W. Leach's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Review September 5/99

One of the all-time greats. Tobe Hooper's influential made-on-a-shoestring horror flick about a cannibalistic family. But not as gruesome as the title implies.

The opening crawl, narrated by John Larroquette, tells the audience that what they are about to see actually happened in August 1973. Not exactly. Like BLAIR WITCH, TCM publicity played up the fact that the events happening on screen were in fact, based on reality. That four friends were brutally butchered at the hands of madmen, while one escaped the horror, and lived to tell the tale.

In actuality, TCM is a totally fictional tale. The film was "inspired" by the Ed Gein case of 1957. When police finally arrested the middle-aged farmer, they found a house of horrors: human faces tacked to the walls, armchairs with real arms, a cup of human noses, human skulls littered around the place, a jacket made out of a woman's torso, including the breasts, severed body parts. In the shed, police found the headless corpse of a missing woman, hung upsidedown like a deer carcass. Gein also kept the mummified corpse of his mother and spoke to it, even at the dinner table.

When author Robert Bloch (who lived not too far from the murder scene) heard about the case, he set pen to paper, and wrote the novel PSYCHO, which of course became the basis for Hitchcock's masterpiece.

TCM takes a few details from Gein (the house is furnished with human remains, the characters in the film are cannibals, as was Gein), but the story is totally original. In 1974, the year TCM was released, another film based on the Gein case was released, called DERANGED. Out of the three, this is probably the closest version of the madman's crimes, but again, the story deviates from the truth in most instances.

The cast for TCM is made up mostly of unknowns: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Teri McMinn, Alan Danzinger, and William Vail play the five kids, Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and John Dudgeon play the family. Hansen, in particular, is frightening, as Leatherface, the mentally handicapped psycho who wields a mean chainsaw and wears a mask made out of human flesh.

This is a perfect horror film. What really makes it work is the way the story slowly unfolds. Hooper draws out the suspense until its almost unbearable. The finale, in which the last survivor (Burns) is tied to a chair and has blood sucked from her finger by an ancient, barely alive grandfather is both revolting and comical. The old man (actually 18-year-old John Dudgeon) resembles a newly-awakened baby sucking on a bottle.

The amateur cast also contributes to the realism. Most were found in a Texas college's drama department. Since the actors were (and for the most part, still are) unknowns, the audience might as well believe everything that is happening on screen is real. TCM is almost a snuff film in the way fear and violence is portrayed.

TCM is a great film, but be warned: every sequel that followed sucks (IMHO, of course). Tobe Hooper directed THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, but it is a horrible mess, filled with over-the-top acting, endless screaming, and a ridiculous Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen was smart not to do this, or any of the subsequent sequels). Dennis Hopper plays a sheriff who was related to one of the victims from the original TCM. Naturally he wants revenge, but turns out to be almost as sick as the family he's supposed to be after (he almost outdoes his BLUE VELVET character here).

LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3 followed a few years later. By then, the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series was huge, so New Line, NIGHTMARE's home, decided to revive the Leatherface character. Naturally, the film bombed. It's another sloppy waste of time, with virtually no plot to speak of, just scenes of senseless, nauseating violence.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION was made in 1994, but not released until 1997. No surprise there. This is probably the WORST of 'em all, even surpassing the horrid TCM2. This is sort of a remake of the original, but I use that term very loosely. Renee Zellweger plays a virginal, nerdy character, who along with a few friends, are on the way to their high school prom. Naturally, they end up in the clutches of backwoods maniacs. The single worst performance in the film belongs to Matthew McConaughey, who is even more nutso than Leatherface. McConaughey overacts like there's no tomorrow, chews up the scenery at every opportune moment, and screams his lungs out (he must have had to take a whole bottle of Advil after each shooting day). This is a terrible film, that, like the other sequels, trashes the memory of the original.

Except for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, DAWN OF THE DEAD, and EVIL DEAD II, I can't think of another horror film that benefited from a sequel: PSYCHO's sequels sucked, HALLOWEEN's sequels sucked, THE EXORCIST's sequels sucked, JAWS's sequels sucked, and on and on. As far as I'm concerned, the "sequels" to these great films don't even exist. I prefer to think of the original films the way they originally ended. I don't need the unnecessary details of a sequel (usually made by other directors) to tell me otherwise.

Still, the original TCM is a true classic, a very well-made horror pic with minimal gore, and an asset to any Halloween film party