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‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

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‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

*Texas Chainsaw Massacre* (1974) stands as a landmark in horror cinema, not for its narrative coherence or entertainment value, but for its raw, unfiltered execution and deep cultural resonance. Made on a $60,000 budget with minimal resources, it captures the dread of a post-Vietnam America through its chilling depiction of rural isolation, moral decay, and violent unpredictability. Director Toby Hooper, inspired by *Night of the Living Dead* and a moment at a hardware store where he imagined using a chainsaw, created a film that feels like a real-life nightmare—unscripted, chaotic, and terrifying. Its lack of exposition or character development is intentional, emphasizing fear through sudden violence and surreal horror. The film’s iconic elements—Leather Face with his multiple masks, the gas station scenes, the silent, brutal murders, and the final scene of the truck driver and final girl—have become cornerstones of horror storytelling. Despite its flaws, such as repetitive pacing and unsettling violence, it is widely praised for its authenticity, visual impact, and emotional power. Influential figures like Scorsese, Spielberg, and Friedkin have acknowledged its significance, and it has spawned countless analyses in fields ranging from gender studies to American history. The film’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to shock, unsettle, and provoke thought—making it not just a rewatchable horror classic, but a cultural artifact of its time. Its legacy is clear: it didn’t just start a genre—it defined it, proving that horror can be both terrifying and profoundly meaningful.

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The rewatchables brought to by the Ringer podcast network where you can find the watch with CR himself. Here I am. Back again. Yeah. Ringer finished a football show, Craig Whirlbeck with his own camera, the Craig cam. We're dedicated in this podcast, taping on a Friday in honor of Tony Romo. Okay. This is my leather face, and CBS this week just apparently not coming back. You've called for this movie for a long time. I'm taking for it. Yeah. 1974, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it's next. The one and only Quentin Tarantino wrote to me the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the few perfect movies ever made. There are very few perfect movies. This is okay. Since in the pursuit of cinematic art, perfection shouldn't be the goal. Nevertheless, when it's accomplished, even by accident, it's an achievement. This movie is an achievement, and this movie is perfect. It's not humane, and it's not fun, and it might not be a rewatchable. I bet 90% of our audience, but it is a perfect movie. It is a shark of a movie. I think it is a rewatchable, but I'm willing to hear the other side of it because there's some tough hangs in this movie, and there's some five minute stretches where you're like, I'm not enjoying this, but it's all for a purpose. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that goes both sides, right? It's not only the horror slasher side of things, but even like the hanging out stuff, you're like, all right, guys, let's move on from where my knife is. Sally! Yeah. Sally! But it's 87 minutes, right? It is… I thought it was 83 minutes. Yeah. Whatever it is, it's under 90. I don't know if it was exciting when you saw the 83. I don't think it could have been 30 seconds longer. And I think every single frame of it, and every single cut, and every single thing, despite the chaos of its production, is in service of one idea, you know? And the idea is this guy waving a chainsaw on the highway, and that this is what this country in this world is. The indie horror movie legacy, this Halloween bluerwitch paranormal activity. We have no money. You don't know these actors, other than maybe Donald Pussins, and we have an idea, and we just got a grant through it, make this happen, but this invented it. I was thinking, 'cause I always, obviously, a Halloween is my movie. I love it. Comes a couple of years after. Probably should have put the Halloween poster up instead of fair. I'm sorry, fair. We have the true leather face right here. We have the leather face over there. But I just felt like Halloween invented the modern horror movie. But I forget whenever I watch a chainsaw, I'm like, no, actually, this is ground zero. Yeah. I think we probably want to say, oh, this started something, and then everything that came after was influenced by it. It's worth noting that Toby Hooper, who directed "Chainsaw Massacre," went and saw Night of Living Dead. Yeah. And when he went to a movie theater to see it, there was like a line down the block, and he was like, that's how I get in. I'm going to make one of these movies, you know, with all my ideas that I have about what's happening at the end of the Vietnam War and the country and what's happening around me. But I think I have to put it in this kind of box. I think he was genuinely excited by the material and probably love Night of Living Dead. But over the decades, you've seen filmmaker after filmmaker after filmmaker, use horror as a way, as an entree into mainstream filmmaking and Hollywood. This created the following modern slasher. Can we call this a slasher? This is the first slasher, I think. And then Halloween kind of took it to another