With Tarantino, Kevin Williams, and Wes Craven, the 1990s saw the emergence of self-aware horror films like the over-rated “Scream” series, in which characters perpetually undercut the terror by mouthing off. Just like over-explanation, you can’t be too scared if you’re able to maintain a dry cool wit. While these films may work as comedies or treatises on horror films, they don’t stand alongside crazed, unflinching opuses like “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” or the 1922 “Nosferatu,” in which fear is so ubiquitous that all but basic motor skills seem to be smothered out of the characters. Still, garish as “TCSM” is, it lets slip in just a few splashes of humor. Leatherface always wears a necktie. The dinner scene is so extreme and so insane that it lies somewhere between Dante and Monty Python. But, for the most part, “TCSM” wisely leaves out many opportunities for humor so that you can make hilarious understatements with your friends on the ride home.
I’ve seen “TCSM” once (and probably don’t need to see it again) at a midnight screening of a battered old 35mm print. It should not be watched on television or DVD or earlier than 10:30. It should never be restored. Rather, it should be periodically restored, then the restorations should be run through projectors 80 or 90 times to acquire the proper level of batteredness. And yes, the movie gave me a nightmare, in the early morning, in which I was separated from my pocketknife and my cigarette lighter and was being chased by a banal, middle-aged cannibal, who looked like the dad of someone I work with. In the middle of a neighborhood street he came at me with barbecue tools while I took him on with a steel file and a dinner fork. I managed to stab him in the face, but before he died he said his brother had gotten his sons jobs in factories several states over. They were all over the country. The empty air felt very threatening. Yes, this is the kind of movie that will do that to you.
It also, incidentally, features one of the most inspired titles of all time.
Finished Saturday, October 8th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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