The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Often spoofed, but universally revered, this infamous title will forever resonate across time and space and cast a great, big shadow over the titular state. And while it is not an especially innovative film, it remains one of the purest, rawest, most primordial and ultimately one of the greatest incarnations of horror cinema. Its technical simplicity is matched only by the grotesque quality of its characters and sets, one that runs deep into the American psyche wherein progress often leaves a putrescent residue. Both these features help fashion one of the most efficient experiences in terror-building which the world has ever known. Both sights and sounds are instrumental here in creating the affect necessary to launch the viewer into a dark abyss from which he or she will unlikely come out of. That is the unforgettable world of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Simple, straightforward, effective: exemplary usage of
the depth of field in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Bones and the news

Using a documentary approach at first, the film situates the action in the 'real' Texas of grisly news items. Playing out like a mere fait divers, it focuses on a group of hippie-sh city slickers caught in the dilapidated backwoods of the Lone Star State. It also focuses on another newsworthy reality, that of the disenfranchised Texan poor and their uneasy relationship with progress, which the young protagonists represent. The opening shot of the film consists of a scrolling text read by thespian John Larroquette. It talks of a seemingly real, although approximately delineated crime, the 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre'. The scrolling text gives way to a series of close-ups featuring various pickled body parts flashing onscreen as if captured by an antique Polaroid. This gallery of macabre portraits is followed by a radio report telling of another grisly occurring, the desecration of graves in a dusty roadside cemetery. Now, the ongoing documentation of events achieved through the use of multiple media enriches the narrative a great deal, leading the naive to believe that the events onscreen might actually be a factual retelling of real life crimes. And while the veracity of it all is hard to swallow, the naturalistic settings and half-professional actors contribute their fair share to the overall realism of the work, which contributes a great deal to the affective power of the film. The dilapidated homesteads and roadside gas stations all appear as authentic as can be, and so do the players, the reason for this being the low budget with which director Hooper had to work with, an inconvenience which he masterfully transformed into an asset.

Desecrated tombs, casual cannibalism and the
slaying of youths are hot news items

Cheap means as assets
As for the bone sculptures scattered around the scenery, they're yet another cheap, effective way to convey the casual terror one could experience during a trip in the lawless Texan countryside. They're proof of the loving care with which the cannibals hone their trade. These bones have been loved before they were hung over the Hardestys' porch. But what's more unnerving is that they involve some sort of long-gone ritual, which modern-day pagans have all but evacuated from their lives. Obviously, Texas is a film about modernity, and its impact on the traditional (read rural) lifestyle of Texans. As the hitchhiker so rightfully puts it, the air gun used to slaughter cows in contemporary abattoirs tends to 'put people out of jobs'. The industrialization process being what it is, it tends to remove the human factor out of the equation, thriving only to serve itself and its drive toward profit. As a result, traditional crafts tend to lose their relevance, and the sledgehammer artisans of old, such as the petrified patriarch of the Sawyer family, must find alternative ways of sustenance, such as the killing and selling of human meat. Enabling, or rather accelerating the cyclical movement of human life, modernity has the power to unearth deeply buried traditions and primordial ways of life born out of necessity. It is then that modernity and tradition come at adds, as exemplified in the sacrificial usage of trendy youths to feed the unknown poor surrounding them.

Yet another cheap, but supremely effective device contained in the film is the minimalistic soundtrack composed mostly of grinding metal noises. By contrasting with the realistic images onscreen, this array of impressionistic sounds (which seem to replicate an obsessive grating in the characters' ears) highlights with great effect the increasing sense of unease experienced by the victims as they come across more and more unnatural acts of barbarity. The bucolic wilderness and quiet calmness of the countryside are brutally challenged by these grating noises, just as the characters' most deeply-held beliefs regarding the sanctity of human life is similarly challenged. And so, aggression (and horror itself) takes yet another dimension, an auditory new dimension used as a raw expressive device meant to provoke an immediate advert reaction while remaining quite subtle, even controlled, in its usage. A welcome departure from the heavy-handed scores plaguing many lesser horror outings.

