The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Sep 22

This time we take a look at the movie that inspired a genre.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the classic teenage road trip gone wrong. Listen as Alex and Kelton breakdown the excruciatingly long scenes, high effort booty shots and reveal the true horror behind the production of this movie.

Episode Transcript:

Kelton 0:12

Welcome back to Feargenics, where we don't just watch scary movies, we devour them. I'm Kelton.

Alex 0:18

And I'm Alex.

Kelton 0:18

and using our industry knowledge will tell you everything you need to know about horror cinema from classic to contemporary,

Alex 0:24

Nice. We're sounding official now that we've gotten an intro. Yeah, it's almost like we're a podcast. It only took us nine months to write that nine months. It's been so long. And I am so glad that we're done with what we were doing over the nine months. Yeah,

Kelton 0:39

I'm so glad to get back to working on Feargenics. It just feels like it's been like five years since I've even thought about this podcast.

Alex 0:46

I think we've both moved to new places.

Kelton 0:49

Oh, yeah, I didn't think about that we both have moved, we have had like, five or six massive projects with tons of deliverables that we've had to do.

Alex 0:59

The spring and summer season is particularly busy for us, because that's when a lot of our clients want to film stuff. And because it's so nice outside, it's really beautiful, wherever located. And because of that our summers are just jam packed,

Kelton 1:13

not enough time to work on the more artsy stuff like podcasts and all the original content. So yeah, it's a breath of fresh air.

Alex 1:21

I even think about that. But aside from eugenics, we're actually starting to kick into more original content again, yeah, just a nice place to be. As an editor, I mean, a lot of content can kind of be samey,

Kelton 1:32

it feels like it's, it feels like there's more control, and you're able to have more creative decision and the stuff you make. And that's always nice when you make stuff. Because I mean, it's yours, you know, you made it at the end of the day, regardless of how much input was yours or someone else's.

Alex 1:48

And it's more fun to talk about, like a lot of the client where, you know, you're not able to really discuss a lot of what you're doing

Kelton 1:55

some sometimes you're not legally allowed to discuss, you're doing so.

Alex 1:59

But like with the original content, not only can we talk about it, but like, we can show it off, like I can post it for you can see it. I don't know,

Kelton 2:07

that's good. And you can kind of get loosey goosey with it not be afraid of going outside of the boundaries because you establish the boundaries that you have yourself. So you breaking them isn't really going to upset anybody. It's just the you taking the show a different direction or whatever.

Alex 2:23

Yeah. all that to say, I'm glad we're back in the studio. By the way, we're in a studio now.

Kelton 2:28

Yeah, yeah, we put up the we put up the sound dampening. It's, it's we've got a lot more space for more panels and stuff. But I mean, it's a good start.

Alex 2:38

Yeah, I think I can hear a little bit of reverb. I don't know if that'll be fixed by the time we get to the next episode. But like it's gonna get a lot better. Yeah, it's funny. You said you have a lot more space. We're actually in a much smaller space than the original first two episodes. Yeah,

Kelton 2:52

our first two episodes were recorded on a set for a different podcast we'd had and it was like a bar, like a giant bar table. And like it was in a studio on a psych wall. So literally as big as it was space we could have Yes, the 10,000 foot studio and now we're in a tiny little office area, which I don't know. I kind of like it. I like how quaint it is.

Alex 3:15

It is a little bit hotter. I don't love that. But I think that's a part of the industry. So I've heard sound booster always kind of hot.

Kelton 3:22

I mean, that's perfect for for the movie we're gonna be talking about today. It's pretty hot. Texas heat.

Alex 3:28

I don't think that's what we watched.

Kelton 3:35

Oh, well, we did not watch Texas he we watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, more classic, directed by Toby Hooper.

Alex 3:42

And it was my first time watching it. But I'm sure for many of you. You've probably seen this movie.

Kelton 3:47

I feel like I've either met people who haven't seen it. Or I've met people who've seen it like six or seven times.

Alex 3:54

This movie in particular, I can really feel the disparity between our knowledge. Like I have some stuff to say about this movie. But like, Kelton has been dwelling on this for a long time. You've seen it eight times now that

Kelton 4:08

we just finished our eighth watch. Yeah, I don't know. It's just always been something that I've been drawn to. It's the the movie that set the standard for horror. I feel like a lot of the tropes in your average horror movie today are just ripping off what Texas Chainsaw Did you know In 1970, and at least

Alex 4:28

the first half of this movie is this movie. The first half is like, so heavily referenced by every other movie that it almost felt like I'd seen it before even on my first watch, and then the movie sort of pivots and the last quarter of it. And it's almost like a whole separate like it's an epilogue almost to the movie. Yeah, that like isn't as heavily

Kelton 4:52

referenced by the horror genre. It continues on its own weird little like demonic tangent of just like Locked up like cannibal stuff? That's not really been done in a movie before?

Alex 5:05

Yeah, I mean, the only like culture point of reference I have for this is Resident Evil seven. Yeah, we were talking about, which was actually kind of a trip for me because I was more familiar with that than I was this movie. So seeing that scene in this movie, a lot of things clicked for me.

