Reviews: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I have a strange relationship with horror films, my first recollections of film were watching Universal monster pictures on my little TV back in Chicago. Even then, however, I hated to watch anything more scary then Lugosi or Karloff. But lately I’ve been struck by the horror bug and love to be scared out of my wits (within, you know, reason) and have begun to watch stuff like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my big screen at the east coast.. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was high on my list, and I think for good reason.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is scary because you never doubt it’s real. Although these people depicted seem over the top, even laughable at times, the way it is shot draws us into this world as if it was the most scholastic of documentaries. Hitchcock once differentiated shock and suspense by saying (paraphrased) “Shock is when a bomb goes off, suspense is when you are given that the bomb will go off beforehand” The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is between the two, it is shock because when it happens we did not know beforehand that say, Leatherface was hiding behind the door, but it is suspense because we know that something is going to happen. And that it’s going to be something scary.

The beginning, before we even see the soon-to-be victims is perhaps the scariest part. We start with upward-moving text accompanied by a creepy narration that assures us that this story is true (it wasn’t really, but it was loosely based on Ed Gein, that most cinematically popular of serial killers) the narration is disconcerting, and feels like a newsreel combined with the “viewer discretion advised” beginning of certain T.V shows. The message is clear, this is going to seem real, and it is going to scare the living daylights out of you. After the last of the text disappears from the top of the screen, we are given a date (1973) which adds to the documentary feel. After the date disappears we hear the sounds of cracking (possibly bones) and numerous grunts, while the screen in completely black.

We hear the sound of a photograph being taken, and we see (through illumination that looks like it came from a flash bulb) a close up of a decomposed hand, the image fades away and we are given photos of hands from different angles and feet. Then, in rapid succession we are given the image of decomposed teeth, eyes and teeth again; all from the same, flashbulb like lighting and accompanying photography sound. After the final ‘photograph” the image fades out for a time, and we hear the sounds of a radio broadcast talking about a find of “decomposed bodies” we also hear more of the cracking sound and an added terror of scraping. Then an image fades in, it is the striking image of a decomposed head, and the camera zooms out to see that it is an entire body, propped upright by wires. It’s a truly terrifying, and wonderful image.

I’m not going to go into detail about the rest of the plot, because you can just as well read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Are you done? Good.

Part of what’s great about Chainsaw is how the violence is presented, it’s very sudden. Leatherface will hit you in the head with a hammer, or put you on a meat hook (one of the scariest moments committed to celluloid) without any thought; he is a butcher, with no concern over the lives of anyone outside his own family. When we are given longer scenes of horror, they never amount to anything, Sally isn’t killed on either of her flights from Leatherface, nor is she killed during the famous excruciating torture scene.

The movie Ends Suddenly, but upon further recollection that is the only way it could end. This is a document that only shows what happened to this group of young men and women, and thus ends when the horror ended, no follow-up capture of the family, no scenes of grief over the fallen, no telling the reporters what happened. Likewise, we know nothing more about the cannibal family then Sally would have known. We are left with the family one less member, but know that it will doubtlessly continue to terrorize all who are foolish enough to come to this hellhole in Texas.

If you can stomach it, this is a great movie, not only in the scares it inflicts, but how it inflicts them. There is also some real beauty to this movie, the ending shots of Leatherface whirling the chainsaw are almost poetic in nature. Don’t let the subject distract you from appreciating this, not as a pure scare flick, but as a work of art.