The Texas Chainsaw Massacre set the standard for multiple horror subgenres.
Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.
The 1970s are generally considered the breakout decade for horror. After years of being maligned as B-movie fare, the surge in New Hollywood directors that grew up with, and even respected, horror movies, began to break boundaries and push the genre into new places. And the R-rating didn't hurt. After years of movies being "unrated," in 1968 the very conservative MPAA created the rating system for movies including G, M (which would later be changed to PG) and R and X ratings. With the leash loosened, horror directors, big and small began testing the boundaries of good taste to terrify audiences in brand new ways. One of those small directors was Tobe Hooper, whose $140,000 film became a box office smash, before it became a cult classic, and eventually being called a horror movie classic: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So what made this indie stand-out and remain influential to this day? Let's dig in.
The Setup
Allegedly depicting real events, the film follows five teenagers road tripping through Texas. But when the group stops by an abandoned house just off the main road, they unwittingly open themselves up to a whirlwind of terror...and a terrifying monster known as Leatherface.
I imagine a lot of modern audiences won't find The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as pants-crappingly terrifying as audiences in 1974 did. By this point, the genre has poked at almost every taboo and violent end imaginable, so it takes a lot to stand out. Buuuuut, almost every violent horror movie you can think of has borrowed from this movie. So let's talk about what made this movie different at the time.
Chilling Atmosphere
A lot of people mistakenly think that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was notable for its violent content. Which isn't really true. Yes the film features a number of horrible violent moments and images, but even before its release Hooper and company were attempting to get a PG-rating for the movie and there is much more violent imagery in movies released before this. Hell The Exorcist was released a year before this and features a young lady violently violating herself with a crucifix.
What made this movie feel different was atmosphere and intensity
Before Leatherface even appears on screen the audience is introduced to the allegedly real story of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and then the image of freshly dug up corpses in a Texas cemetery as the radio tells us and our heroes a never-ending series of horrific stories of violent crimes in the area and beyond.
It's a ghastly way to start your movie and primes the audience to be prepared for the worst. So when the gang picks up a crazed hitchhiker who appears to threaten them we can start to assume the worst.
By the time Leatherface reveals himself and takes out his first victim, we're not surprised. We've been dreading this the whole time. This isn't Hitchcockian dramatic tension. This is dread.
And once Leatherface and his family are revealed, there's no let up for the audience. It's just an assault on our remaining protagonist and the audience as this horrifying family threatens or commits violence against this young woman by breaking as many taboos as possible.
And the violence itself? It may not be as gruesome, but it is...ugly. Ugly in a very unsettling and real way.
Grounded Violence
Another push that was happening in the early seventies horror scene was an emphasis on presenting "real" horrors including horrific depictions of things that could actually happen to the audience. These include home invasions, the ever controversial rape/revenge movies, or movies about real or imagined serial killers.
As much as I love Vincent Price movies and how influential Psycho is to this day, there's a distance between this classic method of filmmaking and Chainsaw that makes it look and feel like a show. Like a movie. But Leatherface appearing out of nowhere and unceremoniously murdering his first onscreen victim like a lamb to the slaughter? With cold efficiency and no monologue or preamble? That feels...about as random and terrifying as real life violence.
As much as I love Vincent Price movies and how influential Psycho is to this day, there's a distance between this classic method of filmmaking and Chainsaw that makes it look and feel like a show. Like a movie. But Leatherface appearing out of nowhere and unceremoniously murdering his first onscreen victim like a lamb to the slaughter? With cold efficiency and no monologue or preamble? That feels...about as random and terrifying as real life violence.
Let me put it another way. Both Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are loosely based on the crimes of Ed Gein. Which of them feels more like a documentary about a serial killer?
This looks and feels more realistic and it's something that horror constantly tries to recapture even 10-20 years (see the found footage genre).
Now that we've talked about what made it stand out in its era, let's talk about how this movie shaped the horror genre.
A Baseline For Entire Horror Subgenres
Despite not being a "slasher" The Texas Chainsaw Massacre basically created the genre as we know it. Or at the very least, gave the genre a collection of tropes to work with and expand upon.
And they range from aspects of the setup (see young people on a road trip that turns homicidal) to the kinds of weapons that would be used against said young people (unconventional mechanized weapons, especially of the stabbing and slicing variety have been popular every since).
