FILM ME IN

Why there should definitely be a movie about the making of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

Listen up Hollywoodland, I have I picture just for you! It’s a heavy drama, a horror and a true story all in one! I bet that whet your appetite, am I right? Now before you yell ‘Cut!’ please be aware that I’m referring to the original 1974 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. My heart is warmed by the notion that your mind still yelled ‘Cut!’ since combining the words Texas and Chainsaw can still incite instant dread, conjure up stomach-turning images and fill your ears with tin-scraping sounds – even if you’ve never had the pleasure, I’ll bet some ghastly image still sprang to mind. It’s a remarkably effective and relentless cult classic that’s not for the faint hearted, but it did set records for most profitable independent film once upon a time so take comfort my dear moguls as this franchise has proven to be a lucrative venture time and time again and its best story is yet to be told. Make no mistake, I propose a camera-reversing chapter in the Texas legacy to be made for one very selfish reason – because I’d be keen to check it out!

On the rare but joyous occasion this film comes up in conversation, I find myself capping off praises with ‘…apparently’ and that ‘apparently’ is the gruelling film-shoot which on paper reads as morbid as the original film itself. The events surrounding the making of the picture are part of horror folk lore and yet there’s never been a film about the monolithic effort it took to get it made. What went on behind the scenes of the 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre truly has all the components of a spectacular film in its own right.

Before I catch your eyes rolling I concur that a lot of true stories or Hollywood biopics where the camera is turned can often result in something fairly lacklustre. Stretching the truth for that ideal ending or even the satisfying ending that you can already predict is a tad easy (….and Mary Poppins was henceforth celebrated as a triumph… and that boy’s name was John Lennon… Beatrix Potter something something Peter Rabbit). But you can’t deny that horror already has an established and faithful audience who I’m sure would be foaming at the mouth for any retelling of those halcyon years of the ‘70s. Hell, it may even garner Oscar buzz! Remember when Willem Dafoe was nominated for his portrayal of Max Shrek playing essentially Dracula but as a real Vampire based on the original 1922 horror Nosferatu? You get the idea (maybe?) and although it did revive an interest in the archetypal Dracula film, the iconic Leatherface is largely synonymous with the horror genre period and any newcomer will be an added bonus. Enthusiasts will no doubt be eager to see Leatherface on the big screen in all his original glory once again.

To refresh your memory dear movie -puppeteer, in a nutshell The Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows five young hippies on a road-trip in the sweltering Texas heat in the ‘70s. Their destination is that of Sally and her brother, Franklin’s former home which is situated in close quarters to a family of cannibals and one-time employees of the local slaughterhouse. The family consists of Leatherface, a bulging, chainsaw-wielding, speechless butcher with a frightful mask made from the skin of his previous victim’s faces. There’s also the masochistic and hyperactive young man currently referred to as The Hitchhiker, there’s The Cook who claims an air of authority within the clan and finally their old and visibly translucent Grandpa who’s barely clinging onto life. After baring witness to her brother’s demise, being chased through bushes by a chainsaw brandishing Leatherface only to be knocked unconscious by The Cook’s broom handle, lone survivor Sally awakens at the dining room table of the family’s house of horrors for one traumatising night of sheer madness. Tortured, teased and berated all while a plate of her friends in sausage form rests before her; Sally becomes the entertainment for the twisted quartet. One false move finally allows her to escape through a second story window and onto the safe confines of a conveniently placed pick-up truck that happens to be driving past. The staple of the surviving female has since become one of its many claims to fame.

As much as I love the film and the genre as a whole I can’t really pride myself on being a horror buff. In fact I’m sure the buffs would resent the title, the word doesn’t adequately describe a collective who share a passion for slashin’. Count me in for a night binging on horror flicks with popcorn in my jimmy-jams but I’ve come to accept that I’m no expert but rather fated as the happy tourist. Envious and equal parts impressed whenever someone reminds me of (let alone remembers) a death scene and is able to pin point the exact franchise or sequel from which it spawned, I am always left in awe whilst desperately trying to avoid a complex. I’d love to be that walking wealth of what I deem essential knowledge, but tourist or not I wear The Texas Chainsaw Massacre like a badge of honour, like a hippy on a meat hook. Not in a sense that I have an iron stomach and can withstand the blood and gore but if I can claim fandom on one horror flick then this is it! I can ramble on for as long as anyone cares to listen. This film with its air of mystique stirs up wild elements of wonder, I get giddy and truly pity anyone who cares to humour me since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre empowers me as the elitist know-it-all when those special moments arise.

