Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Glaeken, May 2, 2021.

  1. GullGutt

    GullGutt Hei hopp

    Location:
    Norway
    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a bonafide masterpiece...and for me part 2 is just as good, the insanity of that movie I don't think has ever been equalled
    [​IMG]


    ...even the 2003 remake with Jessica Biel is great imho
    [​IMG]
     
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  2. lobo

    lobo Music has always been a matter of Energy to me...

    Location:
    Germany
    Everything with Jessica Biel looks great.
     
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  3. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    I agree the way Hooper in the original TCM created a grungy, dangerous world of insanity within a backwoods Texas rural family was uniquely portrayed far more convincing than the real Ed Gein case which Hitchcock's "Psycho" attempted to convey but without the corpse mutilation and skin furniture, TCM II made it more stylized and a bit cartoonish losing the grungy low budget snuff film feel and having a too well known Dennis Hopper as part of the cast.

    It's similar treatment to the remake of Wes Craven's original '70's grind house style "Last House On The Left" where it favored polished production values, likeable antagonists without the very realistic and graphic disembowelment scene of a female victim in the original. I was around 12 years old when I saw the original. I've never gotten that movie out of my head since.

    It seems expectations established from seeing the original as a kid don't have the same impact with the sequel or remake with these types of movies decades later.
     
  4. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    Maybe it's a UK thing. I thought Dustin Hoffman in "Straw Dogs" was pretty disturbing in its depiction of similar rural farm culture filmed in the UK.
     
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  5. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Yeah cept that is a rural Cornish location/social structure that never existed either. Fantasy time. Just not great movies any of them IMO.
     
  6. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I saw the original film in a tatty backstreet cinema in London, back in the 80s. That added to the creepy reputation of the movie. I felt that I was going to see something forbidden, deprived. I thoroughly enjoyed being freaked out.
    I haven't seen the second movie.
     
  7. Psychedelic Good Trip

    Psychedelic Good Trip Beautiful Psychedelic Colors Everywhere

    Location:
    New York
  8. pig bodine

    pig bodine God’s Consolation Prize

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY USA
    It must be a "you had to be there" movie. In the mid 1970's, there was nothing like it -- Herschel Gordon Lewis movies were fake to the point of camp -- TCM was somewhat believable, particularly if you were familiar with rural areas and inbred people. There was a family in my home town that could have passed for Leatherface's. By the 90's, there were so many splatter pics, TCM must have seemed like a comedy of manners to younger people.
     
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  9. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    Most movies are fantasy time. That’s why they are movies.
     
  10. jupiter8

    jupiter8 Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ, USA
    I have no problem with anyone explaining why they don't like a movie, but to just chime in and say something is "rubbish" or the like seems pointless.
     
  11. Glaeken

    Glaeken Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    OH
    Now that you mention manners, there is that brief but amusing beat in the original....

    First guy walks into the ramshackle house uninvited. Leatherface whacks him on the noggin and drags him off. Then the girlfriend comes in, and Leatherface kills her. After that happens, he's nervously pacing, peeking out his windows, and putting his head in his hands. Almost as if to say, "how many of these crazy people are out there, why do they keep wandering into my house to bother me?"

    In 1970s Texas, property rights were still pretty broad. On paper, Leatherface's initial spree probably barely broke whatever local laws existed.
     
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  12. jupiter8

    jupiter8 Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ, USA
    I love "Eaten Alive!" his second feature. Neville Brand gives an insane performance.
     
  13. Nephrodoc

    Nephrodoc Forum Resident

    Classic horror flick! I still watch this movie every few years around Halloween time. That sledgehammer is gruesome..
     
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  14. charlie W

    charlie W EMA Level 10

    Location:
    Area Code 254
    I saw it in high school in 1981. My history teacher had a 16mm reel of the movie and we watched it on the last 2 days of school. It had its moments but it didn't stir me as much as it did others. I grew up in Bell County, Texas and that was just north of Williamson County where they shot the movie. The fields and the wood frame house where it were shot, just west of Round Rock, remained in place for many years until the state built SH45 and Loop 1 tollways.
     
