately pulled from a monster's face, and not a moment of exposition is spared. It is interesting to note that the filmmakers behind the latest `Chainsaw' film chose to implement all three of these stylistic vices in their remake.

In the original, the feeling of dread and mounting paranoia creeps over the viewer in slow but steady waves. The first scene in the film depicts a desecrated grave with a voiceover of radio newscast, immediately followed by an opening credits sequence set against a backdrop of roaring solar flares. This, along with some idle astrological chatter on the part of one of the teenagers early on, leads to a feeling of cosmic disarray in the lonely Texas hills they traverse.

Questions about the villain's mask or the field of cars under camouflage netting are left for the viewer to answer on his or her own. At worst, in the loss of any acceptable answer, they are forced to ponder that terrible and limitless gulf of the imagination: the unknown.

In it's later stages, the film becomes a cacophonous world of throat-peeling screaming, blood-shot eyes, laughter, and grinding machinery. One is forced to recall the solar flares in the film's opening credits. In the climax of famous dinner scene, there is a feeling of cosmic forces pressing in on reality and warping it into some crude mockery of order, as if the world were but a TV or radio signal distorted into madness by flares on the surface of the sun.

In the 29 years since `The Texas chainsaw Massacre' hit theaters, there have been countless imitators and four additional films in the franchise, three of them remakes. Yet as loved and influential as the original classic has been, many who would seek to emulate its vision seem to overlook its true strengths.

"Dagon" certainly stands a cut above the rest when it comes to film adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. However, like pretty much every other attempt, Stuart Gordon and company also manage to fail in creating anything other than a Lovecraft-inspired B-grade horror movie. With this film, it is truly a shame. Unlike some of the utterly unwatchable adaptations that have been done, "Dagon" manages to, in places, bring an authentic-feeling Lovecraft mood and look to the screen. The in-town locations are, by-and-large, wonderful. Using a Spanish location and Spanish language was a great idea. The Actors playing the priest and the old man are excellently cast. Also, Gordon and company get high marks for the scenes where the true, horrible nature of the townsfolk is merely hinted at or teased. However, all of the successful teasing and hinting is for naught if you eventually show some guy in a big rubber monster mask, oozing slime all over the camera. Two great character actors are wasted if your central hero is so dreadfully written. And it is odd that film makers would be so inspired by Lovecraft's stories to make films (or are they inspired by the potential $$$$ in Lovecraft's name?) and yet end up either not noticing the strengths of Lovecraft's storytelling or purposely abandoning it. How can one admire a story enough to bring it to film and not admire its strengths? Lovecraft is all about the tease, about not showing, about what we can imagine from just a glimpse beneath the mask being far more terrifying than what we can gather in an extended shot? Example: the first glimpse that the movie's hero gets through a cracked door of mutated father character. The hints of inhuman deformity do wonders towards creeping the viewer out, forcing them to imagine a horror far worse. But then Gordon and company end up *showing* us the father's full facial deformities in a long, extended shot full of latex and rubber squid parts. This is bad storytelling. This is bad filmmaking. This is not Lovecraftian in the least and it throws away any former success in hinting at it. The hint is far, FAR more effective. It's like a striptease versus hardcore pornography. Lovecraft is the striptease and while other horror storytellers may revel in disgusting details, in the pornography of horror, it was never H.P.'s style. So either Gordon didn't trust Lovecraft's work and thought vainly that he could improve upon it or the man was simply too daft to grasp the complexity of Lovecraft's horror to begin with. I cannot say which I hope is the case. Other issues that bug me about "Dagon" include the romantic angle and the *action-man* crap. Lovecraft's stories almost never feature a romantically involved secondary character. In fact, if there *is* a Lovecraft story that features a man involved with a normal woman in a romantic way, I am not remembering it at present. There certainly is no mention of a romance in "Shadow over Innsmouth" and it is simply not an aspect of the Lovecraftian tale. To give a Lovecraft hero a romantic interest is like giving one to Sherlock Holmes--it simply isn't a part of the picture. So, shame on Gordon and company for giving us such an ugly horror movie cliché. Really, from where did they gain their true influence for this picture? From Lovecraft or from every other bland horror movie ever thrown up on a U.S. screen? Blah. Also, all of the action in the film is distressing. Is this Evil Dead or is this Lovecraft because I saw a helluva lot of running around with guns, fire, and whatnot? Lovecraftian horror is not about running around with guns and blasting stuff. To slap his name on a film like that is simply insulting. That combined with the profanity... really, in what Lovecraftian tale does H.P. Use the F word? Which one? Because I don't think I've read that particular story. At times, with gun in hand, the central character in Dagon says everything short of "I've come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass..." *sigh* And why must these tales always be transported from their atmospheric, early 1900's settings to modern day? What purpose does this serve? Given the look of the locations used in `Dagon,' to have it set in the 1930's would not have required an enormous amount of additional work or funds. In closing, the film is fun and perfectly acceptable so long as you expect nothing more than a B-grade horror film-and even as a Lovecraftian horror film, it's better than most. But anyone claiming that this is the great, true Lovecraft film that we've been waiting for all these years is simply out of their mind. This film is fair, but that's it.

This movie is beautiful. It's a `leaving home' story and a `stranger in a small town' story at the same time. It's a serial killer movie without gore and violence and without such gratuity to bog it down and make it marketable to gibbering masses, there is more character study and subtle discovery in the film. All the key performances are great and Owen Wilson does an excellent job as the seemingly harmless, almost childlike killer. If you enjoy films that are intelligent works of art and not just flash and fancy, see `The Minus Man' as soon as possible. It's really that good. However, if you're idea of a great film is `Charlie's Angels' and `Die Hard' then not only is this not your kind of film, you don't deserve it. This is simply one of the best films to come out in the past few years.