WHEN TOBE Hooper made his seminal slasher The Texas Chainsaw Massacre way back in 1974, his budget was minuscule, not even stretching to $150,000.

What the film lacked in finance, it more than made up for with invention and splatter.

Unfortunately, the film fell foul of the British Board of Film Classification, who initially rejected the certification.

In 1999, the BBFC amended its ruling, classifying the film 18 without cuts and noting that there was "no evidence that harm has ever arisen as a consequence of viewing the film".

Almost 30 years later, Marcus Nispel has remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for modern audiences.

Erin (Jessica Biel), Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Kemper (Eric Balfour), Pepper (Erica Leerhsen) and Andy (Mike Vogel) are driving through Texas in their campervan during the long hot summer of 1973 when they almost run over a girl wandering in the road.

They agree to help the distressed stranger who subsequently kills herself in the van.

Determined to do the right thing, the group telephones the local police from a service station and are told to meet the sheriff at a nearby meat-packing factory.

When Sheriff Hoyt (R Lee Ermey) turns up, he's more than a little demented.

So too it turns out are the locals, a rag-tag clan of cannibals led by the hideously deformed Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), who proceeds to dissect, slash and mutilate everything within a five mile radius.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was noted for its escalating tension and gory visuals, but Nispel's version struggles to keep us on the edge of our seats.

There's gore aplenty and a couple of nice shocks (the sheriff's interrogation of Morgan at gunpoint is horrifying) but for the most part, it's slice and dice by numbers.

The special effects are convincing but so much of the carnage takes place at night, that much of the mayhem is hidden in the shadows.

This new Texas Chainsaw Massacre is more of a trick than a treat.

Rating: 6/10