Fifty years ago this week, Tobe Hooper unleashed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, one of the all-time greatest horror movies onto unsuspecting audiences across the nation. To celebrate Dark Sky Selects is releasing a fantastic collector’s edition of the film on 4K UHD, loaded with extras, and one of the greatest cases ever made.
But first, the film.
An opening narration (by a young John Larroquette, who rumor has it was paid in marijuana) tells us that the events of the film are absolutely true (they aren’t but this sets up the tone of the film). A radio plays a newscast with a seemingly never-ending list of atrocities occurring across the country, including a series of grave robberies in a small Texas town. On the screen, we see still photographs of gruesome crime scenes. That Texas grave robber stacked body parts into a grotesque art piece.
Buy The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 4K UHDRight from the start, Hooper embeds us into a world of horror. The opening narration, the radio newscasts, and his documentary style of shooting the film give the audience the feeling that they are not watching a fictional movie, but something real. Something that actually happened.
Next, we follow five teenagers driving in a run-down van through rural Texas. Even before the killings begin, this is an awful voyage. It is brutally hot. The characters complain about how hot it is and the film makes us feel it. We see the heat come off in waves from the street. Sweat pours down the character’s faces. The seats are torn out of the back of the van so everyone but the driver and front-seat passenger must find comfort in the floorboards. Franklin (Paul A. Partain) is a paraplegic and bound to a wheelchair which is situated in the back amongst the other two, and an assortment of junk. With no air conditioner in the van, the windows are rolled down, bringing with it lots of wind, dust, and only the tiniest bit of relief from the heat.
They pick up a crazy hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who laughs hysterically at nothing, talks in mad riddles, then steals Franklin’s knife, cuts his hand open, then slices at Franklin. They kick him out only to find they are low on gas. The only station close by is out of fuel, but the owner (Jim Siedow) says he should be getting some soon. The gang decides to wait it out at the nearby home where a couple of them grew up.
After tooling around inside the house a couple of them decide to search out a nearby swimming hole. When that turns up dry, they notice a house just across the way. Maybe they can barter with them for some gas. Then all hell breaks loose.
Before that hell breaks, the film is a masterclass in building tension and making an audience feel a palpable dread. All of the characters are hot, tired, and pissed off. Franklin is utterly annoying. He’s either complaining about something or going into details about how slaughterhouses kill their cattle. The hitchhiker is creepy. Every character they meet is off-putting. And this film is called “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” so you automatically know things are going to get worse. Every moment of screen time up until the chainsaw comes out is a moment you are just waiting with fear in your heart, for it to come out.
And holy shit does it ever come out. The transition from a film full of dread to a blood-soaked gorefest is immediate and horrifying. Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) appears in an instant, out of nowhere, and from then on the film never lets up. I watch a lot of horror movies and I am very rarely genuinely scared at anything. This film is terrifying.
It is also a difficult watch. Unlike horror classics like Halloween, Alien, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, there is no relief from the endless dread and terror. Those other films give you a scene or two to give you a breath from the horror. Not this one. The final 20 minutes are some of the most relentless in all of cinema. That makes it an incredible film, but also not one I find myself returning to nearly as much as those others.
And now onto this release.
Dark Sky Selects presents The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a beautiful-looking 4K UHD print. It is almost too beautiful. This film was made to look grainy and dingy. How many of us first saw it on a copy of a copy of a VHS tape, where you had to squint through the distortion to make out the vile viscera that decorates the chainsaw house? Here, you get to see it in all of its gorey detail. That isn’t really a complaint. It is fantastic to finally see this film as Tobe Hooper intended.
It also comes with a Blu-ray copy, an additional disc full of bonus material, and a VHS tape. I lost my old VCR several years ago but I’m tempted to buy one on eBay just to watch this thing in the manner of my memories.
Bonus material includes new audio commentaries from Tobe Hooper, Gunnar Hansen, cinematographer Daniel Pearl, actors Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, production designer Robert Burns, editor J. Larry Carroll, and sound recordist Ted Nicolaou. Then there are multiple featurettes on the merchandise of the film, and the new restoration, plus a feature-length documentary about the film, interviews with the crew, and a discussion between Tobe Hooper and William Friedkin. Plus blooper reels, TV spots, trailers, radio ads, and more. The entire thing is encased in a life-sized plastic chainsaw that makes a chainsaw noise when opened. It’s gonna look great inside my office.
If you are a fan of the film, then this set is an absolute must-have. Highly recommended.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 50th Anniversary Chainsaw Edition will be available for $299.98 exclusively at darkskyselects.com
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I am tempted to finally see it this year, but not committed. Set looks cool. Has Evil Dead movies come out with a chainsaw case?