On October 11, 1974, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre carved its way into American horror cinema history, leaving an everlasting mark on the genre. Almost exactly five decades later, Swiss-born American filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, who specializes in documentaries about U.S. pop culture, pays tribute to the seminal tale of terror with Chain Reactions, bowing in Venice’s Classics sidebar. Given the subject, and the director’s track record, it will travel well on the festival circuit and beyond.
As Philippe explained when introducing the premiere screening, he was approached by the franchise’s rights holders, who wanted him to celebrate the original film’s half-century milestone. As such, Chain Reactions is officially sanctioned by Kim Henkel (who co-wrote the first movie with director Tobe Hooper, and wrote and directed the infamous fourth installment) and his son Ian. They gave the filmmaker access to never-before-seen outtakes that are peppered throughout the documentary.
The new footage was shot on a set, an expressionistic replica of the Sawyer house from the original movie. The lighting was adjusted from one segment to the next – five times in total – to reflect the timeframe of the film: it starts in broad daylight, before getting progressively darker and then leads into the closing sunrise. Each chapter is devoted to one interviewee. In order, they are: stand-up comedian and actor Patton Oswalt; Japanese genre director Takashi Miike; Australian film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; horror novelist Stephen King; and film director Karyn Kusama.
With the exception of Oswalt, they’re all explicitly connected to the horror genre in one way or another, but the film makes an excellent argument for including the comedian – a well-known movie buff – by prefacing his segment with a clip from one of his stand-up routines, where he eviscerates lazy titling habits for movies (romantic comedies especially) before praising The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the most brilliant title of all time.
Oswalt then goes on to explain how he already knew about Hooper’s movie years before actually seeing it, courtesy of Fangoria magazine, and draws interesting parallels between Massacre and Murnau’s Nosferatu, which he saw at an inappropriately young age at a Halloween party because the parents assumed a black-and-white G-rated movie from the 1920s wouldn’t be too scary (they were, of course, very, very wrong).
Miike, who saw the film by chance in the cinema (he had originally planned to watch a re-release of Chaplin’s City Lights, but the screening was sold out), explains how it shaped his decision to become a filmmaker and informed some of his aesthetic choices, particularly the decision to shoot on 16mm for his lower-budget projects and his conception of on-screen violence: “I couldn’t make Imprint as a Japanese film,” he says of his infamous Masters of Horror episode, so explicit and disturbing Showtime refused to air it.
Heller-Nicholas goes into Massacre’s history with censorship in Australia (it was originally banned for ten years), a topic that also resurfaces in King’s interview as he brings up superhero movies containing large amounts of implied violence and getting away with a PG-13 despite having a higher (off-camera) body count than most horror movies (amusingly, and not mentioned in Chain Reactions, Hooper was aiming for a PG with his own film, but got an R because, while devoid of blood, the original Massacre was just too intense and scary). Kusama delves more specifically into the film’s thematic relationship with American values, and how it was eerily prescient in a way.
Of the five chapters, King’s is arguably the main selling point for horror fans, given his genre stature, but also the least interesting in terms of insights, as he has shared many of the same anecdotes and observations in his writings and interviews in the past (at one point, when mentioning his own depictions of violence, he brings up Rage, an early novel that he took out of print after it supposedly inspired at least one school shooter). That said, it’s quite cute to hear him consistently refer to Hooper as “Tobe”, complete with archive footage of the two of them sharing a cameo in the King-scripted guilty pleasure Sleepwalkers.
At the end of the day, what really matters is the film itself, one that Philippe has previously described as the most disturbing motion picture he’s ever seen, and Chain Reactions does a great job of highlighting just how grimy and shocking Hooper’s work remains to this day, even just in the shape of individual clips (at the Venice premiere, a few viewers, presumably unfamiliar with the topic, walked out during Chapter One).
Made on a shoestring budget (if Internet lore is to be believed, John Larroquette – who did the opening narration as a favor to Hooper – received a marijuana joint in lieu of payment), it used its cheapness to its advantage, looking sickeningly grainy and real. Released in 1974, and set in 1973, it’s a timeless testament to the power of raw, distorted Americana, as relevant today as it was half a century ago. Kusama puts it best: it’s a tough watch, but she keeps going back to it because it’s also a rewarding one. Every single time.
Director & Screenwriter: Alexandre O. Philippe
Cast: Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, Karyn Kusama
Producers: Kerry Deignan Roy, Robert Muratore, David Lawrence, Kim Henkel, Ian Henkel, Pat Cassidy, Hazma Ali, Badie Alie, Greg Newman
Cinematography: Robert Muratore
Music: Jon Hegel
Sound: Drew Weir, Phillip Lloyd Hegel
Production companies: Exhibit A Pictures, Exurbia Films, Dark Sky Films
World sales: Dark Sky Films
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Venezia Classici)
In English, Japanese
103 minutes