Kelton 5:21

Yeah. Just the cannibal the cannibal redneck hillbilly? Yeah,

Alex 5:26

I mean, if you've played Resident Evil seven, in this movie, you'll instantly understand there is

Kelton 5:30

a lot there is a lot of stuff pulled. I feel like from like the current Resident Evil series today from this movie,

Alex 5:39

so I want you to cast your mind back to the first time you watch the movie. How old were you? You know, I

Kelton 5:45

think the first time I watched this movie, I was 18. Okay,

Alex 5:49

what was that? Like? What were your initial impressions on the first watch,

Kelton 5:53

um, I thought it was really gross. And like unsettling, just from an objective standpoint, this movie is not super enjoyable to look at there, there's a lot of attention to detail on the set deck, with the you know, there's bones, and there's tea, and there's just death and steak and rotten meat. And when these things are on the screen, they there's these really strange, these strange noises, these like the way that the score is handled in this and they're the sound effects. They sound just like weird, abstract, abnormal noises. And you're seeing that in combination with this gross shit on the screen. And it's just it fills you with dread.

Alex 6:39

This movie lingers, it lets you look at what you're looking at. For a while,

Kelton 6:43

every single scene, I feel like is extended by 30 plus seconds. At every point that there's extra space to put in shots that continue the scene and make you live there. They do that.

Alex 6:57

On my first watch. I had to pause this movie several times and do something else because I was getting uncomfortable with the scenes like the length of the scenes, like the tension was too much for me to just sit there and consume all at once. Yeah. Things happen here about I see things. So this movie is a roadtrip movie. Yeah,

Kelton 7:25

just for teens and a bored man traveling through Texas.

Alex 7:29

And that's, you know, all it would be if they just stayed in the car. You know, if they didn't make any stops along the way, all they had to do is keep driving. The thing that I think is really interesting about these characters is one. They're supposed to be teens, but they clearly look way too old. Yeah,

Kelton 7:44

they look, you know, some of them look like they're approaching their 30s.

Alex 7:47

They're also like kind of hippies like they're the kind of people who like take a VW ban on a road trip together and pick up hitchhikers along the way. But they're like real douchebags to each other.

Kelton 7:58

Yeah, they're like, it's like they're traveling the world, you know, peace and love. But like the fundamentals were all wrong. Yeah, just like pieces of shit in general.

Alex 8:08

And like, there, there's a person with them. I guess there's actually five. What's the kid's name in the wheelchair? Franklin? Franklin. So Franklin is sort of the odd one out, he's been picked on. He's from Texas. And you can tell that he's, um, you know, maybe grew up on a farm like he's enthused with farm things. Early on in the movie, he's talking about how cows are slaughtered.

Kelton 8:29

He's really obsessed with cows and the way that they're killed. And

Alex 8:34

like he's kind of grossing everybody out. And nobody like wants to give them the time of day. You sort of began the movie, you think Franklin might be the one that like becomes the scary one. Yeah,

Kelton 8:44

he's the one talking about killing animals and stuff, all the all these red flags that you'd have in a killer in

Alex 8:50

a movie. And by the end of the movie, Franklin is almost like the most sensible one. Franklin

Kelton 8:55

has the biggest heart. I feel like like Franklin at every step of the way. You know, when when things get really bad. He's the most concerned about other people

TCM 9:05

that show shorter house. That's what grandpa used to sell his cattle. Hey, we got an uncle that works at one of those places outside of Fort Worth. You see those buildings there? That's where they kill him. They Bash him in the head with a big sledgehammer. Oh, that's awful. It usually wouldn't kill them on the first leg.

Kelton 9:25

I think that this conversation about cows and once they pick up the hitchhiker it is doubled down upon the fundamental lack of empathy that is in this film. Going back to talking about the process of killing the cow but not actually understanding the death that's involved. The hitchhiker has this long conversation with Franklin after they pick them up about the old way of killing the cows was way better with a sledge hammer beating their head in Franklin before they had picked up The hitchhiker was talking about the new way to kill cows, which is basically like a harpoon gun that kind of shoots out a hook and retracts through the skull. And it's way more efficient. And this hitchhikers like no, that's that's the wrong way that the old way they did it, they just beat it with a sledgehammer. It was way better. I don't know why he's from New York now. But yeah. And I think that carries on through the entire movie of just nobody really thinks about life and death. They're just Oh, we got to kill the cows to get the meat. We've got to kill the people to get the people meet

Alex 10:37

the hitchhiker scene when they pick up this hitchhiker off the side of the road. It puts Franklin in context, suddenly, he's entirely normal compared to this man, they pick up who is eccentric, he's has like a little like fur bag, it looks like a rabbit. He's got blood on his face maybe is dirty. And he knows the best way to kill a cow. And that's all he wants to talk about.

Kelton 11:00

Franklin is weirded out by this guy. This guy's suddenly the creep.

Alex 11:05

And this is the first scene where they just linger on it for so long, that I was dying watching it.