The relentlessness of true horror
The pacing of the film is exemplary. Just enough time is spent setting up the characters, leaving them ripe for the massacre very early on. In fact, while the massacre itself is satisfyingly surprising in its suddenness, it is the early apparition of a knife-wielding hitchhiker, which truly grabs you by the throat, never to let go again. Of course, it is never a good idea to pick up a hitchhiker in a horror film and so does the cast of characters learn a valuable lesson when they let a truly creepy, derelict-looking youth inside their van. Sporting all the attributes of a degenerate redneck, his sole presence puts the viewer ill at ease. His crooked smile and manic laughter seem to hide something sinister... and so does his fascination with knives. The first scene he partakes in is also the first classic scene of the film. Captured with utmost perceptiveness (mostly through its cultivation of uneasy silence and its unflinching framing), the thickening atmosphere between the characters gushes out of the screen and onto the skin of the aghast viewer who can only watch in awe as the action unfolds and things start getting edgier and edgier. The scene is mesmerizing, thanks in part to the soft, jazzy tune ('Fool for a blond' by Roger Bartlett) embalming the summer air while offering a savvy counterpoint to the increasing aggressiveness of the hitchhiker. The very contrast between those two elements is what sets up the film, much more so than the dialogue between the protagonists. Both the clash of cultures (exemplified by the social gap between the hitchhikers and the teens) and the bloody violence that ensues, bursting out to compromise the characters' idyll, are both crystallized by this scene, which serves as a gripping entry point in the narrative per se.

Visceral violence: the switchblade as
America's concealed hunting spirit

As for the central part of the film, it is deservedly renowned for its uncompromising brutality and unforgiving straightforwardness. No cat-and-mouse bullshit. And no compromise made to the protagonists either, no sudden escape route or convenient safe haven. Just the raw desire to hunt down and kill one's prey in a coldly efficient manner which mirrors the director's own cold efficiency at the helm. Long after the hitchhiker was forcefully thrown out of their van, the protagonists' next encounter with the Sawyer family is a very short one. When one of them enters the family domain to inquire about their gas pump, he his swiftly hammered down and dragged behind a sliding metal door by an oversized butcher wearing a leather mask (the iconic Leatherface). It takes scant seconds between the moment where the young man peeks beyond and the moment where the door slams shut, keeping his fate hidden from us. The suddenness of it all will leave the viewer glued into place, unable at first to fully grasp what has just happened because there is no transition, no split-second left for the character to escape. There is only the murderous impulse of the killer, whose swift act of violence precisely mirrors that committed by the film against the viewer. Obviously, the monstrous aspect of the large man, with his grotesque mask made of flesh, also contributes to our unease, but there is only a cosmetic fear that we derive from the sight of him whereas the true violence we experience is that caused by the suddenness of his attack and the total absence of time for us to react, which in turn puts us squarely in the victim's shoes, unable to save ourselves and helplessly falling prey.

At that point, the viewer will wish that he could see what is happening on the other side of the door, but not totally so, as the violence of the execution has left him somewhat disoriented. Then, bang! One is immediately brought beyond the metal door as the victim's girlfriend is easily captured, hung on a meat hook and forced to watch her boyfriend being butchered. All of this is done in what appears to be a flash, a dire, gut-tightening flash during which one is left speechless by the mechanical nature of the executions, the implications of which are too dire to contemplate, namely that humans can be equated to cattle with total indifference. This is demonstrated further when the two final protagonists reach the Sawyer's homestead only to be chased ruthlessly through the woods by a manic Leatherface (which contributes an exhilarating chase scene to an already exhilarating, truly nerve-wracking experience). You see, Leatherface is a dedicated hunter. He does not let his victims evade his reach, nor does he let the pace of the film slow down even for a second. And when he does, it is only when the last of his preys has fallen into pap's laps, leaving her ripe for an unforgettable family reunion.

