The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

Five friends visiting their grandpa's old house are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw wielding killer and his family of grave-robbing cannibals.

On a trip in Texas to find childhood memories first at the grave of their grandfather and then at their first house, a brother and a sister are accompanied by three other young adults. As one might expect, one by one they disappear in the house near the old creek until the last girl, the pretty blonde (Marilyn Burns), gets into a nightmarish chase and torturous night with a family of four retarded hillbillies who live in the most eerie and unsettling house to ever have been filmed. The sets are composed of a room there are meat hooks, in another one you find poultry, feathers, charms, many kinds of bones and altars, and I won’t even mention what’s on the second floor. This is a superbly well manufactured set for a macabre story like this one.

Of the family of freaks, not much is explained except that we guess that they like to eat fresh human meat and they are some deranged guys. This flaw or probably intended obscure part of the story is one of the things that bothers me in this kind of gross Horror. Almost shot like a documentary or an exploitation film, the original that inspired many other parts and remakes, may have launched one of the most prominent subgenre in Horror.

There are many images that have persisted through time from this movie and even if the overall quality of it is pretty average, you have to see the sets, the moment when Leatherface slams the door after he made his first victim, his pause while not really understanding what’s happening, and the grand guignol finale.

Just like Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, someone may bring up that it is a movie that doesn’t really hold up to the test of time. It, however, still creates an automatic repulsion and you only wish to never take the same road that those poor kids took.

Personally, it is a film I never saw before having to watch it for my quest to watch the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time of They Shoot Pictures Don’t They and I can surely say that I won’t be seeing this movie again, it is disturbing, annoying, and I just hoped that they all died as soon as possible just to get rid of all the screaming and crazy laughing. The effort and the talent of the filmmakers is undeniable and I admire someone who will take a risk at doing something out of the regular paths. This is a great example of that and I may also say that they accomplish the goal they probably wanted to get with this movie filled with filth (in the good sense), suggested violence, unique characters, and a great sense of Horror and repellency. Honestly, this is just not my kind of Horror and as much as I admire the whole thing I could not stand another viewing. Worth a look. 

Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982)

The storyline is very usual, a cute American family is haunted by ghosts and the hauntings become more and more violent each time. From a story by Steven Spielberg and directed by horror mastercafter Tobe Hooper Poltergeist is one of the cult Horror films of Cinema.

Ghost stories must interpel the viewer and the catharsis (identification of the public with the main characters) must be at its high. Well, here you have the most universal kind of human cell available: the family. Everything to help the catharsis. Moreover, there are no known actors in Poltergeist, a strategy Producer Spielberg wil re-use in his Jurassic Park, (there are known actors in J.P. but no big stars...).

On the side of the subplot of the story there are many interest links to make. First the depiction of the suburb, typically American (helping once again the catharsis) but here we'll discuss about how its expansion from the big megalopoles of the last thirty years have never stopped. The ever growing suburbs of America has been somewhat of a problem to the urbanists that tried to figure otu how to structure them but moreover how to make them living entities of their own. Since the 1950's, the working class has been having more and more money to spent on cars and bigger houses to extract them from the working ares, the cities and establish their family on the surrounding areas of these cities. Our main character, the father Steve Freeling, is the best representant of the Establishment that sold the houses of this entire suburb... Poltergeist is in sort of a critic of this kind of major land where every house looks like the next one and where every street looks like the other.
The fact that the suburb is situated on an ancient cemetary dramatically figures that for the profit big companies are ready to do any outrage to culture or the eternal rest of some poor deceased...

Another well used topic is the use of children in a ghost story. The public is easily convinceable that there are ghosts around when children are the first to see them; remember as a child how you were afraid of a strange form made by some shadow in the corner of the room, or by the twisted branch of a tree you could see by your window... Childish fears felt by kids on the screen are more believable and contribute to the so talk catharsis of the story telling.

Tobe Hooper was well advised and many Spielberg subjects are present in the story. This could have easily have been a film directed by Spielberg. But, Hooper is a better horror oriented director than Steven Spielberg who liked to play with alien instead of trying to frighten little girls... Of the so few Ghosts flicks I've seen Poltergeist is maybe one of the best around. Probably the most efficient!