Tobe Hooper grew up around film.  If he wasn't watching movies in the Texas theater managed by his father, he was using their Austin home as backdrop to his inventive 8mm films.  It is reported that as of the age of three, Tobe was camera in hand and creating a love affair with film that has never stopped.  But no matter the fact that Tobe has directed fifteen feature films and as least as many television series/episodes, he will always be known for his second work amongst the throngs of his fans.  What Hooper had created was a film that audiences were hungry for, but the censors and moral right were simply not prepared for.  He had created a film that to this day has a reputation for being twice as gory as it actually is, for being twice as horrific as it actually is, for going twice as far as it actually does, and in the strangest phenomenon of them all, for being believed by audiences to have actually happened even after 30 years of cast, crew, historians and law enforcement testifying to the opposite.  What Hooper had created was something cinema had not seen before.  What Hooper had created was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It all started with a visit to Montgomery Wards department store during the busy holiday season.  Hooper, not being a fan of crowds in general, was not prepared for the amount of people that he would be mingling with and while in the hardware department he noticed a bank of chainsaws.  Immediately the idea fell upon him that if he wanted these people out of his way and a straight shot out of the store, all he would need to do was fire one of these suckers up and rev that engine!  At the time, he was already in the early brainstorming stages of a horror film dealing with isolated locales and feelings of helplessness, so it wasn't long before his mind put two and two together.

Hooper was in possession of a decent amount of knowledge of Mr. Ed Gein, the Wisconsin serial killer who murdered two women and dug up the corpses of over a dozen more in an attempt to surround himself with some sort of bizarre effigies of his dead mother, although Tobe has said before that he did not remember the murderer's name.  Gein's treatment of the bodies once he claimed them ranged from making objects such as lampshades, knife sheaths, soup bowls, furniture and the occasional suit of women's skin out of various body parts, to hanging and gutting the body like a deer and eating the organs while saving the rest in his refrigerator.  An interesting character to be sure and one who would need very little to carry his own horror flick.  In fact, all he would need, thought Hooper and fellow scripter Kim Henkel, was one of those growling chainsaws and maybe a couple wacko family members.  Next stop, open casting.

While most of the crew spots were merely a0warded to acting students and faculty from the college where Hooper was on staff (University Of Texas), there was a casting call that went out for a horror movie that was to begin filming soon.  Not much else was disclosed and as luck would have it, most of the eventual actors heard about it from a friend of a friend.  Folks showed up, were interviewed, performed readings, and were cast, as was the case with Edwin Neal (The Hitchhiker). But the process went a little different for a gentleman by the name of Gunnar Hansen.  Gunnar is of Nordic descent and shares the large physical frame and features of his ancestors, and when he arrived he was simply asked if he was crazy or violent.  When he answered to the negative, Tobe asked if he could be.  Gunnar of course said "yes" and got the part instantly.  Truth be told, Hooper had already made his decision based on the fact that Hansen filled up the entire doorway when he entered the audition room!  The film had found its Leatherface (so named for the masks of skinned human faces that he wears).

Now that the film had its villains, a location was chosen on the outskirts of Austin, Texas called Quick Hill.  While no longer there (the "family" house was moved and the "grandparent's" house burned down), the locations can still be visited and traces of the old landmarks visible.  These houses are idealistic in their run-down and dusty glory and have inspired the homes of mass murders for generations of filmgoers after.  Next time you watch House Of 1000 Corpses or Wrong Turn you'll see just what I am talking about.

--  For a visit of your own to the locations of TCM, the very best descriptions and directions can be found (along with just about anything else you could ever want to know about Chainsaw, its cast/crew, or its aftermath) at texaschainsawmassacre.net; a brilliant and brimming with love site from uber-fan Tim Harden.  There is plenty to read and see here to keep you occupied for a good long time!--

After taking what he knew of Ed Gein's homestead, Hooper went about having the entire home decorated with animal bones, carcasses and various other grotesqueries; an undertaking that was neither easy nor easily tolerated when filming inside in the 100+ degree Texas heat.  During one scene a lack of extra masks for "Grandpa" (John Dugan) necessitated the need for a 26 hour shoot...in 104 degree weather.  "The dinner scene" as it has come to be known also featured a table full of head cheese and various meats...both of which would rot within a very short time due to the sweltering heat and the fact that the windows had to be covered to keep for even lighting during the lengthy shoot.  In fact, the food rotted so fast that the crew was forced to inject formaldehyde into the sausages to keep them from deteriorating; this of course produced an interesting fume scenario of its own.  Combine this with a house fully decorated with animal bones and carcasses and several bone light fixtures that were catching on fire because of the heat of the bulbs and what you got was a truly disgusting experience that went on for more than an entire day.  Multiple members of cast and crew would venture outside to vomit and be ill due to the thick, sticky stench of rot and decay.  A horrifying task to be sure, and one not forgotten by any of the actors.