Kelton 11:11

It feels like he's sitting in the bandwidth them for hours. It's like real time.

Alex 11:15

It's like the movie occasionally switches into a real time perspective. And like you're with them for the actual amount of time that he was in the van. And it's

Kelton 11:24

very effective, because I feel very uncomfortable in that seat. It feels like you're stuck in this car with this crazy fucking guy.

Alex 11:33

He takes Franklin's picture. And then he demands that Franklin pay him. Franklin doesn't want to pay him. So he freaks out and burns the picture before cutting Franklin's arm and getting kicked out of the car. Oh, and on his way out of the car, he leaves a mark on the side. And blood spooky. Thank goodness, the characters also think it's spooky,

Kelton 11:51

not not enough to stop them from stopping still, for some reason.

Alex 11:57

That's true. I didn't think about that. Like they have the wherewithal to notice that a blood sign on the side of the van isn't good. But not enough smarts to like not go explore abandoned buildings right next to where it happened. Yeah,

Kelton 12:10

like, Oh, that was pretty weird guys, let's just let's just go to this house that we don't know who's at and just walk around for a little bit. It's like the first trope almost, we get another scene of them being dicks to Franklin. He's in a wheelchair. And nobody ever pushes him around. He's on like uneven grass and dirt and stuff. And he's just having to wheel around this house. And they're upstairs having fun exploring the houses. He's just downstairs in his wheelchair pissed off at them for bringing them

Alex 12:41

and you can tell that like they're really they're exploring the house. I'm doing air quotes right now, but they're really just looking for a place to fuck yeah, like everybody's just trying to hook up. And Franklin doesn't have anybody to hook up with and he can't will himself around an abandoned house either.

Kelton 12:54

Yeah. And you really feel like that. That's the moment, man I felt for him before. But that's really the moment where you're like, wow, they're so mean to Franklin. Like Franklin doesn't deserve this at all.

Alex 13:06

So this is the point of the movie. We're getting close to our first death. Yeah, the team split up and two of them end up wandering into the woods. I think they're looking for a swimming hole when they come across a house with a generator running. And this is something they want to go investigate because they're out of gas for their car. So Kirk, right, Kirk goes up, knocks on the door to see if he can borrow some gas.

Kelton 13:29

He starts kind of exploring the house. And that's when we actually get to see leatherface for the first time. And what's actually really interesting about this scene is leather face wasn't really around the actors all that much during this movie. Usually when they saw him it was for the scene and Kirk saw leatherface for the first time in this scene, and the screams were genuine. He was actually startled by this six foot four man wearing a human skin face masks face mask wielding a hammer. And truth be told it's one of the more gruesome death death scenes I've seen in the movie. He strikes him in the head with a sledgehammer, which is pretty fitting because we just had the conversation about the cows being killed with sledgehammers, just a few moments before hits him with the sledgehammer balls on the ground. In the Twitch. It's the twitch that always makes me feel so gross. He twitches like he has brain damage. And you know, this is the 70s like, I feel like even at this time, this would have been too much

Alex 14:41

100% I mean, I don't think this movie is not that gory, like our sort of modern horror movie sensibilities where we're used to seeing really dark situations, a lot of blood, a lot of Gore, I don't think was established at that time. Then seeing this guy, which I think is probably the darkest Part of the movie in terms of like, what a body does with

Kelton 15:03

dies? Yeah, cuz I mean, there's a chance on this movie. And there's still not even that much. But I mean, he uses the chainsaw on the people several times. And it's clearly pretty fake. I mean, he just kind of puts it around them. Yeah.

Alex 15:18

But I could imagine and I haven't seen the the modern remakes of this movie. But a lot of times when people are being cut up, you're seeing like, their back. So you're seeing leather face, like leather faces face in the camera. He's cutting somebody up, and their body essentially is covering the gore. And I imagine in a modern version, they're going to do a reaction shot where you see them actually get cut up, but they don't have that in this movie.

Kelton 15:41

And it was a very low budget movie. I don't know if we've mentioned that yet. But this was shot on a $60,000 budget. I think once he had sent it to a post house, it was around $80,000. To put that into perspective. JOHN Carpenter's Halloween was five times the budget of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that was a shoestring budget. So this is a shoestring of a shoestring budget.

Alex 16:06

Yeah, he can actually see that just with how much the camera struggles and a lot of dark scenes. There's not a ton to talk about here. But the camera is it's so grainy and buttery makes it feel like almost real, like found footage. Like it's not perfect footage.

Kelton 16:23

Yeah. And and and that was how this movie was marketed, or was still pretty new at this time, really, you know, the 60s and 50s and 40s. You you mostly got black and white or which you know, Nosferatu stuff like that are good in their own respects. But having just someone walking around with a camera following a teenager that gets slain. that's a that's a totally new concept to American audiences. And they ran with it. A lot. The trailers it kind of hinted at this being a true story. It's not actually a true story. But you could have full people in 1974, for sure.