And while the film has already dispensed a large quantity of unforgettable imagery at that point, there is no previous scene that can compare with the stellar climactic supper scene, wherein poor Marylin Burns has to endure the torments of Hell. There is a reference to that effect in the opening credits of the sequel, but it doesn't quite evoke the sheer power of Texas' final scene, one which deserves recognition and praise even amongst fans of G-rated family fare. Truly, this is a finale for the ages. The grotesque quality of the antagonists, assembled for a family supper in bone-framed furniture, taunting the tied heroine frantically as she looks around in desperation, the camera cruelly lingering on her panicked eyes. It's very simple really: just close-ups of eyes, which the viewer soon sees as highly effective, yet casually underused, assets in tension-building. After all, while screams can only do so much to express terror, the eyes are some of the most expressive human features. As the old saying goes, the eyes are the mirror of the soul. And thus, they also represent the quickest access road through which one can tap into the soul of a victim, witnessing her terror as she does.

Horror is in the eye of the beholder

And while the eye does a great deal to hook us in, with its nerve-wracking gyrations, the splendid art direction and solid screen presence of the antagonists also help this scene stand out as one of the key sequences in horror history. Surrounded by the dried remnants of their victims, the demented Sawyer family engages in a grotesque session of slapstick while their victim struggles to make sense of their carefree ways. And so the three ghoulish stooges make the dining room their stage, with Sally as a forced spectator. And while the painful antics of the three comedians might annoy you with their dated feel, they actually help create a very cruel discrepancy between the desperate feelings experienced by Sally and her captors' childish carelessness, extracted from the subversion of comedy necessary to highlight the casual nature of the massacre. Hence, the killers' fun fuels our most dreaded fear, that of our own death as spectacle. Because while it is Sally's eye that scans the room endlessly, she remains the object of her tormentors' gaze, their guest of honor, their sacrificial lamb. And so the entrapment of her eye within the frame mirrors her physical entrapment within the suffocating insides of the Sawyer residence. It also represents the crystallization of her fear as entertainment, that of her tormentors and that which we derive from the entire exercise. Now, I could spend an entire essay discussing the complex mechanics of the gaze in relation to the notion of spectacle that permeates this scene, but I won't. I will conclude instead by commanding Hooper once more for achieving such an effective, thematically complex horror film with the barest of means. And I'll let the curious reader discover for himself exactly how the final scene climaxes. Suffice it to say that if you get caught thinking that the sight of hulking cross-dresser Leatherface prancing around is the epitome of the grotesque, then the film still has some mean surprises for you... Enjoy!


5/5 Simple but incredibly effective, Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the purest expressions of horror ever to grace the screen, proving that budget limitations can reveal themselves to be assets for the truly creative creator

Suspiria (1977)

Review #0018

What can I say? This is the maestro’s masterpiece and thus a genre landmark. Rarely are horror films so technically accomplished as this one, and despite the secondary importance accorded to the plotline (involving a rather underwhelming finale), the ensemble is almost flawless. Argento herein perfectly combines all of his signature techniques (complex camerawork, mindwarping color schemes, insane rock soundtrack and vicious gore) to create something much more than his trademark giallo, something memorable which has found its way into the collective unconscious like a very determined maggot.

What we’re treated to is not a stylish stalk-and-slash police story blessed with minor innovations, like many other Argento films, but a full-fledged oneiric venture into the domain of a witch, an experience rarely equalled in the genre. Why? Because rarely has the unholy powers of a witch been so successfully translated into cinematic terms. The airborne, all-seeing eye of the camera (as well as the henchmen’s viewpoints) is her omniscient gaze, and Goblin her chorus of demons, peppering the soundtrack with hints of her presence. The excentric settings, full of mirrors and opressive colors, are architectural extensions of her body with which she deceives and terrorizes her victims. Truly every moment of every scene is filled with her influence; the celluloid itself pulsates with her occult power.

Suspiria: a sensuous, oneiric
venture into the witch's domain.

As usual in Argento films, the killer is never revealed in full until the end. Initially (during the double murder), she is barely more than what is expected, that is a vicious pair of arms and some dark clothes. But as the plot unfolds, we realize she is much more than a physical presence. She is a dark, venomous force that takes infinite shapes and infests every space. As such, she is a monster far more dreadful than any of Argento’s staple deranged killers, all of which unfortunately suffer from a grounding in reality that implies tangible (thus limitative) methods and motivations. More importantly, Helena Markos is not a lone killer; butlers and head mistresses are also enemies, as parts of a killer system that surrounds and entraps the protagonists, much like in the haunted house subgenre. Rarely in Argento is the entire environment a menace to the characters as it is the case in Suspiria and this is regrettable, because it herein greatly heightens tension, effectively compensating for the scenario’s sometimes slow pacing.

