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Also, it's taking all of my willpower to not post the Franklin Raspberry gif for the millionth time. 
A rare moment of levity in an otherwise relentlessly grim affair.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre Reboot
I regret that I only have one thumbs up to offer the preceding post.
I just lent you an extra thumb by upvoting this. Do what you will with it.
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Growing up as a '70s sheltered suburban kid who liked monsters but was not very brave in general, there were certain films that terrified me before I'd even seen them, based on their reputation alone, or a scary trailer, or in this case, an incredibly unpleasant-sounding title.
Around age 20 I began to finally confront these films by actually watching them, and the result was usually relief that they weren't as bad as my 7-year-old brain had imagined. Turns out watching The Exorcist did not immediately condemn me to Hell as I'd feared. But in the case of TCM, it was about as as gnarly as that descriptive title had led me to believe it would be. A chainsaw massacre does not sound like a fun time, and this definitely reinforced that. So in terms of living up to my childhood imagination, TCM is the champ. I made it through unscathed and actually loved the film, but it disturbed me in all the right ways.
As Crumb said, a trip to the local Hall of Records to research the property's history and learn why the family is doing the things it's doing would have done nothing to add to the experience. It's one reason I've avoided all but one of the subsequent films.*
*I saw the Jessica Biel one back when I was still seeing every prominent horror film in theaters. Did not like.
Around age 20 I began to finally confront these films by actually watching them, and the result was usually relief that they weren't as bad as my 7-year-old brain had imagined. Turns out watching The Exorcist did not immediately condemn me to Hell as I'd feared. But in the case of TCM, it was about as as gnarly as that descriptive title had led me to believe it would be. A chainsaw massacre does not sound like a fun time, and this definitely reinforced that. So in terms of living up to my childhood imagination, TCM is the champ. I made it through unscathed and actually loved the film, but it disturbed me in all the right ways.
As Crumb said, a trip to the local Hall of Records to research the property's history and learn why the family is doing the things it's doing would have done nothing to add to the experience. It's one reason I've avoided all but one of the subsequent films.*
*I saw the Jessica Biel one back when I was still seeing every prominent horror film in theaters. Did not like.
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The first half establishes the mundane beginning of the day, and the slow intrusions of the strange and disturbing. Essential when it comes to providing us a contrast with what happens later.
The second half is a film which is about depicting tonally, visually and aurally the kind of nightmare this girl has got herself into.
This is all it needs. It dares to be pure cinema because it understands stripping the film down to this essence is where it will find its power. What most modern horror has got completely wrong is in trying to establish a supposedly 'proper movie' around this kind of film experiment (that is more about sweat and stink and spiders and blood and buzzing and screaming and the sound of bones clattering on the floor and hammers dropped into buckets than wasting its energy 'developing characters).
A 'normal' 'not boring' movie would have Sally, during her pursuit discovering details about the family history as if its a mystery that we need to be solved. Encountering previous survivors and enlisting their help as if its about the action and not the terror. Talking about her life outside of the frame of the film and how she wants to get back to it as if we need to know this to understand what is happening in this film that is exclusively about the Now.
All this kind of traditional approach would have done is a break from the high pitched terror of the last 45 minutes that doesn't relent. And why the hell would we want that when this kind of narrative driven noise would only get in the way of all the noises that actually matter (see above).
If only more movies knew how to actually be great like this one, commit to its premise, throw convention into the dumpster fire where it belongs, than the world would be a better place. And maybe then all of these horrid sequels could have figured out the magic of the original and not wasted our time by existing and adopting all these unneccessary elements that elevate nothing (like back story revelations, motivations, character developments, stupid politics).
The second half is a film which is about depicting tonally, visually and aurally the kind of nightmare this girl has got herself into.
This is all it needs. It dares to be pure cinema because it understands stripping the film down to this essence is where it will find its power. What most modern horror has got completely wrong is in trying to establish a supposedly 'proper movie' around this kind of film experiment (that is more about sweat and stink and spiders and blood and buzzing and screaming and the sound of bones clattering on the floor and hammers dropped into buckets than wasting its energy 'developing characters).
A 'normal' 'not boring' movie would have Sally, during her pursuit discovering details about the family history as if its a mystery that we need to be solved. Encountering previous survivors and enlisting their help as if its about the action and not the terror. Talking about her life outside of the frame of the film and how she wants to get back to it as if we need to know this to understand what is happening in this film that is exclusively about the Now.
All this kind of traditional approach would have done is a break from the high pitched terror of the last 45 minutes that doesn't relent. And why the hell would we want that when this kind of narrative driven noise would only get in the way of all the noises that actually matter (see above).
If only more movies knew how to actually be great like this one, commit to its premise, throw convention into the dumpster fire where it belongs, than the world would be a better place. And maybe then all of these horrid sequels could have figured out the magic of the original and not wasted our time by existing and adopting all these unneccessary elements that elevate nothing (like back story revelations, motivations, character developments, stupid politics).
