Stop pining over Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was a crap film. Get over it.

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.



miggfl
I don't understand what the big deal is with TCM. My assumption is 20 years of hype have convinced you people that in fact the emperor is wearing a beautiful new set of clothies.

I cannot believe that so many movies have copied off such a bland, lifeless, slow moving, and dare I say, boring film.

I understand that Hooper couldn't get enough of a budget to provide any decent gore in the film. And it makes sense. What studio is going to give a guy money to develop a movie which features wooden actors for characters that have 0 development and no one gives a crap wether they die or not. The film is, in every single aspect completely unrewarding. The fact that it got made at all is amazing.

In fact, in most cases, I truly wanted to the characters to die. I keep hoping that I'll see someone murdered because I'm so sick of listening to them. The wheelchair gimp for example. I wanted to kill him myself, but his chainsaw death was so anticlimactic I just wanted to strangle hooper for filming it such a slipshod manner. COMPLETE lack of pay off.

As far as scares and tension are concerned, I've been more anxious watching a rerun of golden girls than this sham of a flick. The hitchhiker, the only character in the whole damn movie worth a booger, is killed. Way to go. Heres an idea, lets replace the only usable character with DENNIS HOPPER! Shere GENIOUS.

Also, I just HAVE to say. The much-heralded dinner scene is complete, complete CRAP. What did tobe say to the actors? Sit around acting like morons while she screams? The actors weren't scary, or tension building, they were pathetic. I can honestly say I've been more tense getting the mail than I was watching this scene.

Then, finally, when this loser of a girl (who DESERVED to die, by all rights) gets away, thanks to jumping in a truck while the first trucker who helped her is presumably killed, what does Leatherface do? He waves his stupid chainsaw around over his head for a few seconds.
Roll credits.

Brilliant.

Whatever. This movie needs to STAY dead. I refuse to see anything that remakes, reincorporates, or refers to this waste of tape.

Cowboyography
ok Miggfl, give us an example of a good classic horror movie? obviously your not a fan of slasher's so what is your cup of tea? and dont say "Dont say a Word" or some crap like that unless you want to be flamed into next year, (Although with your above comments thats going to happen anyway!)

miggfl
Hrm, let me think on that one.

I'll tell you, I just watched the original night of the living dead movie again the other day on dvd. The WAY original one.

I thought that was quite a good film. Ahead of its time showing how characters psychologically respond to a period of extreme stress.

The catatonic girl who refuses to accept her situation.
The prick old guy who won't accept that he's wrong.
The black guy who just makes NO bones about the fact that by god HE'S in control.

For comparison sakes, though its apples and oranges, this movie had nudity, more gore than TCM (original) and MUCH more character development / psychological analyzation than TCM did.

It shows that a movie can have all the traits of horror, while being original and scaring at the same time. I find it interesting that almost 40 years after its release, I still jump when those damn hands come through the slats of wood and grab ben!

YIPE

Cowboyography
I agree Romero's movies are great, The original and Dawn being two of my all time faves!! and The ending of the first one is perfect, one of the all time best endings, Actually I agree fully that Night and Dawn are better movies than TCM, however TCM started the biggest Genre of horror ever THE SLASHER!!! and i love slasher movies, therefore i love TCM!!! the one thing that bothered me was the obnoxious screaming throughout the whole movie, but I geusse i would be screaming bloody murder too if that happened to me!

miggfl
You don't feel that hitchcock's psycho kinda paved the way for the maniacal slashing / stabbing murderer film?

Heck, they even both take a bit of inspiration from the ed gein saga.
14 years earlier too.

Evil Dead
I'm sure many hardcore horror fans will disagree with you........not just here in these forums, worldwide.

If you didn't like it........you didn't like it. If the movie was made for everybody to like it would have won Oscars and be the film to which all others are compared.