level, but the imposing kill or the mask. We have that. That ends up in Halloween, Friday 13th, everything else. Horrifying Carnage for no real reason? I think that's one of the reasons this movie is so scary. I watched it twice this week, once on an airplane. Did you have like a -- That was interesting. A romeite who blocked it. No, I had one of those pod seats, so I could share it for myself. And then I watched with Ben. What do you think? And then my wife also joined us who had a couple drinks at dinner. And I don't know if she'd ever seen this movie, and the entire movie was going, "What's going on?" How is this a movie? Did they spend any money on this? And then the moment when the other face comes out of the metal door and grabs the guy and pulls them in, it's just one of the great scares of all time. You just can't believe -- it's like, "I don't go in the house, don't go in there." Even if you're superficially kind of conscious of who the other face is or what this movie is about, when that happens, there's nothing can prepare you for it. There's no music. He kind of trips, so it throws you off for a second. Metal door opens. The scariest guy you've ever seen in your life is just there. Hits him over the head with a hammer. And they use the sound. This guy's convulsing. He's doing the fencing position. He just got hit by an NFL defensive end, got hit him again, pulls him in and slams the door. And it's just like, "What just happened?" So what do you think that on the fourth day, people start having like pro leather face takes? And they're like, "Hey, you know what? The USC kid." You know what I mean? He couldn't have known. Right. They're like, "Oh, leather face, it's a bang, bang play." Yeah, guy with his house. You had never seen this movie, right? That's correct. Before you will get to your take at the end, but what's your relationship with a horror? Do you want to revisit that? I tried to have no relationship with it until I started producing the show, and now I'm forced to have relationship with it. But I will say over time, I'm starting to warm up to horror. And I've realized in 2026, I'm becoming a mini horror guy. Well, also as useful as horror has become probably one of the stories of the year outside of the Odyssey, is like the success of backgrounds and residential and obsession in these movies. The new singles and doubles of Hollywood as horror. Yeah. Yeah. So, imposing killer of the mask, horror fine carnage for no reason, power tools as weapons. Yeah. I mean, this invested that. The goat. And then the final girl. Yeah. Sally is probably the final girl. I think she's the prototype ground zero final girl that then gets ripped off. Basically, every Friday, 13th movie, most of the Halloween movies, name a slasher movie. There's always one left. It's usually somebody who was the one who didn't have sex with somebody during the movie. Yes. There's always some ways to look at it. They're in peril. The screaming is super important. I think Marilyn Burns who plays the last girl in this might be the best screamer of all the screamers. She screams for half an hour straight. She did that. Yeah. She's, she's interested in doing take after take. And she looks like by the end of this, she looks like they had to put her to mental institution. Yeah. I mean, the legacy that comes after this is a lot more charged morally. There's a lot more like, what did this person do over the course of the movie that means that they have like, deserved to be the final girl? She just got, it was a coin toss and Sally got to live for longest, you know. She's a could have just been in the eagle like that other lady. She wanted to go off with Jerry and look for the other couple. So the Eglow is pretty scary. It's like, what's that banging? Oh, it's my friend in the Eglow. Oh no, best movie, murder or gimmicks, leather face, Freddy Krueger comes into your dreams. Yeah. Chucky, evil doll. Yeah. And if we're doing a Mount Rushmore for this, I think I have orphan. That was a great gimmick. That was a good reason. I'm going to pretend I'm a 10 year old, but I'm really 35 and I'm a fucking zero friend. I think, do they have an age? Yeah. I think she's an inner 30s. Danny Almond, you have killers. I'm a Romanian serial killer who finds families and pretends I'm 10. I forgot it. That's incredible. But like, Myers didn't necessarily have a gimmick, right? He just was a killing machine. He was more of a supernatural force. Yeah. The shape. Most of them are more in that vein, leather face, multiple masks, scat some skills, like he's a chef, he's a, he has, he's a barbecue, my strong, not the greatest sprinter I've ever seen. No, no, but he's got different looks. I think operating in the chainsaw probably not easy versus just carrying a knife for an axe. You've got to be, you're sort of a gas dependent economy in that case. You've always got to wheel it up and gas up your chainsaw also. Yeah. Yeah. Have a lot of questions about that for later. But yeah, this, when you talk about slasher movie gimmicks, I thought that Thanksgiving that came out a couple of years ago, I thought that guy had a good gimmick. Trying to think of my, I mean, leather faces is the, I think is my favorite slasher, possibly because he's at once the most realistic and human, but is also the least explicable, you know? I also think they go off. They're like, oh, he was this kid. Right. Right. There's a backstory. Yeah. Jason, his mom, Jason was drowning, there's always like, cancer's fault. Yeah. They're just going crazy. even