Alexandre O. Philippe – The Framing Device

Utilising his tried, tested and not terribly ground breaking format, Alexandre O. Philippe is back behind the camera of another visual essay/love letter to an aspect – or individual (Lynch/Oz deviated slightly, no doubt Kim Novak’s Vertigo will also) – associated with horror cinema. This time it is Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre which is placed under the microscope, within a bacteria-teeming petri-dish as it were.

Once again, Philippe combines archival material including “never seen before” BTS footage and scenes from the film all split over five chapters. There is also a multitude of other works mentioned by each talking head subject as they liken, contrast, use to bolster their individual reading/thesis statement of Hooper’s seminal work. Each segment features the individual – comedian/actor Patton Oswalt, the ‘Horror Nonna’ herself Dr Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, filmmakers Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama, and Stephen King – and their relationship with the film. Arguably, the GHOAT an integral piece of American cinema. Its cultural and artistic impact having built over the last five decades.

Part of what made Hooper’s original so influential was its stark cinematography, verisimilitude and its “true story” marketing with a documentary-style voiceover courtesy of John Larroquette and shot on 16mm. Its narrative and plot were, of course, entirely fictional but the finished film serves as a subtle commentary on the political climate and symptomatic of the era; something of worth created within budgetary constraints ($140,000 back in the day). The US was still knee-deep in the Vietnam War and this affecting horror visualised an apocalyptic landscape, sparse and abandoned through industrial capitalism. It depicted a non-traditional, perhaps arguably degenerate, familial homestead transgressing the boundaries of the norm and surviving via cannibalistic insanity. As a movie, it stays with you long after viewing and its esteemed standing in the horror genre a testament to director Hooper and writer Kim Henkel, who created an influential piece of frightening art in spite of a profound lack of blood, guts and gore.

Released on October 11 1974, Hooper and Henkel’s filmed screenplay depicted a decaying world beneath the discomfort and humidity of the Texan heat. Sweat and smells almost permeate off the print. Post-Watergate, the Vietnam War, and Elmer Wayne Henley’s killing spree – although, over the years it would become more associated with Ed Gein’s ghoulish face-swapping – are all connoted and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was the result. A film without sentimentality determined to show the brutality of things at a time where most monsters were men who wore masks and final girl tropes were yet to be seen (or studied at length).

While all interviewees are admitted admirers of the film, Oswalt takes the ‘fan’ angle more than the rest; their respective professions already implying they have something more substantial to contribute. He theorises and contrasts against other horror films and delivers an astute reading of the film – not least the teeth-gnashing title which he likens to chewing flesh when spoken aloud. Takashi Miike – like the man before – saw Chain Saw in the eighties after his initial cinema screening choice City Lights (Chaplin, 1931) sold out. Drawn to the title – in translation The Devil’s Sacrifice – he likens the shock value to his experience of Grave of the Fireflies, lauding TTCSM‘s inspiration on his own film career; violence isn’t the goal but “causing pain is serious business.”

What follows is Heller-Nicholas and Kusama with Stephen King’s rather pointless and lengthy segment shoved ham-fistedly in between them. He prattles on about everything but TTCSM it feels like while the two women whose monologues complement each others and yet are wholly individual and equally as riveting. They are the highlight of the whole documentary.

This is doubly-pleasing given that 78/52 included women who were never really afforded time to fully expand their thoughts. Here, the interlocutors are articulate, incisive, and once again prove that not only do women enjoy, love, and revere horror cinema – which is still somewhat gendered as a genre – but that their reading(s) and subjective reactions can enrich a beloved film and help it endure another fifty years. Certainly the parallels read between the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires of South-Eastern Australia and Hooper’s film didn’t come from any of the men or likening the palette of yellows and reds to the works of Bosch and Bacon. None of the blokes comment on the broken version of masculinity within the disappointment and disintegration of the American Dream either, note the similarities found in Hooper’s earlier film Eggshells (1969), discuss film language and framing at length nor reveal they lost their brother on the same date, in August, as Sally Hardesty loses hers. Rendering the film text with even more profundity.

