How Hooper’s 1974 Masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Slashes Audience Expectations.

by Eda Gokcen.

One of the most influential and original horror films of all time, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) has a franchise consisting of 9 films, 2 video game adaptations, a novel, and comics. Through a close reading of the opening and infamous dinner sequences of the film, I’ll be explaining how this raw and disturbing film dominates and elevates the slasher subgenre. Targeting all 5 senses of its audience, Chainsaw demonstrates how gore and chaos can constitute a serious work of art through implication, immersion, and realism. Highlighted by Jesse Stommel in his article, he asserts that the film “involves the audience primarily on a sensory rather than an intellectual level” [9] due to its lack of explicit violence, leaving much to the imagination of its audience. He adds by stating that it “forces viewers to question their own fascination with violence,” distinguishing it from a surface-level, mediocre gore-fest and emphasizing its deeper artistic qualities. The impact of the film is so vast that many viewers, including the director Guillermo del Toro, have allegedly turned vegetarian after viewing it, due to its depiction of the cruelty and exploitation behind the meat industry. Perhaps the reason for any backlash it has encountered is the intensity of its horror, forcing the audience into sensory overload and discomfort which, for me, defines a good example of the horror genre.

Hooper’s film takes influence from European movements across all mediums of art such as Surrealism, which paved the way to the experimental avant-garde films often referred to as art-house cinema. An interesting side note is that Hooper was heavily influenced by the painting Christina’s World depicting the subject Christina Olson sitting on a field turned towards the Olson House almost reaching for it, with her determination for life as the central idea, similar to Sally in Chainsaw. This concept of art-house cinema is also highly associated with the intellectually elite class, as audiences of such films are more often well-read and from an academic background. As opposed to the general public attending movie theaters as a leisurely activity outside working hours. Zinoman reflects on this in his article, “Chainsaw is a disreputable exploitation flick made with such artistry that it transforms into high art” [12]. This artistry is established from the opening and carries on to the very end of the film, using innovative abstract imagery, Soviet-montage style editing, misplaced sound effects, and many more. Hooper also brings many elements from the experimental cinema of Italian Neo-Realism, such as casting non-professional actors, shooting on location, and employing documentary-drama-style cinematography. This is much like cinema verité of the 1960s French New Wave, and last but certainly not least an extremely low budget. Alongside these non-conventional techniques, the socio-political criticism within the film clashes with the so-called elite art-house cinema. Making the film revolutionary in not just cinema, but art as a whole, mixing and transforming previously established categories. Hooper notes in his commentary of the film that he intended to respond to the lies told to the American public at the time and the general lack of sentimentality as well as the sensationalization of violence in graphic news coverage. Reflecting the misinformed and manipulated public through his audience as he manipulates and terrorizes them in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The expository opening statement creates a sense of realism although much of the plot is fictional. The Screen Rant article “The True Story That Inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” [5] by Leaos and Hedash explores this socio-political commentary. Notably, they also remark on the violent news of the period, “Tobe Hooper specifically credits Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley as the influence for Leatherface.” Adding that Gein was also “the real-life serial killer” behind Norman Bates in the horror classic Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) . They hold Hooper’s slasher to the same standard as Hollywood’s beloved master of suspense. The sequence begins with a black screen as we hear the voice of a man breathing heavily and perhaps digging something. With hindsight, we can assume that this is the Hitchhiker digging up graves. We see bright flashes of light with grim, ambiguous close-up shots of the partially decomposed bodies he has dug up, accompanied by an unsettling camera flash sound effect. The fragments of the corpses move up as we cut to a shot of the deceased male’s head, now with the backdrop of the yellow-toned, dusty, and vastly empty Texas desert. There is a tonal authenticity established through the balance between this natural landscape like that in Wyeth’s painting, and the grotesquely decorative setting of the Sawyers’ house which the corpse foreshadows. Zooming out to reveal another corpse of a female, embraced by her partner and positioned like a child’s doll. The sinister non-diegetic music dominates our attention over the diegetic radio news report of terrible events, creating a nihilistic overtone for the rest of the film. The embrace of the corpses is a “hideous parody of domesticity” [10] reflecting the general portrayal of the family as a whole .