the Texas heat also the unintentional comedy from leather faces 100 out of a hundred. And I think that's one of the type of reasons he's rewatched well. Every single moment with it was so like, I like his different looks for depending on where my dinner up at. I'm the housewife versus I'm the pretty lady is really if Buffalo bill was a 100 out of a hundred leather faces like a 98. But that was one of my wife's take away watching this last that she's like, what's going up with this guy like, yeah, he's leather face. Then you have Texas, which I think is in the running for creepiest horror state. Anything outside of the city of Texas is just like super hot. People seem kind of groggy from the heat. It's sprawling. There can just be a house with no other house near anything. There's dirt roads. There's no traffic. At night, there's no lights at all. People eat weird shit. You have snakes. You have all kinds of things. Yeah. You just don't like, you don't want to break down in Texas other than maybe Nevada. That's probably a top. There was a great movie a couple years ago called Nocturnal Animals that Tom Ford directed that kind of touches into this of like, there's, I know that there is like a great American road trip out there for me, but part of the reason why I don't think I've done it is some, like some of these movies, long-term Texas chainsaw mask or where you're just like, man, it is a long way from this piece of civilization to the next one and I don't know what's going to happen out there. You just stop at the wrong gas station and you're just like, oh my God, these guys might just follow me. Right. As they drive away right now. And I think it's worth probably talking a little bit about the context. Not only of like the movie, like the movie business that this came out into because it has such an incredible production story, but you know, I was reading about this film and there's a great long piece about the making of Texas chainsaw mask or in Texas monthly from like 2004. And the guy wrote it, John Bloom. He's got some rights. Yeah. He summarized it perfectly. He just says, chainsaw was the first baby boomer horror film in which pampered but idealistic suburban children distrustful of anyone over 30 are terrorized by the deformed adult world that dwells on the grungy side of the railroad tracks. I was like, that's fucking no perfect describing what this movie is. These kids who are just like popping around like, you know, in this VW movie and just kind of like want to read about the astrology and smoked open stuff and kind of feel a little bit untouchable. And then they go off into hell, you know, and really find this like, ungoverned, unknow-law world that's right outside their door. So anytime I hear or read something like that because I read that too and I was like, yeah, that's a good take. Then there's the counterme when you read how they make these movies where it's such a Halloween where it's just like, what if somebody kills the babysitters like, yeah, just crank the cameras up. Let's go. That's what happened. Toby Hooper was out of, was at a hardware store and was like, that would be amazing. Yeah. He was in line in a hardware store going, man, it would be so cool to grab one of those chainsaws and just cut through the line. That could be a movie. And now he's in a van making it, they've for $60,000 and they're just kind of patching stuff together. Sure. But this is why I didn't major in English and college because you could take a book and you could basically take anything out of it. And sometimes the answer is like, it's kind of just wanted to make a movie about submitting a slaughterhouse who just killed some kids. It's the coolest thing about movies though is that once it goes on to the screen, it belongs to everybody. So hold put in this podcast. Yeah, exactly. Just wait till some of my nipics later. The only person who ever thought more about their movie than we have is Michael Mann, Richard. Yeah. 1970s is really the birth of the modern blank where you have all these genres that then became the genres, which we've covered on this podcast, but like 1971, 30 Harry. Modern cop film. And like the vigilante, there's a bad guy, our hero needs to take them out. It's like that's ground zero for everything that happened. Deep throat, 1972, some of the same producers working on deep. Oh, yeah. And Tim wait to talk about that. Chainsaw 74, Indie Horror movie. We can just make a scary movie and we're going to be like, last house on the left or the first two, I think, really. Godfather Part II. Hey, what if we did a sequel? Yeah. Jaws, summer movie. Yeah. Let's go for it. Modern blockbuster. Rocky, sports movie, Star Wars. We covered that with sci-fi outer space and then Superman 1978. Let's throw a cape on somebody, make a movie out of it. Yeah. And that's kind of, if you just go those eight movies, that's kind of what would become the next 50 years of movies. I mean, there's some other ones we could throw mean streets in there and things like that. But for the most part, those are eight genres that kind of, and there's other ones that come like buddy cop and things like that, but those eight kind of become the next 50 years of movies. Even though those movies have such a huge long tail influence on the rest of film history to come, I don't know, when I go back and watch them and when I watch this movie, the quality that a lot of them share is that they just feel so real to me. Like the people in them and the settings and the environments and like, so much of