You may have to pinch yourself, because you can not believe what you are seeing (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD))

Member Name: Feefo

Product:	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD)
Date:	18/03/05 (518 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cult Classic, Scary, Disturbing, Good Direction

Disadvantages: Disturbing, Causes Nightmares

Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Director: Tobe Hooper (Salem's Lot, Poltergeist)


Writing Credits: Kim Henkel, Story Tobe Hooper, Story

Cast:

Marilyn Burns - Sally Hardesty
Allen Danziger - Jerry
Paul A Partain - Franklin Hardesty
William Vail - Kirk
Teri McMinn - Pam
Edwin Neal - The Hitchhiker
Jim Siedow - Drayton Sawyer (Old man)
Gunnar Hansen - Leatherface/Bubba Sawyer, Jr
John Dugan - Grandfather Sawyer
Robert Courtin - Window Washer
William Creamer - Bearded Man
John Henry Faulk - Storyteller (Narrator)
Jerry Green - Cowboy
Ed Guinn - Cattle Truck Driver
Joe Bill Hogan - Drunk


I had not seen this film previously. I can remember a school friend telling me she had seen it and it then had the dubious stigma attached to it of video nasty, back in the 70's. I can only recall that I didn't like the idea much of some loony running around with a chainsaw, killing people. It sounded completely off putting!....
I was only 11 at the most when my friend had seen it. She was a bit older than me and didn't invite me around to watch it!. I don't think my parents would have approved anyway and probably don't even approve now!!.

I managed to see the film finally although it wasn't on my list of things to do particularly. It was shown as part of the Film 4 Season of Banned films on Channel 4 over the past couple of weeks. Ireally scared myself that night as I watched Evil Dead which I had never seen before either although the tape didn't catch the end. Very annoying that. If anyone cares enough to let me know the ending of that please tell me!. I appreciate that Ash must survive but didn't know how.

Having watched most of Texas that night I actually had nightmares but it was the combo of the two films together. It is the first time in a long time that I have had nightmares from watching horror films and served me right, watching them at night really!. Iwatched the film once again and found it less frightening because I knew the ending and to review it.

The story starts with the premise that the teens are trying to find out what is wrong in this town. They have heard about the grave robbing in the cemetary where two of the teens Sally and Franklin have a Grandad that is burried there. They are concerned that the Grandfather's remains may too have been tampered with. Sally has brought her brother, her boyfriend Jerry and friends Pam and Kirk to investigate but they take a detour to the Grandfather's deserted farm, meeting a strange hitchhiker along the way and from then on they are on the route to live or die.

In the opening sequence there are weird animal like noises plus what appears to be a camera taking photos. Darkness. We only see glimpses and it is unsettling in the dark as we don't know what is happening but we know SOMETHING is happening. The voice over explains as the camera also shows us two decomposing corpses which have been placed on a gravestone. This is one of the most arresting and intriguing and unforgettable scenes in the film and that I have ever seen.

This scene is still in my mind and we get the feeling that the bodies are watching us as they are seated in an almost comical way on the gravestones and Tobe Hooper is relentless because he makes the audience deal with the corpses. There is no let up during the voiceover. The camera is just homed in up close and personal with the corpses and it is not funny but it does draw us in.

There is also a this story is true bit which is rather hokey. Sometimes these “Star Wars” type of in the beginning introductions are very effective. In horror films they tend to scare you. I can remember that Roman Polanski's spoof horror The Vampire Killers really scared me just because there was a this is true voiceover bit at the end.

The voice over is a technique used in many zombie films of the 70s and is effective here to show that grave robbing crimes have occured but also that it is not known why. Then we see the group of teens in a van with the voice over continued in the same news reading form on the van radio. We are distracted by the teens, watching them coming out of the van, wondering who they are and also having to listen to the van radion and glean information from that. But it is not possible to get all information from the radio which I thought was realistic as life is often like that, not a straight line but lots of winding lines.

The two parallel themes continues throughout the film. Voiceover/scene of robbed graves = not full picture given, allowing our imaginations to play, and voiceover/teens talking to each other at the same time and getting out of the van. Sally screaming later in the movie parallels with is she screaming at something or nothing/something we are not completely aware of. The hitchhiker in the van/something else going on beneath the surface. Sally's being tortured with a broom while “comforted with words”.

The usual horror movie warnings appear in the film - retrograde planets equals evil from Pam's astrology book and the drunk man laughing inappropriately.

Then another warning comes in the form of the madman (hitchhiker) who the teens pick up in the middle of nowhere but even before they do, Pam warns them that he looks weird and that they shouldn't pick him up. Pam seems psychic during the film many times, like when she warns Kirk not to go into the seemingly empty house but it is probably more likely that she was just freaked out by the hitchhiker, the whole situation with the grave robbing and the astrology book speaking of the planets being in retrograde.

Even Franklin says it's a house full of Draculas before much conversation has passed between the teens and the hitchhiker. So they all know on some level. Burning the photo and taking the photo makes us think voodoo and mysticism. Taking the photo - taking their soul so they are damned (some tribes still think this is the case). The kids are completely horrified when the hitchhiker burns the photo. What does it mean? And then he cuts Franklin's arm.

The Sun, The Moon. They take on big entities in the film. They are used to show the passage of time but also the main reason for showing them is to exacerbate the feeling of the supernatural being at work despite the evil being relatively human in origin. It takes on levels of evilness rising to the supernatural.