In addition to these artistic avant-garde influences from Europe, Hooper also relies on the Soviet Montage in his editing style to achieve enduring disturbance of his audience. Paying homage to Eisenstein and Kuleshov who were pioneers in the theory and practice of montage, Hooper manipulates his audience through jarring and dynamic cuts, implying violence. While the whole film is edited in this experimental style, the most notable example is during the infamous dinner scene towards the end of the film. We see a close-up shot of Sally’s cut and bloody face as she begins to regain consciousness, tied up to a chair at the head of the Sawyers’ dinner table, and hear the loud and irritating buzz of a fly. We cut to the Grandpa sitting across from her and Sally breaks out a horrifying scream at the sight of this rotten-appearing cannibal who stays alive by sucking on human blood. The family preparing for their formal dinner with Grandpa indicated through Leatherface’s comedic costume change into a suit and a wig, begin to howl and laugh alongside their screaming victim in pure insanity. The Sawyers’ presentation here is a “parody of the typical American sitcom family” [7] as they comedically argue and play dress up in their own perverted way. During this audial chaos of distorted screams, laughter, and animalistic growls, the editing becomes much faster-paced. Cutting from extreme-close-up fragments of Sally’s face, the décor made with human skin and bones, and mid-shots of the family members. Through this attack on the senses and perception of the audience, the film continues its lack of explicit gore yet maintains its extremely uncomfortable and sinister effects. As noted by the British Board of Film Classification, “Even if the elements were cut, it did nothing to alter the disturbing tone of the film” [1].

This idea of the clear distinction between normality and monstrosity being perverted and almost reversed in Chainsaw is also shared by Wood, who reflects upon the victimhood of the Sawyers at the hands of capitalism. In this Marxist perspective, the Sawyers were a proletariat family made redundant from their jobs at the local slaughterhouse due to technological advancements. He argues that “cannibalism represents the ultimate in possessiveness”, making the idea of liberation, as represented by the young group of uncharacterized and unmemorable friends, “inadequate … to withstand the legacy of long repression.” [10]. This victimhood is also mentioned in The New York Times article regarding Leatherface. Drawing similarities between the masked killer and Frankenstein’s creature, as opposed to an average slasher villain. Mirroring the notoriously misunderstood creation of Mary Shelley, he emphasizes the cultural complexity of Chainsaw while acknowledging the success of its “disorienting, teeth-chattering horror” [12]. Moreover, Fawver points out the family’s opposition to change, which he argues represents life itself and signified meaning. As a part of their twisted traditional identity in the film, they have an “obsessive need to preserve and memorialize the past” [2]. He argues that the cannibal family signifies the latter in the binary opposition of “everythingness” and “nothingness”. They embody silence, lack, and death in “an entire shutting down of the play of signification”. He draws this conclusion from the idea that the aesthetic scream is the "cynosure of signification", as even in literature it has no definite representation. Filmmakers often use aural cues as “semiotic registers of the battle between life and death, order and chaos, and, most importantly, meaning and the utterly incomprehensible.” He argues this binary opposition is reflected in the film through Sally using her scream as her sole weapon against the silence of Leatherface. His characteristic “nothingness” is emphasized through the mise-en-scene of his human flesh mask covering his true face and identity. Also, his phallic chainsaw stands in for the real voice of the non-verbal killer, making the monotone growl of the chainsaw the “roar of the void” ready to consume Sally into this nothingness.