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I didn't feel that way about it, and to offer up an illustrating counter-example, one of the reasons why I think Alien is a great Horror movie, as well as just one of the greatest movies of all time in general (as opposed to TCM) is the fact that it not only gives us the sensation of extreme terror in its scary moments, but also makes those moments more impactful by pacing itself well, giving us time to breathe in-between the scares, so the effect of them continues to be terrifying, as opposed to becoming numbing (like with Hooper's movie). Like, the chestburster scene is obviously one of the all-time great shocks in movie history, but if Ridley Scott had paced Alien like TCM, then he would've tried to maintain that sense of extreme terror almost non-stop across the second half of his movie, which would've resulted in a much less effective experience, which is a mistake that Hooper failed to avoid with his film, IMO.
Just because Alien is also an excursion into a kind of claustrophobic terror, I think it is a mistake to be asking the two movies to be more similar as a way of making TCM better.
As accomplished and great and as unique a film as Alien is, it is in no way a formally daring film in the way that TCM is. And so for you to be asking Hoopers film to play more like Alien, is for you to ask it to not be exactly what makes it such a unique experience as well as such a uniquely visceral horror film.
It's often mentioned by the more astute critics out there (correctly), that what Texas Chainsaw Massacre is in its heart, is actually an outgrowth of experimental cinema. It really has more in common with Michael Snow's "Wavelength" then Tod Browning's "Dracula". Now if this particular experiment that it is doing doesn't work for you, I can get that. And I understand the reasoning you are laying out here (even though I would argue to my death that is a limited and ultimately wrong way to approach this movie). But to equate what Hooper has done here with a 'mistake' is to not be taking the film on its own terms. Terms that, for those that champion the film, are what make it one of the greatest (or simply the greatest) American independent movie of all time.
For example, I imagine for some, they would view the scene where one of the characters stumbles into the 'trophy room' as being an example of Hooper's amateurism. The scene goes on endlessly as it pans across discarded bones and skulls and skin lampshades and all other manner of nightmare fuel. It zooms in. It pans across. It cuts to her screaming. It zooms in on more bones. Pans across. Over and over again. For critics the scene likely seems as if it goes on a few beats too long because, I imagine, they would argue it continues long past the point where we as an audience understand what is in this room. How many bones do we actually need to see. But what Hooper is doing here is he's elongating what is a single moment for this girl. The paralysis that grips her as she takes everything in. Sure, we as an audience understand the information in the frame long before the scene ends, but to understand how she interprets it, we need to continue on and on and on. Make it seem as if there is a whole universe of human remains for her to take in, in what may be the longest ten seconds of her life (which will also be the last few seconds of her life).
You can extend this approach to the pursuit of Sally. Yes, we as an audience understand what is happening to her. And most filmmakers are under the impression that this is enough. But to understand her experience it must be pushed further and further and further past the breaking point. This is one of the essential ingredients of what makes TCM work. Its empathy towards the vantage point of the victims. It removes most of the thrill and excitement we generally might expect to engage us as we vicariously absorb mindless violence for our entertainment, and turns it into something that is gruelling, arduous, a torture to claw yourself to the end of. Breaking it up into bite sized portions is a disservice to the ugliness the film is depicting. A disservice to the whole point of the film.
Now, I've had my own struggles with canonized classics of the genre that are also deliberately unorthodox in their approach. I can't even recall how many times I had to sit threw Dawn of the Dead to appreciate the shagginess of its story. How Romero blends in so many disparate ideas into the film that it never really explores any of them terribly in depth, but by doing so, creates this panoramic view of this particular zombie invasion. It's not simply a story of surviving what is happening, but it is about the collapse of society and how everything in the world we know would be reordered. There is a good reason to not delve super in depth into any one of his mini-thesis' because by breaking it all up into what seems like tonal chaos actually accentuates the horror of a broken world. And for years and years and years I simply contended it was 'a mess'. And I was wrong, very wrong even though technically it very much definitely a mess. But it took me about seven watches to finally understand this.
So my advice to you is to barricade yourself in a room and watch nothing but Texas Chainsaw Massacre until you agree with me. No daylight. No sleeping. No water. Just this movie for decade upon decade until it breaks you in half.
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I think it's worth considering how Alien runs about 117 minutes and TCSM runs only 83 so you have to average out how differently they're paced across significantly different lengths of time. You can arguably draw parallels between the major events in each narrative and how the passage of time between them constantly grows shorter - the slow dread of the hitchhiker's introduction matches the exploration of the spaceship (and there is a considerable length of time before the next major scare, Leatherface's introduction and the chestburster respectively), then characters start getting knocked off until
and then a relentless third act dash for safety. At this rate, one could almost make the case that the actual final moments of Alien drag things out unnecessarily compared to the swift conclusion of TCSM.