Alex 17:04

And it's so plausible, there's nothing in this movie that's implausible, except for maybe how old grandpa is at the end. Yeah, but like, it feels like something that could happen out in the middle of Texas.

Kelton 17:14

Also, none of these actors have a name. No, nobody knows these people. Nobody knows the director, this, this movie, by all accounts came out of nowhere. So nobody had any kind of prior knowledge as to what this movie was.

Alex 17:28

And I think one of the more remarkable things looking at sort of the legacy of this movie, which I think has a pretty long legacy in terms of like, inspiring the genre, but the individual people in the movie, they didn't really go on to do a lot of big things outside of it. For instance, the editor, I was only able to find one other credit and I was an assistant editor gig from three years prior. Which is astounding to me because the editing in this movie is fantastic. Yeah. Also she pulled dual roles as assistant director, which I think shows you know, like this had to be a low budget movie if you editor is also assistant

Kelton 18:03

director, that is not a role that should be

Alex 18:06

crossed over Yeah, they're not like hand in hand job.

Kelton 18:09

Those are two completely different skill sets. And it's like good luck with both of them. Yeah, at the same time.

TCM 18:24

Then you say there's a swimming all around. Yeah. I'd like to go swimming man. There used to be a trail down between those two oceans. We'll see an hour or so. Yeah, see you in about an hour or so.

Alex 18:56

So Pam was waiting outside and Kirk doesn't return from the house

Kelton 19:01

so we actually get one of the most iconic scenes from Texas Chainsaw here and that is the the walking shot the tracking shot of Pam going up to the house when she's about to discover that Kirk had been killed it's a beautiful shot it's like a hero shot from behind also known as a booty shot a booty shot Yeah, beautiful booty shot. And it slowly tracks up to the house with with Pam as she walks and it's it's there's a lot of camera movement in this movie. This is probably the best account of it but the movement in this movie like the camera choreography is great. Very ahead of its time. You don't really see tracking shots like that even you know into the 80s and stuff it this is a very modern thing that I feel like they're doing Yeah, I

Alex 19:53

would call this a very high effort tracking shot. They the camera moves under a swinging bench which is pretty load to the ground. And the camera actually has some upward movement as well. So like somebody is crawling under the bench with the camera, possibly, they don't have to do this shot like the shot could have been done a million different ways. If funnily

Kelton 20:12

enough, they almost did do the shot. It wasn't in the storyboard, and onset Toby Hooper had to argue for this seat to be in the movie, because it wasn't on the storyboard. And people were arguing that it wasn't important. And it was in the movie, and I'm very glad it was because it's probably one of the best shots of the entire movie. It's

Alex 20:32

like just a showcase of skill, really, like you didn't need to be there. But they just decided to flex.

Kelton 20:37

You know, they had no budget and they still made a cool shot. I really think this might have been like from a place of pride. Totally Hooper, he put a ton of effort into this movie. And I think it shows

Alex 20:49

even discussing the shot. But we haven't actually talked about what happens she goes into the house and whether face grabs her and this is when I noticed for the first time that she's got an open back shirt, and he picks her up. And you can tell her face is just a humongous man. It's wild six foot four 300 pounds. And like there's a physicality, like there's no like, special effects going on here. He's just picking this girl up. He walks around to the back of the house. And he just drops around and beat hook. And she's there dangling. And it's like so terrible, especially like, the open back shirt was like wardrobe knew what they were doing. You don't actually see the meat hook going into the back as this movie hides a lot of that stuff, I'm sure for budget reasons or you know, maybe audiences weren't ready. David told me this movie was originally supposed to be PG.

Kelton 21:36

Yeah, Toby Hooper, actually, at one point tried to make this movie PG because pG 13 did not exist yet. So he could not go for a PG 13 rating. It was either rated R or rated PG. And he was a young, aspiring director, and he wanted to be successful. And the best way to do that is having an accessible movie. So somehow he intended to turn Texas Chainsaw Massacre into a parental guidance movie.

Alex 22:05

And I mean, you see, I think there's like remnants of that in the movie, because like being put on a meat hook is like the imagery of it, in my mind is a lot more terrifying than what they actually showed on screen.

Kelton 22:16

Literally. All it was was Gunnar Hansen mother face picking this girl up and setting her down that there was no if you didn't see a meat hook behind her and her screaming, you wouldn't have known that she actually had had any harm done to her.

Alex 22:33

So you know, she dies. That's what happens when you get put on the meat. Yeah,

Kelton 22:36

she's she's on the she's on the meat hook. We're down, Kirk gets sliced up, you know, he just kind of leatherface kind of dips the chainsaw to the left and right of Kirk and like kind of hovers it over him. And leatherface is almost like tracing him. He's kind of like just slight like going to the air to the next beside of them. He's never actually going into we're close to it's very obvious on the screen.

Alex 23:07

But we are now two deaths into the movie. And there's three more to go.

Kelton 23:11

So at this point, the cats out of the bag, actually Oh, no, it's not because they don't know. Yeah,

Alex 23:16

well, the cats not exactly out of the bag, but they know something's wrong. Because these two have been gone for presumably the rest of the day, three or four hours.

