Shot quickly with few resources and banned in several countries, the film could easily have been forgotten in cinema history. But half a century after its launch, chainsaw massacre It remains a benchmark for horror on the big screen.
This independent film, set in a remote part of Texas, is a precursor to a subgenre of horror, the “slasher movie.” In short: a psychopath with a masked face attacks a group of carefree young people with generally sharp objects who then fall into absolute terror.
Inside The Texas Chainsaw MassacreIn the original version, the killer is “Leatherface”, a 6’2″ guy equipped with a chainsaw and hammer.
“Michael Myers (in Hallowe’en1978) had a mask, Jason (Voorhess in Friday the 13th, 1980) also had one, but the first was Leatherface. He’s the one who sets the tone,” says Josh Hazard, a 40-year-old fan dressed as his hero and whom AFP met in mid-May during the Texas Frightmare Weekend, near Dallas.
blood bath
The film celebrated its 50th anniversary there in the presence of actors such as Ed Neal. He plays the executioner’s brother, to whom the young people hitchhike and who seems to warn them of the bloodbath that awaits them.
“When I read the script, I said to myself, ‘Well, no one will ever see this movie’…” he told AFP. “But this is where we are.”
“No one imagined (such a popular success), it wasn’t even scheduled to be released in theaters, but it’s great, this improbable film took me all over the world, Germany, France, Canada,” he slips again.
The feature film directed by Tobe Hooper, who died in 2017, was promoted as based on real events, which was not the case. But some believed it, Ed Neal also says.
“Impression of reality”
“Some Japanese people came to see me. They really thought it was a documentary about people who lived in Texas, it seemed so real… They asked me if the cameraman was dead. It was funny,” says the septuagenarian actor.
“This sense of reality is really the scariest thing,” says Jeanette Nolen, a 47-year-old Texan, dressed in Leatherface’s butcher’s apron.
The film has grown since “Massacre” began in 1974, becoming a franchise with sequels, prequels and remakes.
“To this day, there has been no other movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” said Ronnie Hobbs, art director at Gun Interactive, which released a video game based on the film last year. According to him, not even the other installments of the franchise “have managed to reproduce the aggressiveness and discomfort of the original version.”
“Fifty years later, this is still true, even the younger generation sees it,” he says.
If the movie feels real, it’s partly because its designers had to be creative to make up for a paltry budget, according to Chase Andersen, an executive at Exurbia Films, which owns the rights to the franchise.
Real animal bones and human skeleton.
“They couldn’t afford to pay for a multitude of accessories or costumes,” he says. “The perfect example is that Gunnar Hansen, who plays Leatherface, had to wear the same suit throughout filming.”
Real animal bones and a human skeleton were used in the filming. “Even the sweat is real,” suggests Chase Andersen. “The heat and humidity of Texas are almost a character in the movie.”
Teri McMinn played the role of Pam, one of the young people who crosses paths with Leatherface in a remote house on the Texas plains.
In an iconic scene, the camera follows her, from a low angle, to the house where she ends up hanging from a butcher hook. The fear is there but there is no dismemberment or blood splatter.
“It’s the hardest scene,” Teri McMinn, 72, told AFP. However, “violence is suggested.”
“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I was terrified my mom would see that.”
Source: BFM TV
