Let’s talk about people talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, fifty-one years old next week. (October 11th, 1974.)
This is an odd documentary. I definitely appreciated the approach. If you’re in the know about ‘saw—to where you know to call it ‘saw—you probably know all of the behind-the-scenes stuff. The heat, the danger, the madness of it all. And if not, Tobe Hooper’s director commentary is still around and great listening. And if that’s not enough, there’s Joe Bob Briggs’ 10,000 word essay for Texas Monthly magazine, which he’s turning into a full-length book.
So, sure, tell me how other artists have been influenced by it. Oh, three out of five are raging leftists? Well, we’ll be fine as long as they stick to the movie.
Patton Oswalt
The movie begins with an extensive interview with Patton Oswalt. This is kind of amusing from the standpoint of “When you think horror, you think Patton Oswalt.” It’s quite fun, because Oswalt’s just a fan boy. He says he’s seen ‘saw thirty times, and you can buy that. He’s calling out the little details that make the movie great (and also would be a little hokey if they were more pronounced, like the “arm chair”) and he’s drawing comparisons to Nosferatu (1922), which are probably a little strained but not too bad. And also Gone With The Wind—in particular when Rhett “rapes” Scarlett, comparing it to Leatherface grabs Pam off the porch.
And he’s doing a little bit of just jerkin’ off, which, honestly, is fine in this context. We’re not looking for serious scholarship, really, and maybe ‘saw really is an apocalyptic film where the evil sun has driven everyone insane, and the Final Girl is going to escape the house only to discover the whole world has gone mad.
Good enthusiasm and genuine love of the film.
Takashi Miike
The second interview is terrific, too. Takashi (First Love, Rinne) claims that he was off to see City Limits, the Charlie Chaplin classic, and the showing was sold out. Rather than waste a trip into town, he decides to go see The Devil’s Sacrifice (TCM’s Japanese title) instead, on the premise that it might a pink film (Japan’s softcore erotica genre). He gets something entirely different, of course.
In the great quote from the doc:
For the first time, I felt that movies could be something dangerous. As I watched the film, the characters became more endearing. I started to feel affection for them. By the end, I was rooting for them and laughing out loud.
Neat. Miike is one of these Japanese directors with over a hundred credits to his name, most famously Ichi The Killer, Audition and 13 Assassins, and his take on ‘saw is interesting and amusing. If you’ve seen any of his horror, you’ve probably noticed how much you tend to identify (very uncomfortably) with the monsters.
He shot his first movies in 16mm and blew them up, because that’s how ‘saw was shot and he liked the effect. According to Takashi, Japanese filmmakers were excited by the film, but couldn’t really imitate it: They needed their own native genre (J-Horror, of course).
He also reiterates the theme I’ve heard many times from Japanese people: This movie made Japanese people think Texas was very dangerous.
And he never did see City Limits.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Third up was Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Yeah, I didn’t know who she was either, but turns out she’s a horror documentarian. A scholar, if you will, of various genres and subgenres that comprise horror. She has a feminine bent, writing (e.g.) 1000 Women In Horror, and she talks a bit about the gatekeeping that she experienced growing up. ‘saw was an older boy thing, but when she saw it, she loved it.
Also, she’s Australian, a country ‘saw was banned in for a decade. When she finally saw the film it was a worn tape made from a worn print and, like Oswalt, she comments on how that graininess was integral to the experience, the danger, the idea of watching something forbidden.
Now, I’m gonna interject here and say, I, too, saw a grainy VHS of ‘saw for my first experience and it left me “meh”. There’s an extended scene of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) chasing Sally (Marilyn Burns) through the desert chaparral in near pitch blackness, and on an 18″ screen (if it was even that big), I couldn’t see a damn thing.
When I took my kids to see the restoration in a movie theater, I found that one of the most gripping moments of the movie, like a horror version of Lawrence of Arabia‘s long desert shot.
Anyway, Heller-Nicholas was interesting, particularly in how she related ‘saw to the Australian experience. Parts of Texas and the Outback have a lot in common, and she made the obvious (to horror fans if not American general audiences) connection to Wolf Creek, as well as some interesting and more obscure connections to Australian films like Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and 1971’s Wake In Fright, which predates ‘saw but seems to foreshadow it as well.
It was a refreshing take, like Miike’s, on otherwise well-traveled ground,
Stephen King
And then this guy shows up. Now, I’m not the biggest King fan, but he knows horror. And I will credit him this much: He doesn’t bring up politics. He is the only one of the five who swore at all, and he did so profusely and tediously. (You know, writers are good with words and all.)
The problem is, he brings up lots of things, and doesn’t even do an Oswalt reach, tying whatever it is he’s rambling on about back to ‘saw. We hear about the camera on the 2x4s from Evil Dead and how he got hit by a van and Joe (who seems like a good son, quite apart from being a good writer) brought in a video setup and they watched Blair Witch Project, which is also a low-budget horror movie unlike The Shining which is “cold” and overpriced. You know he has to bring up The Shining, because it’s the best horror adaptation of his work precisely because it inverts his self-centered worldview.
Oh, right: ‘saw. We were talking about ‘saw, ostensibly.
