The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: 1974, dir. Tobe Hooper. Seen at Alamo downtown (Oct. 18).
I had wanted to see this movie ever since last year, when I went to an Alamo event where Joe Bob Briggs showed clips from the movies he highlighted in his book Profoundly Disturbing. Plus, it was shot near Austin, and seeing local landscapes and actors always adds an element of interest to a movie.
In retrospect, I wonder why I thought it would be fun to see a bunch of films that are considered disturbing, but at least I decided to skip the worst ones. (For example, I have absolutely no desire to see Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. And I am still recuperating from seeing only the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs.)
I was so excited that I would get to see this movie in a theater that I forgot about the part where, well, I would get to watch a lot of blood and gore and hear a lot of screaming and tense up with suspense over who was going to die next and when and how.
I have recently concluded that I don’t particularly like straightforward horror movies. I like funny ones, like Evil Dead 2 and Re-Animator and most recently, Shaun of the Dead (which is more a comedy than a horror film, anyway). I want my stomach-turning gore diluted and broken up with laughs, even if they are uneasy laughs at some very dark comedy. I am all for dark comedy.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a very good horror movie if you like ’em straightforward. Even the gore is pretty straightforward, instead of the stylish spattering found in Evil Dead and (I’m told, I haven’t seen) Suspiria. The instruments of violence are pocketknives, a sledgehammer, and of course the chainsaw … pretty standard stuff. Nothing too fancy.
Even the plot is simple and plain and avoids distracting sidelines explaining character motivation. The movie reminds me of Night of the Living Dead in this way—you know it’s a horror film immediately, and you barely pay attention to the bright chitchat that the main characters exchange because it doesn’t matter, they’re going to find themselves in a world of trouble at any minute.
This is the kind of film where you constantly want to yell at the characters for doing stuff that doesn’t sound dumb to them, but you know because you’ve seen dozens of horror films that they’re making fatal mistakes. No, don’t pick up the hitchhiker. No, don’t drive to the abandoned house when you’re low on gas. No, you idiot, don’t go inside someone else’s house. And absolutely do not go into the woods. Why don’t y’all go back to town and hang out with John Henry Faulk instead?
I don’t quite understand the charm of extended screaming in a horror film, although it was very popular in drive-in horror movies like this one. My guess is that it’s some kind of twisted orgasm substitute—if you can’t show a woman onscreen screaming with sexual passion, why not show one screaming with fear? (Yeah, and some people probably think the fearful screaming is more of a turn-on than the other kind.) Marilyn Burns is considered by many to be the queen of horror-movie screamers and she does carry on for quite some time in this movie. I suppose that if I were trapped in a house with a bunch of guys who slaughtered and barbecued my friends, I’d be screaming too, but I’d probably cough and hack and it wouldn’t sound nearly as good onscreen.
I will confess that I looked away during the bit with the meat hook. I didn’t want to see. I did think the bone room looked impressive, though, with the feathers and the bits of humans and animals and the weird chicken in a cage.
Like I said about Night of the Living Deead, I’m glad I saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and now I don’t have to see it again.
And the Alamo was so thoughtful: they showed a print with Spanish subtitles, so we could learn Spanish while watching the movie. I suppose I should have paid more attention, but then the most interesting parts of the movie don’t have much coherent dialogue anyway. Well, admission was $1, and I couldn’t expect a pristine print for that kind of bargain. I suppose I should regret seeing a substandard print of the movie, but at least I did get to see it in a theater.
I think I’m going to wait awhile to see the other movies in Joe Bob Briggs’ book, except maybe for Drunken Master. Because if it’s funny, I’m there.
(The funniest thing about this movie, to me, is Briggs’ claim that the woods locations in this movie are now the La Frontera strip malls in Round Rock. I like to think that some echo of Leatherface lingers there near the Maggie Moo’s and the Kohl’s and the dozens of other chain stores.)