Kelton 23:25

Franklin and Sally are at the van. And they're concerned because their friends haven't come back yet. So they start doing what any sensible person would do. And they start wailing on the court. And

Alex 23:37

one of them did go looking for the two missing teams, and he also got killed. So now we're down to three deaths. His is like just another Oh, yeah. Jerry. Yeah, Jerry dies. I don't have much to say about that. Yeah,

Kelton 23:49

Jerry is not very important in this movie. Jerry just dies? Don't I think he Yeah, he didn't do anything.

Alex 23:56

Yeah. So back to the two that are left, and it's dark out now. And I think it's actually dark. I don't think they like shot this during the day and darkened it like I think it's dark outside. Yeah. And they're freaking out. So they start wailing on the horn of the van.

Kelton 24:11

And this is another one of those scenes that it really it feels like you're there with them. it drags on so much that you just feel stuck next to this van. And not only that, you have knowledge that the characters don't have leatherface just killed three people. And they're at this van wailing on the horn in the middle of the night with this guy within within a mile.

Alex 24:38

And the dialog here is also not pristine. Like it's sort of circular. They're concerned and they don't really have much to say other than like, what do we do? What do we do?

Kelton 24:46

It feels almost like improv. There's a point where Franklin decides that you know, he's he discovers that there's no keys in the van and it's funny he says like the same thing like three times at different costs. It This was one of the scenes that kind of felt like very pieced together, they kind of just took the best of what they had.

Alex 25:07

What I like about this scene is the lighting in it. There's only three sources of light is four if you count them in, but there's the two headlights and the flashlight that they're fighting over. And Franklin is in a wheelchair and Sally is sort of like having to reach down so the lighting is low on her face. And you're getting Sally freaking out trying to steal the flashlight. And like the only thing illuminated is her face from the bottom up. It looks very look. Yeah,

Kelton 25:34

she almost looks frantic. And I mean she is very frantic. And the lighting is very eerie. Just the way it shines on her face. I she's like screaming.

Alex 25:45

So they decided to go searching together. My spark going through the woods, Franklin is rolling himself once again. And he decides he needs to take a break. As soon as he says the words hold up a minute. Leather face jumps out of the woods. Close up on leather face. Change. Yeah, like this six foot four 300 pound man was slight silently sneaking through the woods. And to the moment Franklin's,

Kelton 26:12

like, hold on a sec, chainsaw is on and he's getting murdered.

Alex 26:17

It is the only jumpscare in the movie. And it is superb.

Kelton 26:21

And then Franklin's just sitting in the wheelchair with his arms thrown back, like he's on a roller coaster. And leather faces again, kind of just putting the chainsaw near him and tracing as he screams and shakes his arms all over the place. Like he's riding a roller coaster.

Alex 26:39

And this is the start of what I think is one of the best chase scenes I've ever seen in a movie. De long it is I timed it as we watched it. It's an actual five minutes long, almost long enough to be plausibly real time.

Kelton 26:52

A real time,

Alex 26:52

Jason and it is great because Sally as she's running away, like she's not making mistakes, like she's running away in like a reasonable way sprinting, trying doors, trying doors, she jumps through winter, like she's desperate. It's not like Sally is bad at trying to escape. But like she just is so worn down by this five minute sprint that like she can't

Kelton 27:17

escape. And by the end of it, she finally gets away after jumping out the window. And she finds the gas station from the beginning of the movie. We haven't mentioned this yet, but they make a pit stop in the beginning of the movie to get gas and buy some snacks. And we meet

Alex 27:35

stuff like gas station owner, like he's a middle aged man. He doesn't have any gas or he's not that helpful.

Kelton 27:42

And nevertheless, Sally, she makes it back to this gas station and barges through this door and sees him. And at that moment, you're like, Oh, thank goodness, she's safe. She's gotten away from another face.

Alex 27:54

It's a real breath of relief because also this is the first like well lit shot we've seen in five minutes. Like she busts through the store. And like she falls into civilization bills like

Kelton 28:04

there is a moment of peace. I feel like once she's in that door, there's no more. No more of this scary stare at the no more of the scary score playing no more chainsaw noise. It just goes silent. Almost.

Alex 28:17

When she lands in the gas station. She we have a moment of reprieve. And she starts to sort of look around and assessor surroundings and she focuses on this smoker. It's a grill like this guy sells barbecue. But like the camera lingers on this barbecue and the audience starts to make the connection that this meat is probably like the meat we've been seeing in the house

Kelton 28:40

and you you think about it, you put two and two together. And it's almost like she's figuring out what we're figuring out at the same time. And sure enough, the guy comes back in and he's got a potato sack with them. And Sally figures out that he's in on this too. They're all just a bunch of crazy people.

Alex 28:58

And also, it starts to make sense why leatherface didn't just chase her into the gas station.