Cinematographically, the film is one very buttered toast, extremely heavy on mood rather than plot devices. The atmosphere is saturated. When we’re not blinded by the wall colors or the intricate set design, we are deafed by Goblin’s rocking soundtrack (undoubtedly their best effort for any Argento film); when we are not moved from our seats by the virtuoso camera, it is by the savvy editing (in the dance rehearsal scene, for exemple, where rhythm is at its peak), all of which contribute to our disorentation and general unease. All of which draw us inside the world of the film for a mesmerizing journey.

The brutal opening double-murder, complete with
gruesome close-ups of a beating heart being repeatedly
stabbed, constitutes one of the most exhilarating
moments in horror film history.

The film’s limitations (although it is debatable that these constitute actual flaws) lie in the scenario which is, to say the least, pretty minimalist. It is the classic tale of the righteous outsider who faces evil abroad, a seemingly undying evil to which she is the unlikely solution simply in her quality of protagonist (i.e. center of the universe). The opening murder scene is heavy on violence and style, constituting certainly a high point, an uppercut so to speak, to start the fight. Then, it briefly becomes a mystery surrounding the death of the ballerina, a mystery that soon spirals out of control into the occult. After that, the plot leaps clumsily toward the conclusion, linking nasty events one to another around the flimsy thread that has become the original mystery.

The performances, ranging from awkwardly subdued to decent are barely worth mention. It is not the actors’ fault however, struggling with dumb lines in as much as five languages, if the film is not character-driven, but mood-driven. As pawns in Helena Markos’ game (as well as Argento’s itself), none of the characters deserve remembrance, except perhaps for the sinister headmistress Tanner, whose authoritative shape and attitude contribute their part to the whole opressive atmosphere. Some fans of the genre may be stoked by Udo Kier’s presence in the cast. Those people only risk finding his performance that much more underwhelming. Despite his excentric background, he plays it incredibly straight here as the obligatory scholar who artificially forwards the plot. Nonetheless, the casting is esthetically very sound. Every actor looks the part. It is unfortunate that their characters lack the roundness necessary to elevate them above simple tokens, although it doesn’t impair the flow of the film in any major way.

The film's numerous lapses in logic fail to
undermine its impressionistic beauty.

All in all, Suspiria is a superior horror film, mainly for technical reasons, but also for its place in Argento’s body of work. All of his trademark techniques are used here with the greatest of effects. The tension, atmosphere, gore, soundtrack and set design are not bound by logic, and therefore can be expressed fully. As a master stylist and abstractionnist, Argento has made his truest film Suspiria. Never before and never again has he been freeer from the constrictive nature of the giallo. And never has he ventured so deep in the domain of pure horror (as opposed to the thriller genre). A uniquely-crafted film, Suspiria is without a doubt, one of the best entries in horror cinema.

5/5: For its masterful use of technique to create a film of pure affect that's widely considered a classic.

NB - This film is discussed in Elusive Terrors - Horror Films and the Moving Frame. 

