Regardless of whether or not you are a horror film fan (which I am), and whether or not you like blood and guts (which I do not), there is a certain amount of tribute that needs to be paid to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the evident influence that it has had on other considerably better made and considerably bigger money makers than it, including The Hills Have Eyes, The Blair Witch Project, and even Halloween. Inspiration is evident in content as well as construction, and even though this film is lack in all sense of morality and is seemingly an exploration into the grotesque checked only by what seems to be a nonexistent budget, it is nevertheless a fantastic example of a film that draws a genuine reaction. Kudos to director, Tobe Hooper, for scary the shit out of me using only a gardening tool and a rubber mask.
The story is short and sweet: two siblings and their three friends head to the middle of Bumblescum or some such place in order to check on the grave of their grandfather, as there have been reports of grave robbers in the area. They become stranded at the old property of their family when their van runs out of gas--a property which happens to neighbor a house of cannibals. During the course of the night the five are terrorized by Leatherface, a walking mountain in a ladies wig, who squeals like a pig through his deformed mouth and kills them off using a mallet and a chainsaw. A really lady-killer.
Those who fall under the capable hand of Leatherface are lucky, though, because the rest of the family are a different piece of work entirely. There is incredibly small setup--excepting an extremely creepy van ride with a hitchhiker--for a long and relentless payoff. There are very few "gotcha!" moments, thank God. I don't think I could have handled much more than what I was already dealing with. This and Deliverance have pretty much sealed the stereotype of anyone living outside of a major city below the Bible Belt as a bunch of inbred terrors; I personally could not be paid enough to stop at Jimbo's Gas Station to take a leak, and would use a bottle without hesitation.
This has got a documentary/lost footage type feel to the camera work, a quality befitting the low budget and really adding to the sense of dread that a house like theirs could exist in some remote, backwater part of the United States, with a family ready to snatch up unsuspecting passersby and turn them into sausages. A huge difference between this film and so many others like it is that most of the characters die off within the first half of the film. We know that they will--how much fun would that be if everyone ran faster than Leatherface and his purse-carrying brother?--but I was confused how they could possibly fill an entire third act with so few players remaining. O, how I suffered for my doubts. The second half was so much scarier than the first, as dinner is served and we are met with introductions. Grandpa looks healthy.
There is something really unsettling about this film and others like Halloween, where there really seems to be little cause for gruesome, unending violence. The characters in both films had really no mental capacity to consider their actions, and therefore remained nothing more than senseless vehicles of evil. What Hooper and John Carpenter have been able to do (Carpenter much better, but that's a review soon to come) is channel that fear into something that doesn't become tedious or gimmicky, and instead remains somewhat in the realm of plausibility even though we might shrug it off as cheap entertainment. I read an article a couple of years ago about a paranoid schizophrenic on a bus who went on a rampage, stabbed a man opposite him several dozen times, stole some of his organs, and ran out into the woods. Police could not find his heart, an eyeball, and parts of lung (I think. I am rummaging about in the dark recesses of my memory). All guesses as to where they went pointed to the man's stomach. He said the man was the devil, and that God had told him to do what he did. But perhaps this man, like Michael Myers and Leatherface, are simply the channeling of the devil himself.
Enjoy the BBQ.
3/4
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