Kim Henkel – 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.

Arrow Films’ release of Eaten Alive is introduced (as part of the extras package) by helmer and Texas Chain Saw Massacre maestro Tobe Hooper, as a parting shout he exclaims “Hope you like the colours!”

Hmm, it starts very shakily and in the space of 11 minutes a woman escapes from a brothel and winds up at a fleapit motel (all clearly set on a studio lot). Two men try to rape her (including a young Robert Englund), she is forked to death (no pun intended) and thrown to a swamp-dwelling creature which could be a crocodile or alligator; locals are unsure. I wish I could tell you it gets better… even though it was adapted by Kim Henkel, Texas Chain Saw Massacre this is not.

All characters stumble upon Judd’s grotty Starlight Hotel with its dirty damp patches and soiled walls – believe when I tell you, you’d rather sleep in your car. Judd (Neville Brand)is a loner Patriot, guns (and American flag) adorn most walls, there’s even a swastika flag draped on a chair. Judd isn’t the type of man to leave you alone, he has a pet alligator and leers suggestively at any and all females that pass through. He’s a misogynist who even takes delight at terrorising a small calliper-wearing (female) child. That said every character is practically irredeemable; child and ‘gator aside. From an unrecognisable Carolyn Jones as brothel owner Hattie, via rugged ‘cowboy’ Sheriff (Stuart Whitman), to arguably the greatest Final Girl Marilyn Burns as Faye who sadly spends most of the film with her mouth taped shut. The filters used create an artificiality, which given the setting makes perfect sense and does add to the whole surreal B-movie effect. Garish reds and blues distort images and there’s a lot of eerie, atmospheric mist over the swamp; in keeping with the red, white, and blue of the flag.

Okay, so dig a little deeper and there are indications of an ideology, the film is playing to affirm and just like Hooper’s earlier work, the family is at the centre but the problem is Eaten Alive – or as it is otherwise known Death Trap – isn’t very good; it’s disjointed and a little exploitative particularly in its scopophilia. There is some inexplicable make-up work and a foray of (dodgy) women’s wigs which further aid the ridiculous.

So yes Tobe, can’t say I enjoyed the film greatly but I liked the colours.