I get it: You get King for your horror doc, you gotta showcase him. Even if he’s rambling. But unlike the first three interviewees, one never gets the sense that he’s a fan of ‘saw—it’s just another flick in an unending stream of horror content. I haven’t read much King, maybe a dozen books, but I’ve never seen anything really ‘saw-like in his work, and if it had influenced him, this would’ve been the time to mention it.
He knew Tobe Hooper personally, but apparently only to the extent of both having cameos in Sleepwalkers.
There’s a scene in King’s Maximum Overdrive where had the SFX crew put a water balloon full of blood in front of a steamroller (rolling over a child), and the balloon exploded, spattering everyone. King (“coked out of my mind”) loved the shot, which was ultimately censored. I had always heard he loved the shot so much he sent a picture to Hooper, but he doesn’t mention that here. (I’m probably remembering wrong. He might have sent it to George Romero, but Romero was allegedly doing most of the direction on Overdrive while King was in rehab.)
Anyway, the only place this ramble gets interesting is when the (usually unheard, off-screen interviewer) asks about the social/moral implications of horror, and King says something to the effect of, that’s not the artist’s domain. The problem of what people should or shouldn’t see is a problem for censors.
This is immediately followed up with a story about how Rage, one of the Bachman books, may well have inspired a school shooting, so King stopped republication of that book.
Well. I guess this is interesting, but is it germane? Has ‘saw inspired a lot of copycats?
A big wasted opportunity. You could’ve put Joe Bob Briggs here or, hell, you could put me here, and I could’ve done better.
But things were about to get much worse.
Karyn Kusama
If I understood Karyn Kusama correctly, she’s seen ‘saw twice, the second time in preparation for this documentary. In the first breath, she uses the words “privilege” and “patriarchy” and I got up to take The Wiz. (The Boy filled me in; I missed nothing.)
Kusama directed the spectacular flops Aeon Flux and Jennifer’s Body—neither of which may be her fault—before directing the creepy, modestly budgeted horror The Invitation. Unlike Oswalt’s fan-boying reaches, Kusama’s reach is in service of The Message.
For example, she says Tobe Hooper was looking fifty years into the future. I get that she was a grade-schooler in the ’70s, but Hooper was looking squarely into the present. ‘saw came out a couple of months after Nixon resigned. We had gas rationing. We had radical leftists bombing things. We had mainstream porn. We had stagflation. There’s a reason Joe Bob Briggs says this is the first true counter-culture picture.
And here Ms. Kusama says everybody’s privileged. The white kids—you know, the ones about to be brutally murdered—are privileged because they get to take a van to visit a house in the middle of nowhere that one has inherited. The cannibals are privileged because they expect to be able to keep their jobs as slaughterhouse killers.
As opposed to Miike who came in sympathizing with the normies and left sympathizing with the monsters, Kusama is above the whole thing.
She’s on record as saying it’s a great arthouse film, but she’s on record as having seen Reds fifteen times. As a Brooklyn-born film-school graduate, Kusama might look in the mirror for privilege.
Much like King, she didn’t actually have much to add to the conversation. Speaking of wasted opportunities, you could put a good parodist here and gotten something that was at least amusingly insufferable.
But Apart From That…
On the three-point documentary scale:
- Subject matter is fine. It’s very fun in parts, even when it goes off the rails turning attention to detail into deeper meanings.
- The presentation is kind of cool. For a movie that’s basically talking heads, there are some nice shots and cinematographer Robert Muratore (Cannibal! The Musical) puts more care into the proceedings than some narrative films I’ve seen lately. Editor David Lawrence keeps things tight. Composer John Hegel—who also worked on Cannibal! The Musical—sets the mood well.
- Slant? Pro-‘saw. How could it be otherwise? Hacky, sophomoric Marxism aside, 80% of the movie is on point. Would it be interesting to do a “pros” and “cons” of ‘saw? Maybe, but it seems unlikely to happen.
Director Alexandre O. Philippe seems to be a movie geek, with a collection of documentaries under his belt, some of which occasionally have broken through the general consciousness. The People vs. George Lucas and Lynch/Oz are very fan-oriented, but I think his strongest work is deep-dives into iconic moments, like 78/52 which is entirely about the Psycho shower scene. Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist is one that gets played and replayed in theaters here a lot.
An interesting thing to me was how much the same scenes kept coming up. The meathook scene (which is not at all graphic—the whole movie is largely implication), the porch scene, the first kill, etc. (Again, one way you can tell Oswalt’s a fan is that he brings up scenes nobody else does.)
And of course, the ass scene is as iconic a scene as there is. I mentioned in my review of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D how I’d walked into a theater in the early ’00s and saw a trailer of Jessica Alba’s butt and said “Oh, they remade Texas Chainsaw Massacre!” I recently learned Hooper loved that butt…er…trailer.
Anyway, I can sorta recommend this. If you’re a fan and have lots of fan friends, you’re probably going to be able to have your own interesting conversation about it, but even if you have your own Oswalt, you probably don’t have your own Miike or Heller-Nicholas. You can turn it off when King shows up.