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  15. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    Probably the most brilliant horror movie ever made. It’s just so unnervingly effective and visceral in every way. The older I get the more it impresses.
     
  16. Glaeken

    Glaeken Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    OH
    I watched that last week, and was underwhelmed. Brand does give a good performance... sort of a combination of Gas Station Man with Norman Bates... but the rest of the movie is all over the place tonally, pacing, and performance wise.
     
  17. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    It’s funny you should say that, because TCM has no actual gore and the audience is the ones that are filling in blanks. Don’t believe me? Watch it again.
     
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  18. Glaeken

    Glaeken Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    OH
    I talked to someone who saw it way back when and he kept insisting it was violent and gross. All I could do was shake my head. He was literally "remembering" shots that aren't in the actual film. That's your head filling in the gaps!
     
  19. I think you have misunderstood my reply as it pertains to the post I replied to.
    The post I replied to directly states the movie is not full of gore and the like and uses implied and imaginative ways to convey the nasty events...and then I go on to say I much prefer it this way.
    Don't believe me? Read it again...in context.
     
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  20. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    Great movie.
     
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  21. jupiter8

    jupiter8 Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ, USA
    From what I'd read Hooper was kind of MIA during a lot of the production, so Brand, Robert Englund (!) and Carolyn Jones (!) wound up having to keep it going. I think the producer, Mardi Rustam, must have interfered a lot. he went on to direct a really sleazy movie "Evils of the Night" with Brand and Aldo Ray years later.
     
  22. Glaeken

    Glaeken Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    OH
    Hooper seems to have had problems like this a lot during his post CHAINSAW career. Can't quite make up my mind if he was a primadonna or a pushover. Probably a bit of both. He never talked much about his failures or problems, probably out of fear of alienating any connections he had.
    • Fired from THE DARK after filming went behind schedule. Allegedly the DP conspired with others to get him removed from production.
    • Quit VENOM, allegedly clashing with the producers. Interestingly, Klaus Kinski bragged he and other members of the cast ganged up on him 10 days into shooting with the goal of getting him replaced. More or less the same as what happened on THE DARK!
    • The stories about him not doing the directing on POLTERGEIST are legendary. Hooper has always claimed he'd begun developing POLTERGEIST eight years prior - yet Spielberg basically took over the reins once he came aboard as producer. Neither
    In the end, I think Hooper's immediate films after CHAINSAW earned him a reputation as "difficult to work with". That is survivable, but only if you are churning out hits. In Hollywood, people will overlook an ******* who makes them rich.

    However, his next 3 films under Cannon all bombed, and cemented his killer rep.
     
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  23. hi_watt

    hi_watt The Road Warrior

    Location:
    San Diego, CA
    Saw it first on video when I was a teenager, and at first I felt underwhelmed. 28 years later, I gave it another chance at a midnight showing. It ended up being one of the best movie theater experiences. The audience was into it, and there was a collective scream when Leatherface jumped out of the dark with his chainsaw. I appreciate it a lot more, and it is now a top horror film in my book.
     
  24. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    The movie did a lot with very little, and it did it well. One of the best horror films ever made. Hooper really knocked it out of the park early. I even enjoy the sequel, which did go all in a but more on the gore and still managed to be eerie / creepy.
     
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  25. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Chop Top! Played by the great Bill Moseley, who went on to star as Otis in Rob Zombie's Firefly family trilogy (House Of 1k Corpses, Devil's Rejects, 3 From Hell). Moseley stole TCM II as far as I'm concerned--it was also his first movie.

    Agreed--TCM II is great fun. Garish and depraved. Still looks great too.

    On another note, yet another sequel has been completed and is reportedly testing high with good buzz. Apparently set 47 years after the original. "Expected" to be released this year.

    Synopsis:

    The spiritual sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise takes place 47 years later. Melody is a 25-year old San Francisco moneymaker who drags her younger teenage sister with her to Texas on a business trip, out of fear of leaving her alone in the city. The younger sister Dreama is an amateur photographer who is wheelchair-bound and it's not long until they're fighting for their lives against a 60 year old Leatherface.


    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2021) - IMDb
     
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