Snobbery is a perceivable downside to this fascination. If anyone dares champion the 2004 remake they’ll be lucky not to be knocked over the head with a meat mallet and left convulsing on a floor carpeted with chicken feathers. Remake? Don’t care! Is that right did Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger appear in a sequel prior to becoming the toast of Hollywood? Don’t care! But director Tobe Hooper didn’t get final cut on Texas 2? Don’t care! At least the remake is turning younger generations onto this beloved, iconic cannibal you say? Don’t care! You know how your grandparents hated The Beatles and your parent’s hated NWA, you hate 1D and so on – that’s how I feel about the remake, the music was better in my day and in this case there’s only one album that deserves any recognition.

What makes the original and nothing that’s shared its name since a holy grail of horror? I’m not sure it can be singled down to one specific component for it’s a perfect storm of demented ideas, bold and yet focused filmmaking, it’s uncompromising in its terror and is yet aesthetically artistic and creative. It has the power leave you cast under its spell long after the credits have run, but I’m certain that this film would not have been as effective had it not been for the horrendous shooting conditions and the painstaking ordeal to get it locked in the can. There’s an undeniable sense that whatever must have taken place off-screen somehow feels as prominent as what is on. An understanding from the very beginning that you’re not in safe hands here, the director surely must be a psychopath and cannot be trusted for you’re at the mercy of someone capable of something just as heinous leaving you perplexed as to what twisted and devious mind is pulling these strings and why?

Before trying to understand the director’s mindset spare a thought for your poor author who first witnessed Chainsaw in 1992 at tender age of thirteen. In hindsight I probably wasn’t ready for it, however within a year I owned it on VHS and this was before the days of the obsessive, all-consuming DVD collection. Life was a blank cassette as brand new or even ex-rental VHS tapes were typically expensive but this Chainsaw was the exception as repeat viewings were mandatory. By owning it and having those big yellow letters emboldened onto the black spine made a strong statement to anyone (no-one) that cared to take notice. It said I’m into the hard stuff. It was akin to my need for finding the craziest band at the time as I leapt from commercial soft rock to black metal in the space of a year. Chainsaw was my band and to make a further parallel tell me that’s not a band photo if ever you’ve seen one (Interesting to note this ‘family’ photo was taken as a joke but was later used on German film advertisements).

Prior to Chainsaw the only horror films I can recall seeing was a few sequels, both of which centred around ghosts. Amityville 2: The Possession which practically caused insomnia for the remainder of my primary school years and Poltergeist 2 which unbeknownst to me paled in comparison to the original directed by Mr. Texas Chainsaw himself, Tobe Hooper. The only other film I can recall seeing is Mr Boogedy which was a forty minute made-for-TV Disney production starring the son from ALF and the son from Married with Children. So to suggest that Chainsaw was a horror awakening is an understatement.

My first viewing took place at Marc Sorbello’s house, he had a front room where we would churn through VHS tapes, mainly Simpson’s episodes which were still relatively new to Australian television and with the episodes committed to memory, Marc would recite each line of dialogue in perfect unison with the TV which wasn’t at all annoying. His sister and her friends had a slumber party / horror movie marathon the previous evening. Marc’s sister pointed out Chainsaw assuming we were already acquainted, like I put it on every Christmas after It’s a Wonderful Life. Admitting I had never heard of it, I could immediately tell by her enthusiasm that we were in for a treat. I didn’t question how scary it was on any particular scale as benchmarks were relatively important in those days, but figured I was safe since it was broad daylight and I was a whole year older than the girls who had survived the screening. Again, my understanding was that horror was limited to ghosts. This would be a Boogedy-esque cinch.

Around eighty minutes later after the film had been firing at me in rapid succession I was ready to collapse, if anything for a lack of oxygen while I held my breath. In the final moments we see a frantic, bloodied girl clenching the back of a pickup truck with her eyes trained intensely on the harrowing violent, ordeal that’s now behind her. Maddened by the torment she has undergone throughout the entire night her screaming is jolted by her attempts to draw breath. The final shot sees Leatherface, the sadistic, simple minded antagonist wildly swinging his chainsaw. His face is obstructed by the human mask and he still wears a shambolic suit and tie from the ritualistic dinner of the night before. His failed conquest to cannibalistically devour this last teen has sent this frustrated and now exposed monster, unaccustomed to the outside world, into a carefree rage. Morning light cascades through the cameras lens. The sound of screaming morphs into chainsaw bursts and is heightened to a point of nausea. Safety and freedom have come at the ultimate cost: the protagonist’s sanity and before we’re granted a scrap of alleviation the screen abruptly turns black. The silent pause preceding the end credits resonates as loudly as the terror of the last eighty minutes. I clearly remember thinking ‘is that it?’ Not to be mistaken for disappointment, it was a plea for my own mental assurance. Any more of this and I’d have surrendered the mind of a killer myself. I felt myself crossing the threshold of becoming completely desensitised to brutality. I had that moment where you start to wonder whether violent films do in fact have an effect on young minds, and well, any more of Chainsaw and I would have relinquished to the affirmative.