Furthermore, Wood’s analysis of the film suggests an understanding but also a defiance of such strong binary oppositions in the film. He agrees with the notion that tradition and preserving the past prevents life and “crushes the younger generation”. However, relating back to his idea of liberation’s inability to withstand long repression, he links this to the double motif of the film. Noting Franklin’s similarities to Leatherface as “grotesque” and “almost as psychotic”, he distinguishes him from the rest of the disposable group. [10] Franklin also identifies a lot with the Hitchhiker when they pick him up. They obsessively discuss slaughterhouses, blurring the binary opposition of killer vs. victim that Fawver suggests. The Sawyer family’s victimhood is a part of the “degree of ambivalence” they evoke for the audience. Moreover, their impressive creativity is highlighted by the radio report from the opening, calling the Hitchhiker’s play doll corpses “a grisly work of art”. Lastly, their sense of unity as a family, all collectively prevents the audience from “cleanly dissociating” from them. [10] Through this double motif of blurred binary oppositions within the horror genre tropes Hooper successfully conveys the issues of contemporary American life and its cannibalistic tendencies derived from capitalism. Drawing a logical conclusion to what Sharrett suggests is “an exploration of a new sense of absurdity … of the collapse of causality and the diseased underbelly of American Gothic”. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an iconic example of Hollywood New Wave cinema, depicting its keen sense of the counterculture at the time while re-imagining Hollywood classics such as Psycho .

Combining Marxist ideologies and socio-political criticisms of the USA at the time, with the art-house cinema style, Chainsaw takes much from high art and European techniques. This revolutionary slasher employs experimental European elements and the conventional narrative tool of binary oppositions simultaneously. Using the medium of film to its fullest for a complex take on the genre often assumed to be vulgar, Hooper proves that slashers can be both contextually and artistically rich. What distinguishes it from the rest of the films in the franchise is the raw, unpolished sense of realism achieved in the 12, 16-hour production days under the Texas sun. Torturing the cast and crew with peak temperatures cooking and decomposing the real meat props on set. Chainsaw conveys a “sense of a civilization condemning itself” which is what Wood argues the horror genre has come to signify. Overall, acknowledging the complexity of Hooper’s masterpiece certainly gives the audience a deeper understanding and respect for the slasher subgenre. Undoubtedly, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre evokes an intense sensory experience while fully immersing the audience into Sally Hardesty’s nightmare with the Sawyer family on August 18th, 1973.

by Eda Gokcen, March 2024.

Bibliography.

[1]: BBFC. (1975). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Retrieved from BBFC.

[2]: Fawver, K. (2011, October 30). Massacres of Meaning: The Semiotic Value of Silence and Scream in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies(10), 49-57.

[3]: Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1960). Psycho [Motion Picture].

[4]: Hooper, T. (Director). (1974). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [Motion Picture]. USA.

[5]: Leaos&Hedash. (2023, Aug 27). The True Story That Inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Retrieved from Screenrant: https://screenrant.com/texas-chainsaw-massacre-movie-true-story/

[6]: Merritt, N. (2010, February 1). Cannibalistic Capitalism and other American Delicacies: A Bataillean Taste of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Film-Philosophy, 14(1), 202-231.

[7]: Newman, K. (2008, July 5). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Film Plot and Review. Retrieved from Film Reference: http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Str-Th/The-Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre.html

[8]: Sharrett, C. (2004). The Idea of Apocalypse in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In C. S. Barry Grant, Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film (Revised ed., pp. 382-404). Lanham, MD, USA: Scarecrow Press.

[9]: Stommel, J. (2011, April 5). Something That Festers: The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Visual Pleasures of Horror. Bright Lights Film Journal.

[10]: Wood, R. (2018). An Introduction to the American Horror Film. In B. K. Grant, Robin Wood on the Horror Film: Collected Essays and Reviews (pp. 73-110). Detroit, MI, USA: Wayne State University Press.

[11]: Wyeth, A. (1948). Christina's World.

[12]: Zinoman, J. (2022, March 18). Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Lessons Few Horror Films Get Right. The New York Times.

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