LEATHERFACE AND THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: A DOUBLE BILL OF SICK HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. (1974) PRODUCED, DIRECTED AND CO-WRITTEN BY TOBE HOOPER. STARRING MARILYN BURNS, PAUL A. PARTAIN, EDWIN NEAL, JIM SIEDOW AND GUNNAR HANSEN AS 'LEATHERFACE.'
LEATHERFACE. (2017) EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY TOBE HOOPER. DIRECTED BY ALEXANDRE BUSTILLO AND JULIEN MAURY. STARRING STEPHEN DORFF, FINN JONES, LILI TAYLOR, SAM STRIKE, NICOLE ANDREWS AND SAM COLEMAN.
What can I say about THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, the late great Tobe Hooper's horror masterpiece? I can't even begin to describe the shock, revulsion and sick excitement it must have engendered in the cinema-goers of the day, who were being subjected to something that was, at the time, completely new and outrageously f**ed-up.
F**ked-up is the only way to describe Leatherface and his backwoods family, who live amongst the very evidence of their horrific crimes without batting a moral eyelid and who add to these crimes whenever the opportunity presents itself.
This particular summer, a golden opportunity presents itself in the form of a bunch of five hippy-ish young people who are trawling the backwoods of America, looking for an old house where some of their relatives used to live. Big mistake, flower children. They'll curse the day they ever took to the roads of rural America in their hippy freak-bus...
They arrive at their destination, after picking up a murderous hitch-hiker who puts the willies up them big-time, to find that the little town is currently experiencing a disturbing spate of grave-robbings. Very Burke and Hare, isn't it? Ominous beginnings, people, ominous beginnings indeed...
They find brother and sister Franklin and Sally's grandparents' house, now abandoned and being gradually taken back by Nature, as is the way of these things. A shortage of gasoline for their hippy bus leads them wander over to the neighbours' house like lambs going voluntarily to the slaughter. This house isn't abandoned at all...
This house is occupied by America's sickest family. Leatherface, the most memorable family member, is so-called because he likes to wear the faces of his victims over his own mug. After he's peeled the skin from their skulls, that is, and they needn't necessarily be dead when this atrocity is committed, either. Although the hammer he uses to clobber 'em with and the chainsaw with which he severs their limbs first render 'em nicely unconscious for a bit, at the very least.
You'll think immediately of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin murderer and skin-stealer who inspired Robert Bloch to write his phenomenal horror novel, PSYCHO, which was then made into a film by master director Alfred Hitchcock. You'll think of people who are dead but fully-dressed, sitting round a table with food and drink set in front of them in a macabre parody of life.
You'll think then of Buffalo Bill, the murderer in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, the one who made Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lector look like a pussycat. You'll think of lampshades and dresses made from human skin and your own skin will crawl as with the prickling of a million crazed fire-ants...
Marilyn Burns as Sally, The Last Girl Standing, does a magnificent job here as the-girl-in-a-horror-film-running-away-from-the-villain. Her hair is long and blonde, her perky tits look amazing in that lilac tank top she sports and her ass even more so in the tight white hippy jeans that flare out at the ankles. It's an absolute pleasure to watch this beautiful girl running for her life.
What she's subjected to in the House of Leather(face!) can't be erased with a lifetime of psychotherapy, even if the therapist has a lie-down couch and real Kleenex instead of bargain-basement snotrags, lol. Her screaming is fantastic and, if you look closely at her eyes, you'll see that she looks genuinely terrified the whole time she's tied up.
Either she's a brilliant horror actress, maybe even the best one of all time, or she was really spooked by the scenes she had to play. I wouldn't be surprised. Surely even to merely act in such a film is to be somehow infected by its sense of unreality and nightmarish horror.
You can say this for the Leatherface family, though. They don't differentiate between the abled and the differently-abled (lol!) when it comes to murder. They operate a strict policy of Equal Opportunities in this area, and they also make a real effort to include their elderly grandparents in family activities. That's extremely heartening to see. Being dead, or nearly dead, is no object. No object at all...
The brand-new movie LEATHERFACE is the back-story of this iconic horror villain, who quite honestly makes Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers look like Salvation Army carol singers, he's so utterly messed-up and inhuman-seeming. Here's what the promotional material says about this hotly anticipated prequel:
'When the original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE burst onto the scene in 1974, a new horror legend was born, in the form of a mumbling, bumbling, flesh-masked, chainsaw-wielding maniac- Leatherface! Seven films and untold gruesome deaths later, audiences can finally find out who lurks behind the mask- and how he got there- in this stylish, scary and blood-soaked sequel...