Gore is cheap. Gore is thrown in to a film as eye candy to distract the viewer from realizing there is no plot. This is why gore is used so much in slasher movies. Nobody watching a slasher flick expects to see a great film......they simply want some quick eye candy.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was ahead of it's time.............it was a great psychological/slasher flick. Most movies cannot combine the two successfully but TCM did. It had to have done something right to have had 3 sequels made.......and have it remade 30 years later.

Night of the Living Dead is however an excellent choice as a favorite horror movie. It is great.

Cowboyography
Psycho goes more into the Psychological thrillers in my book, Slasher means a killer is stalking there Victims, picks them off one by one, or two by two and had a good amount of Gore/Blood. Psycho (of which i am not a big fan) really only has one murder scene and minimal blood. Also Psycho played to your imagination, TCM showed what was happening in a hardcore reality that had never been used before.

miggfl
I can't dispute the facts about psycho, but I still don't agree with your comments on tcm.

Really, TCM has not much more blood than psycho. Most of the gruesome parts were filmed in such a way that they were obscured from vision.

Killing wheelchair boy (view was from behind, couldn't even see what was going on)

Cutting off the arm of the guy on the table (Vice grip in the way)

Didn't show actually killing the first girl at all, in fact she pops out of the freezer later.

And so on. I wouldn't say there was anything hardcore realistic except maybe the opening scene with the hitchhiker. That was truly tense. But the rest left me slack.

Evil Dead
actually.........it clearly shows Leatherface throwing the first girl onto the hook..........

other than that, carry on

miggfl
Evil_Dead: actually.........it clearly shows Leatherface throwing the first girl onto the hook..........

Me: Didn't show actually killing the first girl at all, in fact she pops out of the freezer later.

I know that. But remember when the next guy comes in and he's looking for them? He hears thumping in the freezer. He opens the top and she pops up. So she's not dead. Hence him not showing her KILL her smile

Carry on YOURSELF big grin

Evil Dead
She was killed by the hook........a good ol' sharp object through the spinal chord will do that.

The noise was twitching.....bodies tend to do that when they are recently deceased. It is caused by the muscles tightening up as rigor mortis sets in............it is not uncommon at all for the body to sit up erect. Ray Stevens wrote a catchy song about it called "Ain't sittin up with the dead no more"........

miggfl
Why didn't she start "Twitching" until he said something then?


We gonna have to agree to disagree here, I'm not satisfied she was dead. Also, it looked like she was naked in the freezer too. She musta been chilly!

Evil Dead
I'll agree with you on that......we'll agree to disagree. I guess it's all in the viewer's perception.

BackFire349
Actually, Hooper stated that the character in the fridge was indeed dead and that she was indeed twitching and moving after she was dead. The same way Kirk (the first guy who gets killed by leatherface) was twitching after getting hit in the head with a hammer.


Now to that overly negative rant you gave about the great TCM. Too make my response easier, I will quote segments of your statements and respond to them one by one.



"I cannot believe that so many movies have copied off such a bland, lifeless, slow moving, and dare I say, boring film."

Well, I'm glad to see you at least acknowledge teh fact that it was an innovative and inspiring movie for other directors. But this raises a question, if it's so bad, then why did so many other great horror directors integrate aspects of TCM into their movies, and why do all of them recognize it as one of the most creative and just plain best horror movies ever? The fact that so many other horror directors did use it as innovation, makes your arguement of TCM being a bad movie completely void.


"I understand that Hooper couldn't get enough of a budget to provide any decent gore in the film. And it makes sense. What studio is going to give a guy money to develop a movie which features wooden actors for characters that have 0 development and no one gives a crap wether they die or not. The film is, in every single aspect completely unrewarding. The fact that it got made at all is amazing."


Ah, well now it all makes sense, a horror movie has to have gore and blood in it to be good huh? Yeah, I guess that makes sense since so many movies relying on psychological aspects rather then gore suck. (the shining, night of the living dead, psycho). Yeah, they were all ruined because they didn't have a ridiculous amount of gore.