WARNING: "Alien/TCSM" spoilers below
the second-act reveal that a character (Ash/the old man from the gas station) is actually an antagonist
and then a relentless third act dash for safety. At this rate, one could almost make the case that the actual final moments of Alien drag things out unnecessarily compared to the swift conclusion of TCSM.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
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So my advice to you is to barricade yourself in a room and watch nothing but Texas Chainsaw Massacre
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is it after the first one with jessica biel?
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Just because Alien is also an excursion into a kind of claustrophobic terror, I think it is a mistake to be asking the two movies to be more similar as a way of making TCM better...
Anyway, despite my feelings about the movie as a whole, I don't even disagree with anyone who feels that TCM has a more striking overall aesthetic than Alien... but, that doesn't mean it's the better movie, or even that I feel it's better-directed; direction on the whole isn't just about what your movie does with the sensory elements of cinematography or sound design, but also nuts-&-bolts storytelling aspects like tone and pacing, both of which Alien did a far better job with than TCM. I mean, I enjoy relatively "heightened" style as much the next person does (and TCM's aesthetic did keep it from being a complete waste for me), but sometimes great direction calls for discipline and restraint when warranted, which are qualities that Scott displayed throughout the entireity of Alien in order to better showcase the contributions that the cast, O'Bannon, Giger, and his other collaborators made to the movie, so if Scott's particular approach resulted in it being the better film for me (which it did), than the approach Hooper took was the more flawed one, regardless of how "intentional" it was.
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Whoa, take it easy with the essay-length posts there, Corax
Words are free. So are thoughts. And sometimes those thoughts take lots of words. And I'm here to use all of them.
And the problem with Corax has never been how long his posts are. I actually appreciate that about him. When he sticks to the topic at hand and doesn't start inventing arguments to have with imaginary opponents, I think it's good to have other posters willing to break their thoughts open here, and take as long as it takes to articulate them.
direction on the whole isn't just about what your movie does with the sensory elements of cinematography or sound design, but also nuts-&-bolts storytelling aspects like tone and pacing, both of which Alien did a far better job with than TCM.
You must know what I'm going to say about this, right? Even when words are free, there is hardly any reason to repeat myself on this point for the thousandth time, so I'll be kind and keep this very short.
The reality is, I'm not asking you to like this more than Alien. Or even like Texas Chainsaw Massacre at all if you choose not to. There are probably lots of great things out there I'm never going to like as much as I'm 'supposed' to either.
I'm just suggesting ways that can make you look at this movie that I am a big fan of (and basically any movie you are somewhat underwhelmed by) in a different light so you don't get stuck always feeling exactly as you do about it as you do right now. We're here to like movies after all, and if the parameters we stick ourselves in (and we all do this to one degree or another) keep us from liking more of them, maybe it's time to reconsider these parameters.
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Checking IMDb trivia for Alien and apparently Scott cited Texas Chain Saw Massacre as an influence for crafting the horror side of things, which I can definitely see.
And there are nine movies in this franchise.
And there are nine movies in this franchise.
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Checking IMDb trivia for Alien and apparently Scott cited Texas Chain Saw Massacre as an influence for crafting the horror side of things, which I can definitely see.
And there are nine movies in this franchise.
And there are nine movies in this franchise.
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I think it's worth considering how Alien runs about 117 minutes and TCSM runs only 83 so you have to average out how differently they're paced across significantly different lengths of time. You can arguably draw parallels between the major events in each narrative and how the passage of time between them constantly grows shorter - the slow dread of the hitchhiker's introduction matches the exploration of the spaceship (and there is a considerable length of time before the next major scare, Leatherface's introduction and the chestburster respectively), then characters start getting knocked off until
and then a relentless third act dash for safety. At this rate, one could almost make the case that the actual final moments of Alien drag things out unnecessarily compared to the swift conclusion of TCSM.
WARNING: "Alien/TCSM" spoilers below
the second-act reveal that a character (Ash/the old man from the gas station) is actually an antagonist
and then a relentless third act dash for safety. At this rate, one could almost make the case that the actual final moments of Alien drag things out unnecessarily compared to the swift conclusion of TCSM.
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So I have a breakdown of the franchise for those who do have interest. I call it the Texas Chainsaw Multiverse:
Original:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)
Remake:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Millennium Edition:
Leatherface (2017)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)
The Texas Chainsaw Legendary Edition
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Alternate Universe #1
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
Alternate Universe #2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)
Original:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)
Remake:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Millennium Edition:
Leatherface (2017)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)
The Texas Chainsaw Legendary Edition
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Alternate Universe #1
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
Alternate Universe #2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)
Last edited by WorldFilmGeek; 03-25-22 at 01:31 PM.