Halloween Week: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

1 year ago

Halloween Week: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

THAT’S THE LAST GODDAMN HITCHHIKER I EVER PICK UP

by Garland Grey

“I’m scared,” I say.
“Why?” he asks.
“This seems like the perfect situation for a horror movie. A bunch of teens travel out into the country for a weekend, and are stalked by a deranged killer.” I pause. “But if were were in a horror movie, we’d hear a report on the radio that a psychopath had escaped from a local mental institution.”
“But that seems more true to life,” he says. “In real life, you don’t get a warning.”

- Conversation with a friend, 2001

In the 36 years since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made, it has gotten scarier every year. Partly because it is a superb horror movie, but also because of a terrible thing that happened to horror movies in the intervening years: they became self-aware. Directors have tried to carefully craft a horror “experience” - using the music and the cinematography to micromanage the audience’s emotions, working very hard to manipulate them into a frenzy of cinematic delirium. It is almost always shit, and not very scary at all.

Since we are all post-modern, we are aware of this manipulation. We attempt to second guess the filmmaker, and in response the filmmaker attempts evasive maneuvers. For example: the filmmaker uses the scary music, putting us all at the edge of our seats. Just then! A friend pops into the frame unexpectedly, and we all laugh and say “Ahhhh you got us!” In the next scene, the scary music starts again and we aren’t going to be fooled this time, no sir. Just then! The killer jumps out and we get a good shock, and we think “Oh filmmaker, you know us so well.” With this sort of horror movie we are frightened for short periods of time, or disgusted by gore, but all of this comes at a price: we are constantly reminded that we are watching a movie. This manipulation undercuts a simple truth: a horror movie should be steadily building dread that is punctuated by acute terror. The characters should be moving into the unknown.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre begins with a voice over, warning the viewer of what is to come. This transitions into a few seconds of disconcerting noises against a black screen, then a close up of a rotting skull. A news report explains that grave robbing has been discovered in Newt, a small town in Texas, and this report continues on as the camera pulls back to show the grotesque sculpture that has been made with the bodies. Is it as extensive as the anatomical mosaic that lines the walls of the lair in Jeepers Creepers? No. It doesn’t need to be. Because it is plausible.

The main characters of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are five young adults in a van, traveling to Newt to see if the grave of two of the characters’ grandfather has been disturbed. There are two couples and Franklin, who is in a wheelchair. One of the girls begins to read from an astrology book, explaining that Saturn is in retrograde, bringing to work evil forces. If this was a mature, well-crafted, self-aware horror movie one of the characters would say something like “Oh gee, I hope we don’t all get slaughtered.” and the audience would laugh, and be subtly reminded they were watching a movie. But not here.

They pick up a hitchhiker, a young man who rambles on about slaughterhouses. The car’s radio is playing a swinging jazz tune, and even though there is intensity music at the apex of the scene, the song continues to play. It doesn’t fade out, it is still quite audible. As it would be, if these things ever happened to you.

They visit the graveyard, and there is an old drunk rambling to himself about “seeing things” at night. By now, we are all too jaded to be much impressed by this oracle figure. We continue watching, out of courtesy. The group stops at a gas station and finds out there isn’t any gas to be had. Resigning themselves to being stuck in the small town, they stop off at an old farmhouse. Franklin sees sculptures made out of animal bones and feathers. He starts to call after the others, but they are too far away.

When the first of the five dies you reach for the filmmaker, and the filmmaker isn’t there. You aren’t going to move from scary music to scary music, you won’t be laughing and screaming “Don’t go in there!” as the heroine is stalked by a villain from the shadows. You are here to bear witness. There are no assurances, there will be no cute warnings, and no one is safe.

This is what makes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre exemplary, this is what makes it a classic. Every moment that you watch it you are drawn deeper into the story. The director, Tobe Hooper, trusts that the story is horrifying enough to hold your attention without resorting to petty manipulations. After having been fed on a diet of sub par horror, you have no defense against this obscenity.

A few things to consider: all of the sounds that you hear to increase your terror are organic, simple noises - the rustle of locusts, the rattle of snakes, the squealing of hogs. There is much less blood in this film than you think there is. Most of the conversations the characters have are boring. The number of shots in each scene is so much less than you’ve come to expect. And finally: Monsters are always much more scary when their internal motives aren’t known to us. Modern directors have attempted to make monsters more terrifying by intense scrutiny of their internal mechanism.

This is a mistake.