I'd like to ask you if you actually believe that statement you made, at least the part about the gore. If so, then you can wave bye bye to your credibility (not that you had much to begin with, seeing as your trying to bash a movie that is quite unbashable, considering it's importants to its genre.

The movie was purposely made with a minimum amount of gore, as evil dead said, gore is cheap, if he really wanted to put it in he could have easily. But as Hooper said, he wanted the audience to have to finish the violent acts they began to witness in their minds, thus making it even more disturbing since the mind can produce images far more terrifying then a movie screen. This is only part of the overwhelming psychological aspect of the film. It would have been very easy for him to rely on gore as a crutch, thus eliminating the use for actual creativity or psychological elements that are in the movie.


"In fact, in most cases, I truly wanted to the characters to die. I keep hoping that I'll see someone murdered because I'm so sick of listening to them. The wheelchair gimp for example. I wanted to kill him myself, but his chainsaw death was so anticlimactic I just wanted to strangle hooper for filming it such a slipshod manner. COMPLETE lack of pay off."


The characters weren't meant to be likeable, they were meant to be dumb and annoying, because they were supposed to be hippies, and hippies suck. Hooper knew this and made them annoying and hippi-like, which accounts for their annoyance.

It's funny you say "anti-climactic" because that was deliberately done as well. He wanted to make the movie as blunt and real as possible. And to do this, you can't build up tension for a death scene, otherwise, people will remember it's a movie and that it's not real. What he did by having people die off so quickly is create an atmosphere of completely surprise. You never really did know what was going to happen after you see the first guy die, because you know that this film maker is attempting to totally blind side you constantly by showing the deaths happen in a realisitic and honest manner. In real life, there is no loud pounding music building suspense when you are about to die. There is no distracting cat running by you, scaring you for a second, then making you feel better about the situation you are in when you realize thaty ou were just scared of a cat, only to be killed off in a predictable in generic manner by the real threat. He created actual tension, and actual surprise, without relying on cheesy gimmicks like hart pounding music or typical jump scares to do the work for him. Anyone who uses this aspect of the movie as a negative simply does not know anything about horror, period.


"Then, finally, when this loser of a girl (who DESERVED to die, by all rights) gets away, thanks to jumping in a truck while the first trucker who helped her is presumably killed, what does Leatherface do? He waves his stupid chainsaw around over his head for a few seconds.
Roll credits."

What should he have done? His brother was just run over by a truck and he is now alone with his other brother who will beat him for messing up. Had they showed anything else happen afterwards, like him going back into the house, or the aftermath, it would have ruined the whole feel of the movie. It was meant to feel like a documentary of sorts, and a documentary would end as soon as the story actually ends. Just as this one did.

While we're at it, lets talk about leatherface. Well actually, i see you didn't bash him at all, so that's good. Maybe that means you recognize him as the brilliant and creative character that he is. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do in order to by pass the complete verbal spanking I would have to give you should you try to bash him.

Well, those are all the comments i felt should be corrected, I'll finish by saying that if you don't like TCM, that is fine. You are of course entitled to your opinion and I'm not at all trying to say everyone should love this movie or enjoy watching it. But, you should give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that whether you like it or not, it is a great, innovative, inspiration, unique and creative work unlike anything that has ever been made before. Something as innovative and something that is so widely recognized by horror fans and horrorfilm makers as greatness should show you that there is something in this film that is truley magnificant, even if you didn't care for it.

h0ck3yh0rr0r
*slowly claps*

BackFire349
Yeah, the gloves come off when defending TCM. It's the only time you'll see me really unload in an argument.

ragesRemorse
the remake of TCM, could pretty much be sumned up as BULLSHITTT

BackFire349
I'll agree.

ragesRemorse
Damn we finaly agree on somthing.

turds---to the teXas chainsaw massacere remake the only thing worth watching in this boring ass movie was jessica beils ti*ts

BackFire349
again, I'll agree.

ragesRemorse
Happy Dance

Treehuggerjanie
texas chainsaw massacre was a pile of doggy crap

xblanex
Wow i liked it. lol.

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.