I looked over to see a strangely unaffected Marc carry on with his day. He most likely sat down to a cold-meat lunch in the kitchen. I on the other hand remained in a mild state of shock. I longed to scream at my friend ‘Did you not see that? Were we watching the same film man?’ I wanted to conduct a meeting with the slumber party attendees of the night before and confirm that Chainsaw was in fact the most intense film experience on earth. A stronger kid than I, Marc didn’t seem at all fazed by it and didn’t care to recount what we had just seen, my parents would have scoffed that I’d been watching horror films which kept me from prompting any discussion when I got home, and the slumber party were nowhere to be seen. I desperately needed to talk this one out but to whom?

Fortunately, within a year of this I had met my friend Bell who in my mind was a walking horror film encyclopaedia and more than open to a chat, or more accurately a complete film dissection. Having moved from the country he boasted having watched every horror film at his local video store, so at a typical high-school sleep-over at his place he would walk me through the rental shelves with the exuberance of a tour guide. ‘Which Friday The 13th’s have you seen?’ he asked, and when I replied that I hadn’t he shook his head and said ‘let’s get you started on part one.’ I admired that he was no stranger to repeat viewings either and didn’t bare any grievances when having to start over for my sake. Before long I had become educated on the sagas of Jason, Pinhead, Michael Myers and of course Freddy Kruger. But no matter how many colourful murders I sat through I don’t recall ever clenching my fists or gritting my teeth with as much vigour as that first Chainsaw encounter. Although the former are classics of the genre, the films generally over explained everything, relied on justifiable motives as we discovered the killers hideous past and need for revenge. Chainsaw offered neither explanations nor motives, that these people thrived on depravity and primal savagery was all we understood and its backstory belonged exclusively to the dark depths of my own mind.

Just to be sure that I wasn’t putting Chainsaw on some teenage pedestal or that I had been sinfully sensationalising it for no good reason other than the thrill I felt as a kid, especially as I’ve seen some terrific horror films since, I revisited the film for the first time in quite a while. The conclusion I came to after another intentional broad daylight screening is that it totally and utterly scares the bejesus out of me. I then questioned why in an age of countless slasher films, does Chainsaw resonate not only as the superior originator but also as the most effective? The reason I’m so petrified is simply because the world of Chainsaw is totally plausible and utterly believable. The low budget and the often grainy, quasi-documentary style helps you surrender to the idea that you’re a fly on the wall (or one of many flies considering the house) but most importantly in its conviction that deep in the quiet bad lands of Texas, deep in the heart of the unknown, such people could possibly exist and be capable of unspeakable behaviour behind closed doors (just look at Joel Berringer and Bruce Sinofsky’s first documentary feature Brother’s Keeper). Granted we’re dealing with clever fiction but the likelihood of a Leatherface character actually inhabiting this house, presenting himself in such a way physically and mentally behaving as such given the context all seems real, if however shocking. Even more convincing is The Cook’s ability to guise as a gas station clerk and then moonlight as a chef of human delicacies. The family need to make money somehow, The Cook even hints at his financial woes and is notably upset when he realises the front door will need to be replaced since Leatherface has sawed his way inside rather than turning the doorknob when pursuing his prey. A legitimate issue when considering that on the surface the idea of a family of cannibals has a bogus ring to it.

The opening narration suggests that what we are about to see is a true story, one that I actually believed it for many years afterwards. My Dad collected licence plates from his younger years in the United States, and not only did he have plates from Chicago around the time serial killer John Wayne Gacy was caught but he also had Texas plates from around the time the massacre was said to have occurred in the film. As a thirteen year old I was mighty suspicious – of what exactly I’m not sure but I’d certainly concocted a few theories behind Dad’s back. The truth as to what spawned this macabre masterpiece is that as a child, director Tobe Hooper’s relatives would leave the impressionable boy bewildered with stories from their home town in Wisconsin, stories about resident murderer Ed Gein. When arrested, police had found furniture made from exhumed human bones and skin acquired from his various grave robberies and from two of his victims. Gein would keep his late mother’s skeleton propped up in the house where he would continue to hold conversations with her, thus lending the premise to films like Psycho, The Silence Of The Lambs and of course Chainsaw to name a few.