Even given these harsh conditions, some of the actors faired much worse than others.  Actor Gunnar Hansen was only given one set of clothing for his Leatherface persona, as the dyes used to color his wardrobe were feared to wash out in water.  Consequently, Hansen was forced to run about, flail wildly, capture, kill, mutilate, and generally chainsaw the hell out of folks for the entire shoot in the pounding heat of Texas without ever washing his duds.  This made the poor guy smell a whole lot worse than "bad" and even cost him the cold shoulder from the rest of the cast, who would not sit near him or even hold lengthy conversations.

In the documentary The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait, Hansen recalls a time when, while running after a fleeing Marilyn Burns (Sally) through a heavily wooded area, the lifted heel-pieces in his boots (used to increase his 6' 4" frame to an impressive 6' 7") caused him to slip and fall.  His still-running chainsaw became airborne and was lost in the light of the sun and Gunnar was forced to merely cringe and wait for it to fall...and quite possibly kill him.  Of course this did not happen and for the most part the cast of this low budget film remained safe.  However, in this same scene, Marilyn gets torn up so badly by the trees and bushes that much of the blood on her clothing is actually her own! Then there is the accounting of Edwin Neal (The Hitchhiker) of his death scene in which he lies broken on a Texas roadway after being run down by a semi.  As a cloud passed in front of the sun and the production was halted until the light for the shot matched, he was forced to hold in the same position...a position which made the skin of his face actually cook on the hot Texas asphalt.  There is nothing like hearing your own skin sizzling on a grill of pavement!

Nothing that is except hearing the sound of a roaring chainsaw!  Nearly the most terrifying sound in existence (except possibly your collection of Brittany Spears albums...you know you have 'em!), there was almost enough power in just this audible cue to send audiences sinking into their theater seats.  But more than the horror of what you could see or hear in Texas Chainsaw is the horror of what you can't!  If you talk to just about anyone who has seen TCM and ask them what they remember about it, they will say they remember the GORE!  "The part where the meathook sticks through that girl!"  "The part when the guy gets cut in half with a chainsaw!"  "The blood flying all over the place...eww...so gross!"  The true power of Texas Chainsaw is that none of these things are necessarily true.  There is barely any gore at all, in fact, and what little there is is far from graphic.  What audiences remember is the gritty reality of it all.

The fact that the film was shot in such a dusty and barren setting combined with the fact that the film stock used is grainy at best and gives a documentary style feeling to the footage created all that was needed to make the average moviegoer a little uneasy.  It is humorous to ponder that audiences walked out of sneak preview screenings of this film when the gore onscreen was designed to pass as PG (a rating that Hooper badly wanted so that he could more easily get his film on TV after its theatrical run) and where only one person is actually killed by a chainsaw at all!  Tobe understood the power of the mind and had a firm grasp on the reality that our imaginations are far more dangerous than anything that can be fed into our brains externally.

Such an enduring film...it seems that there must certainly have been brilliance involved here, but on the same token it all seems so simple.  In a way I suppose that it is.  A group of friends are traveling through an unfamiliar part of Texas to investigate the desecration of a loved ones grave when they pick up a deranged hitchhiker.  After he scares the hell out of them and does some physical damage with a straight razor, they dump him back on the road.  Shaken up they reach the grandparent's old place and soon find that their new "neighbors" are family of the crazy-ass hitchhiker.  This they learn through a series of introductions with a hulking psycho who wears the sewn together faces of his victims, a crazy cook with more than a taste for animal meat, and an "embryonic" old man who suckles blood like a baby suckles milk.  An interesting group indeed and one that the hippy youths are not likely to forget...if they survive at all.

Absolutely brilliant in its sincerity and careful handling by director/writer/composer Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is destined to be the film that all the "cool" horror kids have seen.  For years it has been a right of passage and almost a way of becoming a "real horror fan" by watching and thoroughly enjoying this flick.  In a time when 90% of all horror offerings are either teenage Hollywood crap or another in the long line of "its so cool because its from Japan" films, TCM still stands alone at the top of the pile.  More influential than can be conceived, more brilliant than can be understood, and more amazing now then ever before with a buttload of extra features on this new release!  A new widescreen transfer (digitally scanned and looking fabulous), newly juiced up soundtrack, commentaries from Tobe and Gunnar (as well as the under-credited director of photography Daniel Pearl), some deleted scenes, alternate footage, bloopers and the usual inclusions of trailers, poster art and photo galleries all make for this to be the ultimate DVD of TCM for your horror collection.  You really don't have a choice...you need this one.

-aaron-