The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Another one that I watched years ago and didn't fully appreciate.
So much to write about here, but I'll just pick out a few things. First, the camera work is absolutely impeccable. There are so many shots in the film that are absolutely perfect, like when the camera lingers on a moving swing bench, or the way the bone sofa inside the house (and everything else inside that house) is revealed. Second, the sound of the constantly-running generator was brilliant. It both foreshadows and masks the sound of the chainsaw. It also works perfectly as a means of locating the characters within the space of the film. Third, that bitch DOES NOT STOP SCREAMING in the final few minutes. I had to turn my sound way down because I was afraid my neighbors would call the cops or something. Fourth, this film defies the notion that the most horrific things are left unseen. This film shows you a lot, and it works perfectly. Fifth, I liked the way that everyone who enters the house makes it a little farther than the person before them. That was great. It works to slowly reveal the house a little at a time while avoiding the repetitiveness that would come if Leatherface caught everyone in the same part of the house. There's a bit of a "circles of hell" parallel you could draw there.
Has anyone ever considered that the film might work on one level as a metaphor for the meat industry? I thought about this during the dinner scene, when Sally is screaming incessantly, and the camera shows multiple close-ups of her face, and some of her screams sound bestial and inhuman (was that intentional?). And then there's the fact that they talk about butchering early on, and Leatherface kills several of the characters with a big club. The first character to die could be seen as a direct metaphor for a cow who walks up the ramp completely clueless about what's going to happen before getting its head bashed in.