The directors- masters of horror Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury- are a perfect fit for the material, having shocked audiences with their 2007 gory Gallic debut INSIDE, described by TWITCH as 'one of the harshest, most brutal and disturbing things to hit celluloid in recent years.' Here, the pair deliver brooding menace and nightmarish psychological horror, all the while ratcheting up the tension to the ninth degree...
With a fantastic cast- including genre favourites Stephen Dorff (BLADE) and Lili Taylor (THE CONJURING), as well as GAME OF THRONES star Finn Jones- this is a worthy addition to the CHAINSAW franchise, and a thrilling examination of the genesis of a monster who is ranked alongside Freddy and Jason as one of the greatest horror characters ever.
This eagerly-awaited home entertainment debut of this slick, sick horror flick will have horror fans drooling with delight.'
I wasn't expecting much from this prequel-slash-back story to horror's creepiest villain (I was so NOT drooling!), but this film is actually excellent. It's well-made, well-written, well-plotted and shockingly violent. I found the violence almost sickeningly hard to handle, but I've no complaints at all with the storyline.
Sometime in the mid-'Sixties, a greenhorn young nurse called Elizabeth White joins the staff of Gorman House, a psychiatric facility for disturbed young criminals, most of whom will be transferred to prison when they turn eighteen because society just can't handle 'em.
Elizabeth fondly imagines that she can 'help' these troubled young 'uns and 'make a difference' to their grim, awful lives. This is possibly the worst case of self-delusion you'll ever have seen in the history of cinema. She seriously needs to wake up and smell the Electric Shock Therapy...
Instead of 'helping', the following happens. After a riot that was almost inevitable given the terrible under-staffing of this kids' jail, Elizabeth finds herself a hostage on the run from the police, along with three messed-up male inmates and a female one who's more violent than the three lads put together.
Well, we coulda seen all that coming, given the state of the place. Inmates coming and going as they please with barely even minimal supervision? No wonder there's a f**king breakout.
Well, we coulda seen all that coming, given the state of the place. Inmates coming and going as they please with barely even minimal supervision? No wonder there's a f**king breakout.
One of the guys is Jedediah Sawyer, the son of backwoods hillbilly-trash mother Verna Sawyer. Taken away from Verna and her brood of murderers ten years ago and placed in care, Jed Sawyer has a new name now, given to him by the authorities at Gorman House as per their policy.
Verna has by now come into a few bucks and she wants her boy back, but she doesn't know what new name he was given or what he looks like now. Will the rotten apple somehow instinctively find his way back to the tree that gave him life, and just how many casualties will
fall by the wayside before this can happen...?
The motley crew of escapees, with a terrified Nurse Elizabeth unwillingly in tow, are hotly pursued by a police officer who bears a personal grudge against the Sawyer brood. His daughter's death at the hands of the white-trash Sawyer family a decade ago is one of the most horrifically violent I've ever seen on-screen, I think. It's a stand-out moment in a film full of graphic stand-out moments, including a smidgeon of necrophilia which is always good for a giggle, lol.
In case you hadn't worked it out (ah, come ON...!), one of the three male escapees is the Sawyer boy who goes on to become Leatherface. You'll have great fun trying to work out which of the three it is. Let's face it, they're all nut-jobs. Any one of them could quite easily go on to be the serial killer who likes to wear the faces of his victims. Whichever one you're guessing, you're so wrong, haha...!
Don't forget to watch the Alternative Ending, which you'll find in the extra features that come with the film. Watch it right to the end. It's sick and very disturbing. What's so frightening about films like this is that the things in them could happen. You don't know what kind of weirdo lives next-door to you or what kind of nutter you might encounter on a trip or holiday somewhere.
Be very careful, that's what I say. Never ever go into a stranger's house unless someone else knows you've gone there. That way, if and when you go unaccountably missing, there's just the smallest chance they'll find your faceless corpse...
LEATHERFACE is out now on digital download from LIONSGATE.
ON EST: 18TH DECEMBER 2017.
ON DVD: 8TH JANUARY 2018.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
Will check this out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed!
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