ndanger.organism

I watched Tobe Hooper and Michael Brook’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] on Saturday and it rocketed to the top of my “Best Horror/Gore Movies” list. The slow set-up is broken by the shock of the first kill. The pace then drops again and the creepiness ramps up with just enough surprises to keep it exciting. The extended scene(s) of Sally’s chase & capture–especially grandpa’s attempt to administer the mercy killing blow–are amazing. And of course the final shot of Leatherface’s maniacal thrashing in front of a shimmery sun-rise… wow, just… like, wow.

It’s amazing how much better it is than lots of the modern gore imitators, especially Rob Zombie’s execrable House of 1000 Corpses. Zombie seemed obsessed with portraying pointless gore while Hooper wants to actually introduce you to characters. He contrasts the hippie teenage family (figuratively and literally in the case of Sally and Franklin) with the twisted and decayed family of Leatherface. Both families are dysfunctional: Leatherface’s in obvious ways, the teens’ decays as things go bad. And even the killers are humans: the scene of Leatherface sitting and holding his head in confusion after a surprise kill and his later childish speech and antics in the face of his family’s berating show him as a used and abused man-child.

The characters only work because the acting is decent, in some cases great. I thought Edwin Neal‘s hitchhiker was a little over the top (though successfully unsettling) but it’s completely offset by Marilyn Burns. Her running, screaming, thrashings and general expressions of terror were believable enough to make me cringe.

Overall, the movie is unsettling due to it’s basic premise: bad things happen to good people. Although there are a few “well, you got what you deserved” decisions–walking into an abandoned house to look at the collection of animal skulls does not seem wise–the majority of the teens actions are expected. The results are not. So from an early scene where the teens are passed by a semi with startling–but ultimately harmless–results to, well, the entire middle 80% of the movie, and finally to the later run-in with another semi the message of “shit happens” is pretty clear.

PS: to be fair to Rob Zombie, he learned his lesson and The Devil’s Rejects is probably number 2 on my list.

PPS: and just so I don’t look like a complete freak on Friday I watched Super Troopers and last week I watched both discs of 009-1, though the latter might reveal a breast fetish.