I told you to stay away from that graveyard! (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD)
Date:	09.08.05 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's a classic

Disadvantages: A rare example of a film I can't really find fault with

The best horror films don’t just scare you, they also freak the hell out of you. There’s a world of difference between films like Halloween or Scream, which derive their effects from suspense and skilfully wrought make-you-jump moments, and films like Dawn of the Dead or Videodrome, which leave you feeling like you’ve been left in the hands of a genuinely warped mind. It’s like the difference between a babysitter who jumps out at you from behind the curtains wearing a scary mask, and one who tells you that not only are your parents dead, but that it’s *your fault*.

Thing is, most of the genuinely nasty horror movies aren’t necessarily all that great when it actually comes to scaring you. George Romero or David Cronenberg are great at creating a steadily mounting atmosphere of unease, but they don’t always deliver when it comes to getting your heart pounding. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, made in 1974, is arguably the most successful ever film for doing both things at once. It’s also incredibly funny, in a blacker-than-black kind of a way. As such, it’s incredibly highly regarded by horror fans, has been hugely influential, and, crucially, has lost none of its impact in the 30 years since it first appeared.

The 70s were the golden age of American horror movies. Forget the big-budget Hollywood rubbish (The Exorcist and The Omen are worthless); it was independent producers who made the most exciting films. The 70s was the last decade where it was possible to make low-budget movies for the drive-in circuit and get them distributed by independents like AIP or Roger Corman. So there was no need to make concessions to the mainstream studios and family-oriented multiplexes that became dominant later. Texas Chainsaw was made on a very low budget by director Tobe Hooper and a cast and crew largely drawn from local universities.

Five young city types are driving through Texas in their van (two couples and the wheelchair-bound brother of one of the girls). Stopping off to visit their grandfather’s old farm (and picking up a weird-as-hell hitchhiker along the way), they run out of gas. A nearby house looks like it might provide them with a solution to their problems. Sadly it doesn’t, being full of murderous cannibal graverobbers. The last two-thirds of the film is a non-stop barrage of often gruelling atrocity, murder and increasingly desperate attempts to escape.

The film has some genuinely shocking fright moments. Most horror films let you know that something’s about to happen, through camera movement, editing or incidental music. Texas Chainsaw doesn’t, having the horror lurch into frame without warning. The film is often described as an assault on its audience, and that’s about right, certainly on a first viewing. And it’s often very nasty – being hung on a meat hook and having to watch as a man with a chainsaw dismembers your boyfriend is a pretty good definition of a worst case scenario.

But it doesn’t just rely on moments of shock – there’s a deeply uncanny feeling pervading the film, especially in the incidental details of the cannibal family’s home. Based on real-life Wisconsin cannibal/necrophile/murderer Ed Gein, the house is decorated and furnished with bones, both human and animal – chairs are adorned with severed arms, skeletons have been turned into lamp stands, bizarre taxidermic experiments have created grotesque hybrid animals. And of course there’s Leatherface, the family’s chief butcher, a huge hulking creature who wears a mask made of human skin.

The film’s low budget really works in its favour. The photography is often grainy and almost unfocused, possibly a result of it being the cinematographer’s first movie, and this adds a realistic edge to what we see. (Things that are shot in an unprofessional-looking way somehow seem far more real, as the makers of Cannibal Holocaust or Blair Witch Project obviously realised.) There’s very little gore in the film, probably because the budget wouldn’t stretch to special effects – everything takes place just out of shot, or so quickly that you don’t really have time to take it in. (This is one of the reasons the film holds up so well – nothing dates faster than special effects. The one committed make-up effect in the film – a hideously desiccated old man – isn’t nearly as good as the obviously cheaper stuff.) The art direction is magnificent – real animal bones and cadavers (acquired from vets’ surgeries, and also probably scraped off the road) were used for the grisly props, so there’s no sense of artifice. The use of sound in the film is especially nasty, and what incidental music there is tends to be minimalist and discordant.

The actors aren’t familiar from anything else. The kids in the van are generally all very normal, even boring (except Franklin, the guy in the wheelchair, who’s enjoyably petulant). Their low-key performances add to the realistic tone, and make them easier to empathise with. The cannibals, on the other hand, are allowed to overact a treat, and do. Leatherface is especially good, terrifying yet comical, weirdly effeminate and obviously flustered by the presence of outsiders in his home. The comedy of the later scenes comes from the family’s interactions, and the dinner sequence is unforgettable. (The last half hour of the film contains a lot of footage of an overweight, sexually ambiguous man chasing a scantily clad, buxom young lady around some woods. It’s like someone gave Benny Hill a chainsaw.)

The DVD has quite a few extras. The best is a 70-minute documentary about the film in which most of the participants talk about how it was made (and it seems to have been a really unpleasant experience for everyone. Especially good anecdotes come from set designer Robert Burns, who seems to really hate the film and everyone involved in it, and make-up artist Dorothy Pearl). The film was distributed by a company that seems to have been a mafia front, so no one made any money from it. The documentary also discusses the three sequels, although it was made before the entertaining but pointless recent remake.

The documentary goes a bit over the top when discussing the fact that the film was banned in Britain for decades, throwing in a lot of footage of Nazis burning books, and comparing James Ferman, the man who banned it, with Hitler. This is unnecessary. Certainly, Ferman’s era at the BBFC was frustrating, and his alleged remarks about the film being OK for educated middle-class audiences but not for bricklayers are pretty shocking. But the BBFC is a weird mixture of the gently right-wing paternalism of the British class system circa 1950 and the foaming-at-the-mouth little Englander attitudes of the Daily Mail – it certainly isn’t actually opposed to freedom of speech, and doesn’t bear comparison with the Third Reich.

There’s also a commentary by Tobe Hopper, director of photography Daniel Pearl and actor Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface). This is pretty typical, and the three men seem to break off into Beavis and Butt-Head style laughter a bit too often. Otherwise, there are out-takes and discarded scenes (which are kind of interesting, although most are of extremely poor visual quality and have no sound). There’s the usual gallery of stills, posters and lobby cards, and the usual collection of trailers. There are extra interviews with Hooper and the script-writer, Kim Henkel. There’s also a 16-page booklet with more information about the film. Not a bad set of extras, but nothing that really stands out.

But no one buys a DVD for the extras, do they? Texas Chainsaw is one of the finest horror films ever made. It succeeds in everything it sets out to do. It’s been hugely influential, being the prototype of the 80s slasher movie, and also one of the first films to have city folk falling foul of vicious rednecks. Tobe Hooper never really went on to do much else of interest, but here he obviously had the right collaborators, and created a masterpiece.

18 certificate, 78 minutes, and really not for kids. Allegedly £19.99, but can surely be picked up cheaper online.

Summary: One of the most entertaining, disturbing, nasty and frightening films ever made.