When production first began Hooper had one previous feature to his credit, an art piece called Eggshells. The art film sensibility would play an important role when realising Chainsaw, scenes such as the slow and unsettling opening or the nightmarish and hypnotic moment when victim Sally succumbs to the madness turning equally as unhinged as her captors. The plan for a genre piece was premeditated but realised through fresh eyes, consistent in its style throughout and executed with a sickening realism that left audiences often so shaken-up that the film garnered controversial notoriety and was slandered for its distressing nature. I guess we later dubbed this subgenre ‘slasher porn’ just to make sure everyone was well aware of what they were getting themselves into in future.

What was not on the agenda was a shoot which proved to be relentlessly exhausting to all involved. Chainsaw is said to have been filmed in order as it appears on screen. Therefore what’s particularly exciting about our first encounter with Leatherface is that it was also a first encounter for actor William Vail who played the first victim, Kirk who greets death with a knock over the head with a giant meat hammer. But prior to his first take, Vail was yet to see who (or what) lay ahead. Upon the initail confrontation with Leatherface for the first time, Vail was so shocked that he ran out of the house unsure as to whether he could continue. We too are left gobsmacked as we attempt to process the mighty aggressors’ features. I’m no director but for a making-of film would that not be the ultimate entrance for Leatherface? Just bring him out swinging the way he did when we first encountered him. Further to filming-in-order is that the opening shots of road kill had already been filmed which means that throughout the shooting days more and more road kill had been accumulated to dress the home for the latter climactic scenes. The unsettling nature of filming road kill at the very beginning meant the film crew would become far bolder as time progressed. I’m only speculating but by the time they decorated the house for the films dinner sequence the filmmakers would have found no problem in dragging carcasses to the shoot to ensure that the house was gruesomely fit for its inhabitants. Although certain set pieces were constructed from brainchild Robert A Burns many of the bones that litter the house were snapped up at actual nearby slaughterhouses which the road-trippers drive past.

Exact times have been embellished but the general consensus is that the dinner scene took approximately twenty seven hours to film. This was all thanks to John Dugan who played Grandpa. In his early thirties at the time and made to look perhaps three times his age, Dugan’s make-up and prosthetics took hours to apply and on a strict budget there would be no dolling him up twice. The shoot took all day and night which considering the dinner scene took place only at night any visible light had to be concealed which meant boarding up the entire house. This doesn’t sound too damning on paper but then consider the climate. It was a 40 degree (Celsius) day and inside the house over 48! Add to that Grandpa and Leatherface were both wearing masks and dinner suits. In fact the most potent stench on record was that of Gunnar Hansen’s (Leatherface) clothes which he wore each shooting day (and didn’t wash) for continuity purposes. In case his body odour wasn’t bitter enough on the nose the house was covered with real animal bones, chicken feathers and who knows what other animal parts that were dragged in as props. One on set story is that a crew member thought that by burning the unwanted carcass of a dog it would resolve the problem of decay which of course only added to the smell. Add to this the heat radiating from the production lighting and additional lamp lights as props and the interior would have been virtually unbearable. The lights also caused some of the bones to burn which effectively caused cast and crew to simultaneously retreat outside to vomit.

Fortunately the story requires everyone at the dinner table to portray someone who is either insane or getting there because to make matters worse there were various script revisions which were often debated over and performed on the spot, adding unwanted time and friction within those excruciating walls. A side note – Paul Partain (aka Franklin) deemed method acting necessary and remained in his painfully whiney character off camera surely winning the respect of his clammy colleagues who were no doubt already on a short fuse.

Marilyn Burns (aka Sally) tells a great tale about her final day of shooting. In case the heat, stench and take after take of incessant screaming wasn’t enough, Burns actually leapt from the glass of a second story window herself causing her to limp while running to freedom in the films climax. Upon returning to her hotel she ran a bath and soaked all the blood, sores and troubles away only to be notified by Hooper that the final shot had failed. She would be required back at the house for a re-shoot in the morning. The result is the closing shot where she wails in the back of the pick-up truck which she claims is no illusion. I can’t help but be reminded of when I first saw the remake once the closing credits rolled on that miserable day in 2004. There was a large group of us who were lucky enough to score advance screening tickets in the now defunct Village Cinema in Melbourne’s city. As the end credits rolled I turned to my friends and said ‘what did you think?’ I can distinctly remember one instant review that summed up what I was already thinking. ‘She didn’t suffer enough’. As awful as that may sound, what was implied was that astonishing realism was traded for something plastic and cartoonish, if anything Sally suffered too much and that’s what we came into the cinema bravely expecting to relive all over again which sadly was not the case.

