Last week’s bloodbath “Kill Bill” came in a distant second with $12.5 million and was followed close behind with the new John Grisham novel turned film, “Runaway Jury”, which took in $12.1 million. 

Massacre was the second largest October opening for New Line behind “Red Dragon”, the prequel to “Hannibel” and “Silence of the Lambs” which brought in $36.5 it’s first weekend last October. 

The "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" managed to slay the competion, despite suffering a rash of negative reviews that massacred the remake. (from an earlier report:) A remake of the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' opens in theatres today (10-17) but the critics seem pretty united in the belief that director Marcus Nispel massacred the film with his big budget revisiting of the 1974 horror classic. 

The movie caused quite a stir in 1974 when the original film directed by Tobe Hooper shocked audiences with his eerie and implied grotesque tale of a deranged killer. But the formula has been so over done since then that the new film seems to fall flat with the now clichéd elements that made the first film a classic. But the true special ingredient in the first film was the edge of your seat suspense but that seems to be lost with the more “visual” big budget remake. 

Here is a sampling of the early reviews for the remake: 

“Efforts to expand the envelope of grotesquery make the film repulsive and suspenseless, and it sorely misses original director Tobe Hooper's grisly, wily sense of humor.” - William Arnold - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Movie Critic

“With a budget many times that of the 1974 drive-in classic on which it is based, Marcus Nispel's ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ delivers proportionately fewer thrills and no discernible suspense. It is, instead, a long march to the slaughterhouse that seems to take forever to get going and, once it does, goes nowhere that hasn't been visited before by more talented filmmakers.” - DAVE KEHR - NY Times Film Critic

“…let’s discuss whether a remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” even needs to exist. Probably not… The producers have said they wanted to remake the horror classic because most young fans of the genre are aware of the film’s influence but have never seen it…Here’s a slice of advice: Go to the video store and rent the original.” -  Christy Lemire – Associated Press 

“Much as this gory new horror film would like to be associated with Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,’ the new ‘Massacre’ is only about a 10th-generation copy. It's much closer in look and deed to last spring's ‘Wrong Turn,’ which clumsily stole from Hooper's film and ‘Deliverance.’" - Betsy Pickle, Scripps Howard News Service

But the only reviews that count are those of the viewers and they seemed to have spoken loud and clear with their wallots this weekend. 

Top 5
1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - $29.1 million 
2. Kill Bill: Volume 1 - $12.5 million 
3. Runaway Jury - $12.1 million 
4. School of Rock - $11.3 million 
5. Mystic River - $10.3 million 

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