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Review #0014

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen: the best zombie film of all times! "Night" had laid the groundwork ten years before, but it is only with "Dawn" that Romero fully fleshes the genre (no pun intended). A group of four people (two cops, and a couple of newspeople) "run" from zombie-overrun Phillie and find shelter in a suburban mall, which they clean and wall-up as their own personal fortress. They would've been happy there, if it weren't for a ruthless gang of bikers (that includes FX maestro Tom Savini) who forces them into an all-out war. With gripping realism, the film opens in media res during the media shitstorm provoked by the rise of the dead. A talk-show featuring a guest hellbent on raising you-should-shoot-any-dead-family-member-in-the-head awareness is disturbed when protagonist Francine fights an executive over the broadcast of outdated "shelter" information. On the other side of town, protagonists Roger and Peter (fan-favorite Ken Foree who would go on to appear in dozens more genre films, including "From Beyond", "The Devil's Reject" and the "Dawn of the Dead" remake) are involved in a mission to evacuate a low-income housing project, with a trigger-happy racist at their sides, into a mazelike contraption full of the living dead. Concisely enough, the main characters are all introduced within their element, and with them, the chaotic world in which they have learned to live. The action, so to speak, begins soon after, as Roger, Peter, Francine and her boyfriend Stephen ("Fly Boy") copter their way out of the city and into the suburb. Over the countryside, they spot a party of redneck militians enjoying thermos coffee and target practice. Those guys remind us of "Night"s conclusion, but this time around, they're part of a bigger whole. You see, by covering the entire stretch of land inbetween the big city and the suburb, Romero ups the ante in terms of scale (and effect) as world contamination becomes a tangible perspective. Almost overnight, the entire human experience has become a thing of unfathomable horror.



Interestingly enough, the shopping mall thus becomes a hot destination. As the world crumbles, it remains the only shelter against the harsh reality of things, a sanctuary so to speak, from the evils of the world. It is made of bricks and steel, sure, but mostly of dreams and illusions. It is a promise of individual comfort in a world of death and destruction. The zombies frequent it, their motor reflexes dragging them back in, but so do the protagonists. In the end, they even confine themselves to its bowels, and within, a cozy apartment furnished "à la mode" where they eat delicacies and drink liquor, oblivious to the faith of other survivors. They are living the American dream, despite the dreary fact that there is no America to speak of anymore. Nonetheless, there are shades of America: consumerism, individualism, and most of all, the a rigid social stratification. You see, "Dawn" also functions as a social commentary. First, by suggesting that the desire to survive is inherently individualistic. Unlike "Night", "Land", "Survival" and most other zombie films, "Dawn" focuses not on a rag-tag collection of survivors picked along the way, but on one restricted, homogenized group that will defend its own interests against others. The paradigm is no longer "us against them" in the sense of humans against zombies, but "us", a small group of friends, against "them", the rest of the world. Many commentators even argue that the different social actors in the film are related hierarchically. Roger Avary suggests the protagonists represent the upper class (locked away in a "gated community"), while the zombies are the lower class (pushed away from that community). As a working hypothesis, it could be useful, but that's by disregarding the fact that the zombies herein are instinctively drawn to the mall. That is, they represent the growing middle class, drawn to the malls by a motorized desire to consume, which in turns constitutes their raison-d'être. The zombie is a mindless consumer, and vice-versa. In the end, the mall setting offers many narrative possibilities, yet its relevance lies in enabling the critique of consumerism that the multiplication of zombie (consumers) allows.

Finally, a few comments about the score and gore because it would be a crime to mention this film's importance without mentioning the dream team that surrounded Romero at the time. Fresh from their crucial contribution to the classic "Suspiria", Italian noise machine The Goblins (featuring the great Dario Argento) cross the Atlantic for a great cause indeed. Their warped, keyboard-heavy score, is trippy and exhilarating, making the celluloid pulsate to the beat. Most of all, it is quite unique. As if the stars had perfectly aligned so we could hear this. Then, there is Tom Savini, for whom the film constitutes a breakthrough. Deservingly so, because the bits of gore contained in the film (concentrated mostly at the beginning and end) are all disturbingly realistic. Zombie teeth break human flesh in loving close-ups, characters are eviscerated, machetes are plunged in zombie heads, all of this as extra butter on a delicious croissant. All in all, "Dawn of the Dead" is Romero's best film because it happens at such a great time for exploitation cinema. The rise of consumerism, and the multiplication of shopping malls provided the sociological framework of the film, the green-light on violence made the zombie film all the more viable, plus Romero benefited from a bigger budget (due to previous film successes), and from the contribution of Dario Argento, The Goblins, and Tom Savini, all at the peek of their careers. Statistically and historically, there is almost no chance of such a happy coincidence reccuring in horror cinema. Let us weep then, and watch "Dawn" yet another time!

5/5