Kelton 29:03

He just stopped because he knew that he was there. She was essentially falling straight into the trap. And there's also another funny scene after she gets apprehended and thrown in this bag and tossed in the truck. The the father is about ready to take her back to the house from the beginning. And as he throws this woman in the back of a pickup truck and gets into the vehicle and starts in he's about to drive away. He stops and goes he stops, walks back to his gas station and turns off the light closes the door and makes a comment on you know needing to turn the lights off to not drive the electric bill up. And it's just it is so bizarre to me to think about somebody committing the act of kidnapping someone with the intent to kill them and eat them later. And they're more concerned about turning the lights off than the human life in the back of their truck.

TCM 30:00

To lock up and get the lights, cost, electricity isn't enough to drive a man out of business.

Alex 30:09

She gets back in the car and driven back to the house, she just desperately tried to escape. On the way back, this man runs into the hitchhiker from the very beginning of the movie jumps out, just starts wailing on him with a stick, telling him how he screwed up. How like you shouldn't have brought people here. We're learning that he's the one who dug up the graveyard at the beginning, and that he shouldn't have gone back because people might discover that he stole the body parts from the graveyard. They drag her into the house, and they put her at the dinner table leather face was put on some makeup.

Kelton 30:44

Yeah, Love Her face is wearing a different mask. Now. He actually wears three different masks in this movie, Toby Hooper described it as he wears different masks to fit his moods. In the beginning of the movie, we see him in his iconic leather face regular mask. By the time we get back to the house, he's now wearing a grandma mask. Oh, assuming the domestics This is him showing his domestic side. there exists no women in this family. And essentially leatherface serves as everyone he is serves as the thing that is a void in the family. To his detriment. He essentially has no personality. He's completely stripped of personality, and serves the purpose that the family requires him to serve. leatherface is not a trained killer, like a lot of these killer movies are he doesn't necessarily have it as a mission to kill these people. He's more startled. If anything. He's scared that people came to his house and he just wants them to go away. And the best way he knows how is chasing them with chainsaws.

Alex 31:57

Yeah, you get a sense that he he solves all of his problems with the chainsaw. This is the first time we get a sense of the family dynamic. As well as having all of these side characters in the same room. The gas station attendant we discovers the head of the family, the dad leather face and the hitchhiker our sons. And we finally get to meet Grandpa, we also got to meet grandpa who is basically a corpse in a chair. You're still alive. Another face is preparing dinner,

Kelton 32:29

other face actually changes his mask between when the father first gets home and the dinner scene. Notice that Yeah, so when he's preparing the dinner, he's wearing the grandma mask. And once Dinner is served, he's wearing a more I guess, sexy mask. It's got makeup on and it's blond hair instead of gray curly hair. Oh, so this is like bedding the tradition of you dress up for dinner. So there's there's a lot to leather faces character that's very subtle.

Alex 33:00

Now I wouldn't have picked up on that. If I did, I would have just thought it was a continuity error. That's interesting that he's talked about it behind the scenes.

Kelton 33:07

Yeah, because it's not a lot of time between the preparing the dinner scene when he first when the father first gets home. There's a lot of there's a lot of fun BTS stuff to talk about with the dinner scene. primarily in order to simulate that it was nighttime, they had to close all the windows. And it wasn't nighttime. It was the middle of the day in a Texas summer. So it was 100 degrees outside there was no air conditioning in the house and the windows were closed. So at some point, it got up to 125 degrees in this house and movie lighting back then was extremely hot, extremely the HM eyes that were used. And not even to mention another thing. This was a 30 hour day shooting this dinner scene was a 30 hour day because the actor who played the Grandpa, his makeup took 10 hours to be applied. It's brutal. And he said that he would not sit there and have the makeup applied again. So they had to do this see in one day took 30 hours the the set dressing there was a lot of rotten meat used to set dressing that just sat in this hot house with no air conditioning. For hours, they would run to the windows to vomit and just come back to shoot. There was one bathroom for three dozen people during this this day, this marathon day of shooting Gunnar Hansen, the actor of butterface he he had it the worst. The stuff that he was wearing, he got so hot, he actually stunk so bad that the actors would avoid him on set, not only the fact that he was the killer, and you know people that really want to talk to the person that was going to kill them. He just stank and at one point during this scene, he lost his composure trying to get the seed right and there was an asset there was a special effects guard on the knife that he was using. And it wasn't working correctly for the seed. So in this fit of anger anger and frustration he takes it off and actually cuts Maryland burns like physically harms Maryland burns on camera and draws blood. Is that the finger saying? Yes, wow, that's a real cut Jesus, he, he just lost it. And he, he said in that moment, he became leatherface. There, there was a true loss of control in his character. And so that it makes the seed hit a whole lot harder. When you realize that the guy doing it was

Alex 35:29

losing his mind. It's an insane scene by air all the characters are doing insane things. And it's like a frantic scene. Everybody's like sort of jumping around and excited and I can't imagine doing that.

Kelton 35:42

The main point of this scene is them trying to hand a hammer to an old man that can't even care just the even removed from just what was on the screen them trying to let this old man kill this lady. He wasn't even able to swing a hammer, let alone into human life. And it was just so fucked up watching them, like try to put a hammer in his hand.