You know what, it might actually be helpful to list off a bunch of these tropes:
You know what, it might actually be helpful to list off a bunch of these tropes:
- Prime your audience with stories about a killer on the loose or other violent actions that have been committed in the area
- The creepy hitchhiker interaction
- The creepy gas station interaction
- A seemingly abandoned house that harbors secrets
- The entire genre of "Hillbilly horror" as presented by Leatherface and company
- The killer cannibal trope
- Extended chase sequences between our lead killer and a female hero
- Leatherface's skin mask (aka masking the killer's actual face as we would see five years later in Halloween)
- Motorized weapons being used by the killer (see Slumber Party Massacre, Driller Killer and more)
- The supposedly helpful townsperson is actually in on it.
- The terrifying house or horrors where our villain lives
I bet there's more I missed too. There's so much in this movie that feels cliche...because this movie created those cliches.
Horror With Something to Say?
There are a couple of ways you can approach horror. Some view it as a safe way to look into our human frailties and fears and confront them. Others simply like the thrill of being scared. And some folks want every movie, regardless of genre, to say something.
This was well on its way in the seventies thanks to fellow groundbreaker Night of the Living Dead in 1968 tackling racial prejudice, Don't Look Now's bleak look at trauma, and The Exorcist combatting feelings of guilt, faith, strength and heroism, inside its demon possession movie. But grounded horror, without supernatural elements, wasn't saying much besides...look at how cruel humanity can be.
Wes Craven's The Last House of the Left released two years earlier for instance, basically demonstrates how cruelty begats cruelty as parents take revenge on the men who assaulted their daughter. That's as base/basic as plots go.
But in the midst of the literal house of horrors, Texas Chainsaw is very easy to read as a movie about animal cruelty.
Now, that sounds offbase if you have a baseline understanding of the movie (aka teens getting butchered by a fleshmask guy with a chainsaw). But in the context of the movie, it's a pretty strong connection.
The friends in the car spend a lot of time early on taking about factory farming and especially the process by which cows are killed and slaughtered. As does the hitchhiker the group picks up. And then Leatherface shows up and...basically kills these people with the various "humane" methods that we humans use to kill animals, especially in a factory farming style setting. Hell one of the women it literally put up on a meat hook.
We also have a ton of imagery of animal and human remains being displayed in Leatherface's home with an equal level of disrespect. And It's all pretty gross! We're not meant to like it. Just as watching Grandpa attempt to kill our last living hero like she's a cow to the slaughter, is pretty pointed.
And in case that isn't enough for you, writer/director Tobe Hopper has said that the movie is about "meat." So whether or not that message gets through...it is there.
Sometimes You Accidentally Create an Icon
There's a lot of iconic movies, characters and moments that stay in the public conscious due to being different. Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name" trilogy weren't the first westerns with a tough talking gunslinger, but they were some of the first westerns to make their heroes morally grey or something less than a John Wayne or Gary Cooper paragon. But sometimes you capture magic and it just works for forever.
Like...no matter how many Spider-Man movies they make, the upside down kiss with Mary Jane is an iconic image for forever. You can try to figure out why or break it down, but really is just looks cool and hits perfectly on the big screen.
Same goes for Leatherface. There's something so perfectly inhuman about Leatherface in look and performance. He's giant. The mask he wears is clearly made of human flesh. He also screeches and howls versus using words. And his signature weapon carries a potentially ear-shattering noise and rumble that makes it very obvious when he's near. It's perpetually terrifying and it's why the franchise has never moved away from this look and feel to his character, no matter how many times they reboot,remake or sequelized this movie.
The Filmmakers That Followed
I wish that Tobe Hooper had a more robust career, because the fella seemed to like making all kinds of macabre movies, but seemed to run out of juice in the mid eighties. That's not to say that he didn't make waves. His Salem's Lot miniseries and 1982's Poltergeist are still viewed fondly today. And there's even been a critical reappraisal of the initially maligned sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
In my view however, the biggest impact Hooper and his movie had was on the horror filmmakers that followed in his stead.
Filmmakers like Wes Craven, who would go on to create a horror icon of his own in 1984's The Nightmare on Elm Street or Ridley Scott who cited Chainsaw as his biggest influence while making Alien (which yeah truckers go to a creepy stop and things go to hell, I can see it).
One of my favorite things about classic movies is how the real impact may not hit for years. Not because the ideas didn't take root or make their way into other movies. Tobe Hooper was making another serial killer movie two years later. But because it can often take a new generation of filmmakers to internalize and use the ideas and lessons from said film, before that impact comes to light.
One of my favorite things about classic movies is how the real impact may not hit for years. Not because the ideas didn't take root or make their way into other movies. Tobe Hooper was making another serial killer movie two years later. But because it can often take a new generation of filmmakers to internalize and use the ideas and lessons from said film, before that impact comes to light.
Put another way, without The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, most of the setup for The Cabin in the Woods wouldn't be tropes to make fun of. Chainsaw set the standard.
No comments:
Post a Comment