Don’t Hate the Cannibal, Hate the Game: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

By Jesse Roth

Looking back on my movie-viewing history, I can think of few films that have really bothered me. Most of the time, unless an animal dies or there is excessive torture, I won’t even flinch. Murder and cruelty can pass before my eyes and be acknowledged the same way as a car chase or moment of truly exceptional dialogue between two characters: interesting, but certainly nothing that impacts me on a deep, emotional level.

The effect that horror movies have had on me is even more minuscule. With the exception of Final Destination (which kept me at a friend’s dorm one Halloween on the off-chance that my destiny was to be impaled by one of the giant lamp posts I’d have to pass on the way back to my own dorm), I rarely cower in fear at their unintentionally comical madness. I enjoy watching the occasional horror movie for a good laugh, or to see what can be accomplished with ample talent and a limited budget (see: The Evil Dead). Otherwise, I equate being scared with simply being a citizen of the unsettling, uncertain world we face each time we leave the house.

Screencap from mertonfanatic

It was with this nonchalant attitude that I entered a local theater on a painfully typical October night last year to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. My friend, a horror movie buff, had always been a fan, and I had always been curious to see why this film was considered such a classic in the genre. On this night, we would get the chance to view this spectacle of brutality on the big screen with many other fans that had turned out for the late showing. It was bound to be an experience, but would it be any more remarkable than the times I saw other classic-but-silly films of the genre at this very place?

I knew only two things about the franchise before the theater went dark that night: (1) It had many shitty sequels and remakes and (2) John Larroquette was apparently in both the original and the remake. This was mainly noteworthy for me because John is one of those actors that will forever get a pass for his classic turn as Dan Fielding on Night Court. I wondered what he was doing in a schlockfest like this as we settled in for the experience.

Within 83 minutes, my concept of the true power of the horror movie had been completely reversed. What I had just witnessed had disturbed me on a level far greater than any other film I had watched up to that point. I was sickened, I was afraid, I was begging my friend to stay the night at my apartment just in case any of the characters chose to escape their celluloid confines and attack me in my sleep. Above all of this, I was in shock that a silly, cheaply made horror film from 1974 had impacted me in the same way as if I had just witnessed a shooting or had been told terrible news about someone close to me. How had this happened? What was it about this movie that had gotten under my skin?

As I glance over scenes of the film playing on a television in the relative safety of my apartment, I start to get a sense of what elements were of particular significance in triggering my initial emotional response.

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