Chain Reactions is an erudite exploration of the legacy, beauty, horror and influence of Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Some chapters are more successful than others but all allude to the artistry and zeitgeist-altering of this enduring masterpiece, a film to be watched time and again, cinema to immerse oneself in, investigate, nurture, hold dear and think about long after the credits have rolled. Directing an audience back – or introducing a new generation – to this film after a slew of remakes, reboots, and requels can only be a great thing. In the words of the Horror Nonna “film is magic” and the love for Leatherface* is everlasting.

Chain Reactions is available on DVD and Digital in the UK and Ireland from 27th October

*Nobody did it better than Gunnar Hansen and lord knows many have tried.

Shot almost exclusively in stylish black and white (save for the colour film clips and art pieces), Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary 78/52 celebrates Alfred Hitchcock, and the most infamous shower scene ever committed to celluloid (and after its decline). Its title referring to the mammoth 78 set ups and 52 cuts that makes up the sequence which lasts just 45 seconds.

Recreating scenes of the proto-slasher and taking full advantage of Jon Hegel’s string-heavy score, 78/52 relies upon audience participation; ours and those onscreen seated on a set decorated not too dissimilarly to the Bates house, all floral wallpaper, old fashioned TV set and dressed in trinkets. By the final third, we are watching those talking heads involved viewing the scene in question to utterances of “wow”, the odd gleeful “yes”, only Marli Renfro (Janet Leigh’s body double) appears uncomfortable. Just one more aspect of voyeurism which begins with Norman Bates and his peep-hole.

From Saul Bass’ storyboards and Hitch’s script notes, Bernard Herrmann’s score, and the casting of Leigh’s body-double Renfro, to the type of melon used for stabbing foley and of course, the watered-down Hershey’s chocolate syrup which doubled so convincingly for blood; 78/52 is an interesting and in-depth critique of an iconic piece of film by a controversial cinematic auteur. It is effective, informative and well-produced as the likes of Peter Bogdanovich, Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis, Tere Carrubba (Hitchcock’s granddaughter), Eli Roth, Osgood Perkins, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Danny Elfman – amongst many others including directors, actors, authors, film editors, professors of cinema, composers, AFI scholars and art curators – wax lyrical about the film which was so culturally and socio-politically integral to cinema and its reception. As one suggests, it elevated not only the horror genre but cinema as a whole.

While the influence of Psycho is staggering, one small scene cannot quite sustain a whole 91 minute film which is why it veers somewhat through Hitch’s body of work and the film as a whole. The majority of observations are interesting, however, there are moments which are superfluous and trite and a few which remain unsaid. For example, Hitchcock’s notorious onset working practices is a subject never broached and what of the sexualised aspect of the shower scene, the symbolic rape (though there is Bogdanovich’s ‘feeling’ of rape after seeing Psycho for the first time and a comparison to Irréversible), or the female gaze? Again, topics that are mentioned in passing and danced around but never explicitly with reference to the subject matter (or not at all). Karyn Kusama and Illeana Douglas (two of only seven women interviewed) aren’t afforded the time to expand upon their thoughts – or were and then cut. It seems almost ironic to set up a discussion about a horror film which has an integral scene removing the woman and then not have a few more female filmmakers, fans and/or experts to voice opinion – unless that’s the point?

As a piece of art, there is no denying Psycho remains a cornerstone of the horror genre and cinema, it broke taboos and pushed boundaries and is one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces within a substantial and impressive oeuvre. In the words of Edgar Allan Poe “the death of a beautiful woman, unquestionably, is the most poetical topic world” which pop up onscreen as the documentary begins. It’s just a shame that more women weren’t included to talk about it rather than the whole discussion, or thereabouts, dominated by white males.

78/52 is for those who have an interest in the art and history of film. Part visual essay, Hitchcock commentary, and Psycho autopsy, it’s entertaining enough and well worth a watch but for anybody who has ever studied film or auteur theory, there will be little you didn’t already know.