![]() Instead of no-name actors like the ones Hooper hired, Texas Chainsaw 3D starred R&B star Trey Songz. Blame it on social media, and look no further than last year’s toxically received franchise reboot Texas Chainsaw 3D, for which its studio, Lionsgate, launched a #ChainsawThursdays hashtag and a widget providing cast pin-ups and sanitized clips of new-age Leatherface in action. Nowadays, no matter how scary their latest films may be, most directors and actors treat the medium as an a communal, shared practice. It’s a dynamic that, sadly, is dead and gone from movies. Which brings us back to how authentic and lived-in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre feels. What all of the imitators continually fail to realize is that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s magic lies in how of-its-time Hooper’s film will forever be-you can’t replicate its kind of lightning in an organ-stuffed bottle. ![]() By the time supper begins, you've already been left shell-shocked by the thunderous slamming-door sound accompanying Leatherface's first appearance you've writhed in discomfort as Leatherface hangs the Pam character on that hook, forced to watch her boyfriend get hacked up while she dangles in agony you've seen Sally helplessly witness her wheelchair-bound brother Franklin take Leatherface's buzzing chainsaw to his gut. It’s nauseating to watch, a merciless capper to the preceding 70 minutes of lo-fi terror. You’d be hard-pressed to find a horror movie moment that’s more effective than Chainsaw Massacre’s infamous third-act dinner table sequence, and it’s all Hooper’s doing-the sharp cut aways to Sally’s deranged, taunting captors and steadily tighter close-ups of her eyeball, punctuated by the dissonant soundtrack that sounds like a messy symphony of dentist’s drills and power tools. Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, however, is the work of a director who knows precisely how to manipulate his audience with directorial flourishes that even the most horror-adverse critics have to respect. Their creators aren't filmmakers-they're sadists holding cameras. Sleazy exploitation flicks like Blood Feast (1963), Murder-Set-Pieces (2004), and A Serbian Film (2011) all elicit strong why-the-hell-am-I-still-watching? feelings, but they’re less films than one-dimensional endurance tests. Well, let me rephrase: even rarer is the horror film that feels illegal but also artistically proficient. Rare is the horror film that can routinely give you the ultimate willies with each revisit, but even rarer is the horror film that feels like it should be illegal to watch. Repeat viewing don't diminish it, either. The almost inhuman shrieks emitted by actress Marilyn Burns throughout its final 25 minutes don't make you think "acting"-you think, How could the director keep filming this? It’s right there in Craven's quote: “ looked like someone stole a camera and started killing people.” If not for Hooper’s meticulously erratic and unnerving edits, and composers Hooper and Wayne Bell ’s ear-piercing, violins-playing-in-Hell’s-orchestra score, one could understandably think that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a backwoods snuff film that you should be sending to the nearest police department rather than casually watching. Even within Dark Sky Films' pristine new digital restoration (currently available in a special "Black Maria" Blu-ray box-set), the suffocating grimness is as palpable as ever. I was scared shitless.”Īnd with that, Craven pinpoints exactly what makes director/co-writer Tobe Hooper’s horror classic the scariest movie ever made, a superlative that holds true to this day, 40 years after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s initial theatrical release. It has a wild, feral energy that I had never seen before, with none of the cultural Band-Aids that soften things. In Jason Zinoman’s excellent 2012 book Shock Value, Craven ( The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street) said this about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre : “ looked like someone stole a camera and started killing people. elm.If you can scare the shit out of horror master Wes Craven, you’re clearly doing something right. ![]() TERI McMINN as Pam - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre GENUINE SIGNED AUTOGRAPH A genuine hand signed 8" x 10" photo. Numéro de l'objet: 224456678717 TERI McMINN as Pam - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre GENUINE SIGNED AUTOGRAPH.
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