Fathom Entertainment & Dark Sky Films is continuing its grand, gruesome tradition of reshowing its sterling, remastered print of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre this August 18 (Tues) at select cinemas.
The date of the presentation coincides with the plot's fateful day when a group of naive youngsters encountered a most frightful family.
Though twisted at heart in its stark, documentary-like auara, director Tobe Hooper and his co-writer Kim Henkel manage to keep the 1974, cannibal-ridden carnage to a minimum (i.e. being more implied than not), for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is, in truth, a study in masterful, high-tension suggestion.
In this respect, its suspense is visceral and unpretentious (working off the basic, effective notion that its events could happen to anybody who might fall into the wrong place at the wrong time). Call me the odd man out, but I find this unsettling premise (or more so, its execution) so identifiable that it inspires a cozy feeling in me. Maybe this is also because I've come to learn and respect a great deal about the movie and its creators, many of whom have passed on in recent years.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is perhaps best known for one of my all-time favorite fiends, its towering, Ed-Gein surrogate, Leatherface, played by the late Gunnar Hansen. (I had the pleasure of meeting Hansen at a Fangoria convention in the early 1990s, at which time, I'm proud to say, he signed the box top of my Screamin' Leatherface, model kit). In addition to Hanson, the cast includes Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, John Dugan, Marilyn Burns, William Vail, Allen Danzinger and Terri McMinn, with John Larroquette as the narrator. (The movie's bone-chilling sculptures were provided by art director Robert Burns and the sweltering photography by Daniel Pearl.)
For those who filmed it, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was (and remains) a macabre labor of love, and many rank it right up there with such comparable, grassroots fright fests as Night of the Living Dead 1968, Dawn of the Dead 1979, Day of the Dead 1985, Carnival of Souls 1962, The Hills Have Eyes 1977, Halloween 1978, and the bulk of the Phantasm and Evil Dead franchises.
(Re)experience the one that initiated the masked-slasher subgenre, and if you've never seen it, now's as good a time as any to get terrorized.
