Back at Pearl's. Tired Beyond Measure as usual on a Sunday night. Good singin', however - we sang an old spiritual "work song" (i.e. sung by slaves) called "Go Down Moses". It is full-on Gospel call-and-response, and I was on the response side : "Let my people go"! I was trying to sing with as much soul as I could muster, singing my guts out really. Not bad for a white guy. :) Our director said it was the best singing job we have done to date, which was nice to hear. Bring on the Gospel tunes!
I woke up this morning to find that Tobe Hooper had died. Make that "The Great Tobe Hooper". For the uninitiated, he directed the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and if you have seen that film then you know why he was one of the greatest directors of all time - even though he didn't have a lot of other great films. Still, to make that film - a horror movie so terrifying because of it's grim and gritty realism - was enough to cement his legend as far as I am concerned. I can't begin to tell you the effect that "Chainsaw" had on my life. For one thing, I literally did not sleep the night I saw it, at a re-run theater in December 1977, more than three years after it's initial release. I was 17 then, and not hardly squeamish, but that movie scared the Bejeezus out of me and I could not sleep as a result. That had happened only one other time, when I was 13 and saw "The Exorcist".
For my money, those are the two scariest movies ever made, "Chainsaw" and "Exorcist". And they are so terrifying because there is no fantasy involved. In both movies, you are taken from a real world situation immediately into something that can't possibly be real, but it is.
That's how you do Horror, and Tobe Hooper in 1974 made it more real than it had ever been before. "The Exorcist" was big budget and slick (though no less frightening) but in "Texas Chainsaw" you are right freakin' there with wheelchair-bound Franklin and the gang, when they pick up the hitchhiker in their van, and he turns out to be a psycho. It feels and looks 100% real, and in your subconscious you are hit by the notion that you are just one mistake away - at any given moment - from falling into a nightmare. Which is why our parents told us "don't talk to strangers", etc.
But in "Chainsaw" they are Hippies, and it is the early 70s, and they do pick up the hitcher because that's what Hippies do, even Hippies from Texas. And suddenly, their day trip to visit an Old Family Homestead Out In The Boondocks turns into a surreal horror show.
I am reading the Christine Pelisek book on "The Grim Sleeper" and it's the same deal, though less Grand Guignol: these women were going about their respective business on the given days in question, and had what would seem to be full control over their lives, at least In That Moment. Many were addicted to crack, though, and so - even though they were just walking down the street one minute (perhaps to the liquor store or to a friend's house), their lives were changed suddenly.
Because a man pulled up and offered them a ride, maybe offered to get them high. And he was a crazy man, 100% insane and evil.
I make the comparison in trying to describe the effect of "Chainsaw" because the key aspect of true horror is that it is Sudden. And it also occurs in the same milieu as The Safety Of Everyday Life.
One minute you are in a van with your friends, tooling along......the next minute you pick up a hitchhiker. Something you probably shouldn't do, but you are a Hippie and it is the 70s. And within seconds, everything changes, even though you are still in the same surroundings, driving down the same road. The same with the women and The Grim Sleeper.
Well anyhow, that was Tobe Hooper's genius, to portray in every aspect - picture, sound, texture, rhythm, tension - how real life changes into horror within minutes, due to a bad decision. And how the setting for both everyday life and for the changeover into a nightmare, is the same thing. The same place, or at least the same general area.
Horror then, is a matter of degrees from everyday life. That is the genius of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
Tobe Hooper also made "Texas Chainsaw 2", a worthy (if goofy) sequel that came out in 1986, and "The Funhouse" in 1981, and also the trashy-but-horrific "Eaten Alive" in 1977. See 'em all, says I.
And you have probably already seen "Poltergeist" and maybe even "Salem's Lot". With those two we are talking the works of Spielberg and Stephen King, who were both big fans of Hooper's, which is why they chose him to direct those flicks.
Well, I've dedicated almost the whole blog to Tobe Hooper, but he deserves it.
BTW, I have always pronounced his first name as "Toab". It is actually pronounced "Toby", and I have known this since about 1979 or so, but I will always pronounce it "Toab", because it sounds better.
Tobe Hooper : what a name, what a director, what a genius.
If you have never seen "Texas Chainsaw", you need to see it (or not see it) as soon as possible, depending on your relationship to horror. :)
That is all. ////
No comments:
Post a Comment