Alex 36:03

The editing gets really weird and the same. It's almost, it's almost like a montage in 2021. With different audio effects. It would almost look like a YouTube Poop. It's really bizarre. And I wonder if it's because like that scene was such a struggle to film that had to be sort of made in the Edit.

Kelton 36:22

I feel like that mean, they shot for 30 hours. So we can only imagine all the stuff that they've left on the cutting room floor for this scene. They spent 30 hours to get what, five minutes of footage, six minutes of footage.

Alex 36:35

Yeah. How does she escape? I forget. It's like she just like they think she

Kelton 36:39

just gets up. Like I don't know. Like, I think her restraints just give out or something.

Alex 36:44

She just runs out the door, though. She jumps out a window again, another window. Yeah, she jumps out the first window and it's a scene from the second story. Oh, yeah, jumps out the window,

Kelton 36:54

he jumps out the other window because then the hitchhiker follows her out the front door. Those guys are just really not good at chasing people down. They're literally like running and serpentina behind her. Like as she's running away, and in a straight line. The hitchhikers behind her kind of like snaking and then he he's in arm's reach of her and he's kind of like reaching his arm out and like hovering it on her back.

Alex 37:18

Oh, he's got like a knife and he's like, slashing but like he shouldn't be stabbing, you know,

Kelton 37:22

and he's never even close to her. He's just, there's like this little forcefield around her. He can actually grab her.

Alex 37:29

At this point. She's got plot armor. We know.

Kelton 37:33

We know she's surviving. She's been a survivor since since the beginning

Alex 37:36

against the odds. She's surviving the stab wounds. And she makes it out to I guess the country highway.

Kelton 37:44

The highway? Yeah, just the the road front of the house. And we get to meet a random truck driver.

Alex 37:51

Yeah, so she runs out into the street, the hitchhikers right behind her. The truck driver sees him he's Hawking and the hitchhiker throws his arms up and just gets

Kelton 38:00

because he kind of just throws his arms up and like reaches up and over. So like, you know, I guess the guy can see him as he hits him and just stands there and takes it like a champ and then

Alex 38:10

cut to what's obviously like a dummy being run over by a sim

Kelton 38:14

just getting wrecked by a whole last semi truck.

Alex 38:17

It's a hilarious cut because like you would never see something like that in a modern movie unless it was done for like a joke. But that's the only way they could show that back then I was 1974 baby, at least on this budget. So right behind them that leatherface is coming with the chainsaw. The semi truck driver stops he you know gets a sense of something's wrong, grabs his wrench hops out leatherface comes out with a chainsaw and he just trucks the wrench like Hitman style face

Kelton 38:50

head and this random truck driver suddenly becomes like saving the day.

Alex 38:57

Yeah leatherface stumbles drops his chainsaw on his leg cuts himself, I think is a neat detail because at this point in the movie, like we're not we know we're not gonna have any follow up on like, what's going to happen we're in the last moments and like they they take the time to show leatherface may mean himself for no real reason. Also, I just want to point out that the semi truck driver hits the hitchhiker throws, throws the wrench at leatherface and then just takes off running. He's there for just like a minute total and he just solves the whole situation. And then Sprint's away

Kelton 39:32

he disappears I don't know where he goes he is off camera after he hits leatherface in the head there the the car picks up Sally drives away in the truck drivers just walking I guess there'd be

Alex 39:44

no movie if all four teenagers were that guy.

Kelton 39:50

They just need to make a remake of this movie with four truck drivers and they just like killed other phase the moment this like that was weird. What a weirdo I see so many bones in this house and betters and stuff.

Alex 40:03

I better just get out of here.

Kelton 40:04

Let's just go deliver our truckload. convoy rolling out.

Alex 40:11

And then it cuts to credits. There's no music in this last scene. You just have Sally freaking out you ever screaming. And then she gets picked up. She's writing in the back of the truck watching mother face, swing the chainsaw. And it's just not sound. There's no I mean, obviously, it's not actually the natural sound but like just like weird like, it's like leatherface breathing and like swinging the chainsaw and there's no music.

Kelton 40:35

Yeah, it's a pretty, it's a honestly, it's pretty beautiful at the end, like the shot of him swinging it around. There's like the sun flare. There's a lot of beautiful shots in this movie for 1974. I mean, we watched the remastered version, but it's almost insane how good it looks for being as old as it is. I guess the digital remaster just really did do a ton of work.

Alex 40:59

But also like the cinematography, the blocking of a lot of these scenes is just like, really well done.

Kelton 41:06

It's timeless. It makes sense why this is a cult movie, because objectively speaking, that tracking shot looks great. No matter when it was shot. That was a well done, you know, piece of cinema. Some of

Alex 41:18

the shots in it, I almost feel like we're off the cuff. Because like the continuity in this movie is not perfect. Like the color balance is all over the place.

Kelton 41:28

There's there's scenes where the clothes clearly look different.

