The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Matt)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is truly one of the classics of the horror genre. Most people alive today are familiar with the name of this movie. You can't even go into a haunted house anymore without hearing that infamous chainsaw revving up to come saw you into pieces. It's become a part of our very culture in that regard.

I had never seen the original movie before this viewing. I saw the re-make some months ago, but that's hardly the same movie and it was just ok. I have heard from a multitude of sources that the new one is a piece of crap compared to the original. I went in with high hopes and I have to say that this movie did not disappoint me much.

Let me start with my favorite part of the movie, its direction. In terms of actual story and characters this movie wasn't all that scary. The acting was actually terrible. It was so bad, in fact, that I found myself laughing a lot at some parts that I believe were intended to be scary. That said however, I found several parts of this film to be pretty intense, and this tension was the direct responsibility of the director's work. One scene that comes to mind as an example is when a character finds herself in a room littered with feathers and bones. The camera takes several minutes and just films closeups of these objects. That's it, just a few minutes of footage of stationary objects with creepy music/sound effects. However the way the camera is positioned, the timing of the music, the gentle swaying of the feathers or the bones hanging from strings. It freaked the heck out of me. Had I been in the right mood it would have been downright terrifying. It had the same effect on me that The Shining did years ago, and it's freaking creepy.

The music, if you can call it that, is another aspect of this movie that I thought was well done. It very dissonant (is that the right word?) and it causes you to be uncomfortable in a lot of situations that would not normally be scary at all. The music is awful, but it fits perfectly into the context of this movie. It's a little insane, just like the characters that are out here to scare you.

I also really like the idea that this family of cannibals regarded human life in the same way that the average human regards livestock. They don't hate people, but they don't mind killing them either. They need to eat, and to do that they have to kill people. It was interesting to me to see this philosophy applied to human life.

The movie isn't all happy times. There is basically no plot at all. We never find out why these teenagers are driving around. There is a lack of motive that makes it harder to feel sorry for these people getting killed. The acting is horrible. As I mentioned above it's so bad that it would pull me out of the movie and actually turn horror into comedy. There is also the general disposition of the characters towards making bad decisions that seems to be so prevalent in horror movies. Going to the creepy house looking for gasoline, running up stairs to get away, staying in the creepy feather and bone room for 5 minutes, etc.

I give this movie 8 chainsaw dances out of 10.