Even the jazzy radio van music is a bit unnerving and “animal” like.

Long camera shots are used on the teens. Looks like something is watching them. Very effective. Camera panning.

Even the red hand mark on the van equals territory marked. Cursed. Remember this technique used later in Blair Witch? One of the teens has his bag tampered with showing that he, like the whole van full of teens was cursed. You can see where films such as Blair got their influences from.

The laughter of the girls going around the house sounds hysterical, over the top and like crying. This is before anything bad has happened. Franklin mocks it.

More omens follow such as a dead bird and bones and even a tooth which Kirk thoughtfully hands to his girlfriend!.

Camera work tilting upwards on Pam. Disorientates. Pam not wanting to go into the abandoned house.

The fight over the map - where do we see this again?! Blair Witch!.

Very supernatual sounds when Sally and Franklin go looking for Gerry. Chilling soundtrack.

The Chainsaw is not used in any of the deaths except Franklin's.

I can see why it has been called horror pornography. I would also be concerned by any copy catters who might watch and go over the edge. But the ending which is basically a long chase broken up slightly is worth watching for alone. Probably not on your own!. I did not watch the film first in it's entirety but when I flipped over and saw the start of the end with the heroine on the run, I was gripped, appalled and compelled to watch and I could not be disturbed throughout. I was also fiercely moved by her plight, her trying to survive and her fear.

Some people criticise the fact that Sally screams almost constantly throughout the final part of the film but in the writer's and actor's defense, what would you do in that situation? At one point whe laughs hysterically and I thought that was very realistic and felt it with her.

One particularly hard aspect to watch is the exploitation of the women being tortured. At least the men die quickly although appallingly whereas one woman finds herself on a meat hook and then put in the freezer alive. The second woman is subjected to a prolonged, bizarre, mental and physical torture and I think therein is probably why the banning occured and why it was known as the pornography of horror.

The Scene if front of a van of the gas station guy hitting the hitchhiker is filmed with blue headlights being the only light in the darkness - good camera work.

The Grandfather Sawyer is very like a zombie don't you find!.

The screaming to me is not annoying but frightening so I turned it down a lot during the second half. It is voyeuristic making you a part of the torture because it is protracted like the actual torment itself. We watch and do nothing to stop it so we are made a party to the hillbillies clan albeit we are on her side and willing her to win. They mock her pleading for her life and it is horrific. We are “forced” to spend time with the family - the most abhorent family in the history of film I expect!. And while you would like to turn the damn thing off - you stay with it because of Sally because without you she is completely alone and helpless.

Again to actually try to kill Sally - a small hammer is deployed again. Strange - Chainsaw only makes a small appearance. I suppose Hammer Massacre didn't have the same ring to it or distribution possibilities.

Black Maria is the name on a huge lorry that passes by during the chase - Saviour but blasphemous? There is a black guy in the lorry so I think it is a reference to him.

Bit like Nightmare on Elm Street, Sally has no one she can trust, no help. But a little reality comes a knockin' at the end.

Was the story true?

Short answer is no. However it was loosely based on the true story of murderer Ed Gein who was suspected of taking victims between 1954 and 1957. The house in the film is probably most true to form in reality as Ed's house had similar gruesome content.

Ed Gein didn't use a chainsaw to kill his victims. But then again, in the film itself it is used rarely. Ed's parents were an alcoholic father and a very strict religious mother. He had a brother who was found dead in mysterious circumstances. But he worshipped his mother and his brother had criticised her. Ed did wear a mask of skin like Leatherface in the movie but not due to a skin disease. Ed was trying to bury his desire to be a woman. His mother had taught him about the connection of loose women and going to hell and viewed this son as worthless.

Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs were loosely based on Gein also.

There have been 5 films altogether. Texas CSM 1974 and Texas CSM 2 both directed by Hooper 1986 and starring Dennis Hopper. Leatherface Texas CSM III 1999 directed by Jeff Burr and Texas CSM The Next Generation 1994 directed by Kim Henkel and starring Mathew McConnaughey and Renee Zellwegger. In 2003 a remake of the original was made directed by Marcus Nispel.

Here is the opening narrative (voiceover)

"The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare.
The Events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." - August 18th, 1973

What you may not know - Trivia about the film

Marilyn Burns was quite badly cut by the undergrowth during the chase scene so a lot of the blood on her body and clothes is real and her finger was actually cut during the dinner table scene as it was not possible to do this by special effect.

The Meat Hook scene was done via nylon cord going between the actresses' legs causing a lot of pain.

The Chainsaw was a twist that was needed to differentiate from the real Gein cases.

People watched out of pre-views of the film as it was too awful.

All the Grandfather scenes had to be shot at one time as the actor couldn't bear the make up process again, understandably.

People actually lived in the Sawyer house at the time of the shoot.

Despite the use of a stunt double when Sally jumps out of the window, she still hurt herself in real life.

The film was shot in Chronological order.

The Chainsaw used was a Poulan 306A with black tape over the logo to avoid a law suit.

If you want to know more about the film go to:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072271/trivia

I probably wouldn't watch the film again. I have now taped over it but I have to say that it was horrific, shocking, memorable and has some of the best camera work and direction I have seen. I can see why it offends but also feel it has it's rightful place as a cult classic and a pre-cursor to modern horror film genre.

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