10 Horror Movies Critics Were Way Too Harsh On

4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Stigmata movie
New Line Cinema

Taking a glance at review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a meagre 37% rating from critics.

Make no mistake about it, the horror genre is one riddled with awful remake, after terrible reboot, after needless reimagining, after unwanted recalibration. Horror is a marvellous corner of cinema, yet it's one that far too frequently sees old ideas rehashed and revisited - with the end result usually being something utterly inferior to what has gone before.

In the case of Marcus Nispel's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that was one of those rare do-overs that was actually good. Of course, it wasn't as good as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but that was always going to be the case.

Nispel's movie followed pretty much the same beats of Hooper's classic, but it gave a welcome, brutal fresh lick of paint to Leatherface that firmly re-established the character as one of horror's greatest villains; him having had some of that killer edge removed in the three sequels that followed Hooper's 1974 picture.

To Marcus Nispel's credit, he also deserves praise for what he did with his Friday the 13th remake. Playing like a greatest hits of the first three entries in the main franchise, the 2009 F13 managed to be respectful to the property while being its own refreshing beast.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.