Alex 41:33

And I almost get the sense that like occasionally they'll see a shot. Like they were walking through the woods and they saw this really nice framing with like a sunset. They're like, we have to film this even though it doesn't fit perfectly into the movie in terms of like seeing continuity. Like they just happened to be there at that time.

Kelton 41:50

You wonder if they were just looking out for cool stuff.

Alex 41:53

Yeah, they chose the most beautiful option even if it wasn't like perfect in the story. But

Kelton 42:01

what do you think of it? What did you think of the horror classic Toby Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Alex 42:10

I was so stressed the first time I watched it, like I said, I had to watch it. And four or five chunks of pausing it. And then like I was like doing the dishes like go back and watch the more of it. This is gonna sound weird to say but like, things this movie presents are so well tread in the industry nowadays. That like it wasn't boring. But like the first half of this movie, I felt like I had seen it before, like a bunch of teenagers, like doing some exploration in places they shouldn't explore ignoring bad signs. There's a killer chasing them. And then the movie, you know, takes a hard left turn and like does this whole family dinner scene which is totally unique to this movie? Yeah, that's something that other horror movies didn't copy as much. But the first half of this movie was well tread territory. And it was a bit of a struggle for me to get through. But I did like it's a good movie. The more I read about this movie, the more I learned about this movie, the more it seems like this movie never should have happened or worked. But watching it, it feels so natural. And

Kelton 43:13

it's great. Even the fact that they got through production is a testament like, there are so many points in which this movie could have failed because an actor didn't want to be in it anymore. And what's also really funny about this movie, is that ultimately, it didn't lead to anything for anyone but Toby Hooper, none of the actors really got any more work after it. And as successful as it was, it didn't even make that much money. Bryanston which is the name of the company that distributed the rights that had the distribution rights there and $12 million off of this movie, but mysteriously, they only claimed 1 million of the dollars. And turns out the owners of Bryanston were Joe and Lou Purina, and they were members of the Colombo crime family. And it's believed that they used it to pay like mob like the mafia. And they actually began doing this when they muscled their way in to acquire the rights to deep throat weird. So even from a financial standpoint, all the success led to nothing. It really just feels like this movie exists to be admired for what it is and everything else tangentially surrounding it is just it is what it is. It made no money. None of the actors got more work. It was a horrible sad experience. But you know, we enjoy the movie at the end of the day. And it led to the creation of more horror movies it set a foundation and it's it's really cool to just compare those negative real world aspects and compare that to the positive aspects that had on horror movies as a whole. The definition of you know, take the good with the bad.

Alex 44:58

Yeah. So what did you think of it? I feel like I know the answer. You've seen this movie so many times.

Kelton 45:03

I feel like the more I watch it, the more I just it. I Toby Hooper was ahead of his time, he made a movie that would sell today. Um, and I don't necessarily know if that's to say that horror is easy. I don't I don't think horror is easy, per se. But if you are very conscious with what you put on screen, you can create a terrifying experience. Um, he didn't spend a lot of money, he didn't have big actors, the scenes are so simple. And ultimately, what I take away from that is, it's it's a very respectable movie, um, being being able to create that experience with what you did with the money you had and the resources you have at your disposal. It's great. And it's it's timeless. And I think any horror fan should watch it. I think it's a required watch if you really want to get into horror. Yeah,

Alex 45:51

I feel like it was illuminating for me to watch. I don't think I'm going to watch it again. But it was it's good to see like, sort of a foundational moment for the horror genre. I'm sure in the future movies we watch. I'm going to be referencing this movie a lot.

Kelton 46:06

Yeah, the first two movies we covered, you know, they're good. They're good. And you know, I hold them very dearly, but no, no mount no amount of how much I like Texas Chainsaw or dislike Texas Chainsaw changes the fact that this was a very influential movie, and regardless of you know, your opinion on it, it has to be acknowledged as something that set the standard for the future of horror movies today.

Alex 46:30

Absolutely. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about with this movie?

Kelton 46:34

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I'll just tag it on at the end here. Nobody on set actually liked Franklin. And they didn't talk to him between takes. They were actually been to Franklin, off camera too.

Alex 46:52

The Cruz method acting?

Kelton 46:55

Well, no, he actually talked about it. He was a theatre actor Franklin was and yeah, he method acted. So he was like a whiny bitch.

Nobody wanted to talk to. But yeah, that was the last thing I had to say.

Alex 47:20

Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Feargenics. I know it's been a long time coming. And if you are thirsty for more Feargenics content. We have a Patreon that has a special podcast called The Witching Hour where you can hear Kelton and I do a little we're a little fast and loose. Yeah, it's a post episode discussion. You know, whatever's on our mind,

Kelton 47:44

whatever we're feeling that day.

Alex 47:46

And we do that after each episode of Feargenics. So the is so there's one for Goodnight, mommy. And there will be one for Texas Chainsaw massacre at patreon.com/feargenics go check us out on social media. Thank you so much to intercut productions, the newest member of our team for buying us beer for this episode.

Kelton 48:05

Thanks, Nick. Well, we're sorry we took so long this time around. But thank you for joining us on our descent into madness and we'll see you next time. Bye. Later.