In case the heartache of the shoot wasn’t enough, Tobe Hooper sold off his portion of the rights to obtain more funding in order to edit the film which was incomplete when the well had run dry. He then sold the film to the only interested party – a film production run by the mafia that failed to pay up when the film grossed 31 million dollars upon its US release. To this day despite lawsuits no one has ever ‘cleaned-up’ from the film and any attempts at taking action over this injustice have proven useless since the company claims to be broke.
So that’s the meat of the story and for artistic merit there’s no shortage of themes that could be introduced too dear screenwriters. I remember seeing a documentary of author Chuck Palahnuik where he discussed how classic horror stories are often created as a means to shine a light on subjects that society would prefer not to mention. For instance Frankenstein was about the Industrial Revolution and technology ruining man. Dracula was venereal disease killing all in its wake (there was also a Dracula theory about anti-Semitism in that Jewish people with big ears and noses from Eastern Europe were coming to ‘suck the blood’ from the western world, but we’ll stick with VD). So I guess Chainsaw and horror films at the time that tread on similar terrain represented the end of the hippy era or in this case hacking the era to pieces and eating it. It could also be argued that the chainsaw as an extention of Leatheraces manhood metaphorically fucked those hippies.

The films also deeply reflects the horrors of the Vietnam War, certainly a war that could not be resolved by peace and love. In the Maysles brother’s documentary Gimme Shelter -the one about The Rolling Stones final week on tour that ends in tragedy at Altamont – the concert footage captures a member of the Hells Angels (the gang had been entrusted in the role of security for the event) stab to death an eighteen year old audience member. This single moment helped mark the end of the hippy movement and within a year or two of its release we had given rise to Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and slasher films, both of which sent clear statement that peace and love were abandoned for a love of something much darker. This is not to say that Chainsaw was the pioneer either, Last House on the Left was a clear precursor (the characters embark on random violent and deadly activity just for kicks) but nevertheless the seeds had been sewn and Chainsaw would be a far more damaging beast that never strays from its brutal intentions.

To the Hollywood wordsmith you could also indulge us with additional conflict that was rumoured from inside the set. Like for instance how Hitchhiker has apparently vowed to kill director Tobe Hooper should they ever cross paths again? Little nuggets like this are as exciting as someone pointing out a drunk Munchkin or hearing Mark Hamill yell out ‘Carrie’ instead of Leia after blowing up the death star. I can only guess it’s over money, although The Hitchhiker did agree to lie on the road and pretend to be dead during his final scene and after burning his face on the scorched asphalt the scene was later removed (the footage of which has made it onto the bonus DVD features). Or how about this one? Stanley Kubrick owned his very own 35 mm print of Chainsaw which itself is pretty legendary, particularly as one can’t deny the Kubrickian inspired landscape shots and scraping sounds.

The uninitiated might not find anything of interest and the horror junkie knows this story all too well so I humbly pitch the Chainsaw biopic for my own selfish reasons unless of course I had you at hello (bringing the total Zellweger count to three). All of this has been well documented notably as bonus material on the DVD releases. Each time it gets re-released there seems to be updated versions and yet each time the stories never cease to waver which enforces that all these misfortunes surrounding the picture are true. Yet talking heads can get a bit dull after a while and besides you spend the first ten minutes taken by how much older the cast is looking before you see the value in what’s being conveyed. It’s time to move on to the next frontier. One thing I won’t be offering here with any sincerity is a viable name for this picture unless you want it direct-to-the-small-screen but for fun I’ll give it a quick go: This Stinks, Leather & Weather, Guess Who’s Gunning For Dinner? Citizen Main. I leave this in your competent hands dear screenwriter knowing that the material surrounding the film is strong enough to support a film of its own whatever the title. Be faithful to the original but don’t dare compete because let’s be honest it could never be as frightening as 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No chance in hell!

I wrote this a while back and forgot to publish until now. What reminded me was Leatherface mastermind, the genius behind the mask, Gunner Hansen recently and sadly passed.
R.I.P.