OCTOBER 7, 2014 8:20AM
Woah-oh no/oh yaah
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Released: 1974
Director: Tobe Hooper
Writer: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Notable Cast: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Gunnar Hansen
Plot: The 1974 classic about five early 70's teens driving to a Texas town to visit a grandfather's desecrated grave. Along the way they encounter a disturbed hippie hitchhiker, a nasty slaughterhouse and then an even nastier slaughterhouse where the meat is tender, fresh, and definitely doesn't come from a cow.
Commentary: Believe it or not, I was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre virgin up until last month.
And now that I've seen it I can say I understand the hype. It's visceral, it's disturbed, it's original and it achieves a lot with very little. I may need to become a Tobe Hooper completionist.
Oh yeah, there's that graceful Leatherface ballet...
What We're Afraid Of: There's been a lot of scholarship on TCM. My immediate thought was that it was an anti-meat industry film. The slaughter of people is juxtaposed with the slaughter of cattle through both dialogue and images, and it really caused me, at least, to consider the horrors we visit on animals through the horrors that were visited on those poor hippie kids.
I'm still a carnivore, sadly.
Wikipedia confirms my thoughts, and even reports that Tobe Hooper gave up meat after filming it.
But that's not the whole story. The wikipedia entry also reports on articles and opinions about its violence against women. The brutalization of the girl played by Marilyn Burns did make me feel ill at ease, and made me wonder if this inspired the increasingly horrible genres of rape/revenge horror like I Spit on Your Grave, Cannibal Holocaust and that tough to watch bit in The Devil's Rejects.
But the most interesting analysis comes from a quote from film critic Christopher Sharrett:
If you're too chicken to watch the film, let The Ramones walk you through it....
Director: Tobe Hooper
Writer: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Notable Cast: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Gunnar Hansen
Plot: The 1974 classic about five early 70's teens driving to a Texas town to visit a grandfather's desecrated grave. Along the way they encounter a disturbed hippie hitchhiker, a nasty slaughterhouse and then an even nastier slaughterhouse where the meat is tender, fresh, and definitely doesn't come from a cow.
Commentary: Believe it or not, I was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre virgin up until last month.
And now that I've seen it I can say I understand the hype. It's visceral, it's disturbed, it's original and it achieves a lot with very little. I may need to become a Tobe Hooper completionist.
Oh yeah, there's that graceful Leatherface ballet...
(With a little help from Abba, Leatherface is a true Texas Dancing Queen!)
What We're Afraid Of: There's been a lot of scholarship on TCM. My immediate thought was that it was an anti-meat industry film. The slaughter of people is juxtaposed with the slaughter of cattle through both dialogue and images, and it really caused me, at least, to consider the horrors we visit on animals through the horrors that were visited on those poor hippie kids.
I'm still a carnivore, sadly.
Wikipedia confirms my thoughts, and even reports that Tobe Hooper gave up meat after filming it.
But that's not the whole story. The wikipedia entry also reports on articles and opinions about its violence against women. The brutalization of the girl played by Marilyn Burns did make me feel ill at ease, and made me wonder if this inspired the increasingly horrible genres of rape/revenge horror like I Spit on Your Grave, Cannibal Holocaust and that tough to watch bit in The Devil's Rejects.
But the most interesting analysis comes from a quote from film critic Christopher Sharrett:
Hooper's
apocalyptic landscape is ... a desert wasteland of dissolution where
once vibrant myth is desiccated. The ideas and iconography of Cooper,
Bret Harte and Francis Parkman are now transmogrified into yards of
dying cattle, abandoned gasoline stations, defiled graveyards,
crumbling mansions, and a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [is] ... recognizable as a statement about
the dead end of American experience.
Economic decline, the
destruction of the American dream, a reflection of capitalist values.
Interesting stuff, and pretty timely for today. And yet, what have the
endless remakes, sequels, spinoffs etc etc done with the material?
Check tomorrow's entry for a look at a 2013 sequel.If you're too chicken to watch the film, let The Ramones walk you through it....
(and don't surf away without seeing the previews for Mutant Monster Beach Party!)
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Comments
Loved all these movies.. a killer of the top of the charts of horror flicks.. except for maybe rob zombie LOL
Do a review of "The Lobster Man from Mars," go ahead. I dare you! Hee, hee, hee. R&R ;-)
Linda I didn't even think you liked horror movies!
Jmac1949 - The gauntlet has been thrown! Dare I pick it up? Stay tuned! ;)
Jmac1949 - The gauntlet has been thrown! Dare I pick it up? Stay tuned! ;)
Hah! Probably the last
film I'd care to watch, but I find that very interesting - the desert
wasteland of American dead-endism. (Tho I'm not sure the original
vibrant etc. scene was less cruel and unhappy, except thru the lens of
nostalgia - and all those Hollywood movies.) (I did watch movies in my
youth...in fact, a very important early memory was finally seeing a
movie! At age 6 or 7 or something. My mother was Pentecostal and they
were against movies, but I was staying with relatives and we all went
off [with or without permission from my mother] to see My Friend Flicka.
I really enjoyed it.) (Oh god, I hope my current antipathy towards
movies doesn't mean creeping regression into Pentecostalism in my old
age!)
Ha, Myriad! Thanks for
stopping by. I suspect you're right re: the "original scene". As for
your anti-cinema stance - let's see if we can put it in a pagan context
....
1) Pan/Cernunnos wants you to be out in the fields living it up instead of sitting at home watching Netflix?
2) Hollywood glamor is an offense to Hera and Athena (I'm sure Aphrodite quite likes it)?
3) The Norse/Germanic pantheon only wants you to watch war movies?
4) The Earth Mother is offended by cinema reels used as landfills (and to this point, read the story of what happened to the original Wicker Man print!)?
1) Pan/Cernunnos wants you to be out in the fields living it up instead of sitting at home watching Netflix?
2) Hollywood glamor is an offense to Hera and Athena (I'm sure Aphrodite quite likes it)?
3) The Norse/Germanic pantheon only wants you to watch war movies?
4) The Earth Mother is offended by cinema reels used as landfills (and to this point, read the story of what happened to the original Wicker Man print!)?
NOOOOO!!!!! ~FLEES INTO THE THORN BUSHES~
Tink, the strong animal
rights subtext of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre should make you want to
lick your fur and scratch your post!
And to think that film
critics today, right now, are bemoaning what they see as the current
fetish for apocalyptic-themed movies! Sharrett’s right, I think, but I
also think many of these slasher films are playing out a fear of and
anger toward the young, especially the young and sexual.
I am truly shocked you
had not seen this until recently but am glad you finally did. It's one
of a clutch of horror films that I truly love, although it has been some
time since I have seen it. I find most slasher flicks more gory than
truly unnerving, but Texas Chainsaw does its job. ***SPOILER ALERT***
Also interesting to me is that, given how much misogyny there is in the
genre, the main female protagonist escapes and survives, being the one
to defeat Leatherface's purposes.
And funnily enough, I had that first Ramones album on my iPod today on the way home, so just heard "Chain Saw" a couple of hours ago.
And funnily enough, I had that first Ramones album on my iPod today on the way home, so just heard "Chain Saw" a couple of hours ago.
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