it is location shooting. So much of it is finding like actors who seem like they would be at a gas station in Texas or would be coppers for a mafia family in New York or Reno, and just like, man, there was this quality in the 70s that was like, even though this was a big, huge Hollywood story, they felt very true to life, even, you know, jaw, something like that. All those people in jaws, you're just like, you are, you do live in, in this town. You do, you do work here in the summers and stuff like that. So that's the thing I always come back to with those 70s films. For patients, this movie, there's multiple scenes that kind of go nowhere and aren't really fun to watch. Yeah, there's no, there's not a lot of check-offs gun in this movie. It's kind of like the conversations that they're having, the rhyme or reason for why one person gets killed first or second or third, it really isn't one. I think that's kind of the point. I mean, after they pick up the hitchhiker and then he cuts wheelchair guy and then they gets out of the van and gets his big bloody print, they're just kind of still on the ride. The next scene. Like, hey, your horoscope. Yeah, let's go get some barbecue and go into a swimming hole. I would just, yeah. What about that A's Dodger series, produce co-composed directed by Toby Hooper, marketed as based on true events to attract attention and poke fun at the era's political climate. So this was basically that thing at the beginning, which is really good and smart and has been recall ever since, what you're about to see. We didn't know any better in 1974. People thought this happened. We didn't know any better in 1999, for software, which you can still get away with this pre-internet. It was a little influence by the great Ed Gein. Yeah. Notice I said the great. So if he rushed more for you, I was watching a documentary about him last night. He's killing enough people. Yeah. I had that great gimmick, but low numbers. Yeah. Yeah. If you, I thought he had everything in place. I thought maybe his underlying post-mortem stats of like going after graves might impress you. But I guess. I'm going to say for a guy. For sure. For sure. Yeah. I'm up for the stats. Like digging into graves. It's just weird. And I think that's like a different level of killer. That's like almost like a, we need to, I wouldn't even put killer in there. It's more like Uber weirdo. Yeah. Super weirdo. That's like a kink. Yeah. It's just, it's a whole other thing you're cutting skin off and making masks like, I don't, that's not just going into a sorority house and just butchering people. What happened to just going in and slicing somebody up? Yeah. That's like, Bundy, I think still is the goat in a lot of ways, escaped, didn't even try to disappear for a couple of months, just went down the floor and got back to it. It's just run the ball. Yeah. Big Z on your list. Not the drillness. Zodiacular. Well, but there might have been two. Yeah. And you don't like the fact that he never took credit and kind of like became like, just put a face to the name, right? Yeah. I like numbers. Fear. I like when they put fear into the community or a city or even nationally, like this guy's on the loose. That game was just a fucking weirdo. Yeah. Like, you could always tell by how good or bad the Netflix show, the 10 episode Netflix show about the serial killer, like they didn't run about Lizzie Borden. I didn't watch it. I did not either. Yeah. Now we're reaching, but Bundy, they keep going back to that every six, seven years. But I'd had a big footprint in Hollywood. A lot of people, silence the lambs, touched on Edgine, so like that he was a big, big dealing. Well, there was, there was some extra stuff with him about the mass. Yeah. Identity. There's, there's themes like you can get into with the, what is his purpose that people seem to be fascinated by. But yeah, he touched, I mean, manhunter, basically all the, all the time, Sarah's books. Do you think Netflix is worried that we're running out of serial killers? No, I think that they, they'll just, I'm not that they're going to make their own serial killers. They're commission one. No, that would be truly like we're in the running now, dramatic story of it. No, but the, the thing is they just need to work harder to find them. Find more killers. Yeah. They're out there. They should have their own investigative unit that goes out and find serial killers. That should be its own show. I'm sure they do. I always picture like the, the Netflix, the meeting where they're trying to come up with the next idea. And they keep coming back to ones. They've already rejected where they're like, "What about Wayne Williams?" They still feel like there's something there. And people are like, "No, no, children at Lanna know. "Out, can't do that one." And it's like, "How many years ago do we do a Bundy?" I'm like, "Ah, it's 2020." It's like, "Fuck, all right, four more years." - Can we do this six-year anniversary? - The Bundy's last six years. - They're like, "The Bundy had a brother." - Anyway, so-- - I find, if you mentioned this, I found the, this is based on a true story, very effective. It is not based on a true story, isn't it? - That, that fake out and that feeling, like, am I watching a snuff film? Am I watching real people? Am I watching, like, that was-- What was the first time you saw it? Do you remember? - My dad took me, and there was this place. I think it was in Austin, in 1980. It was basically like a precursor to, almost like the Alamo Drafthouse places. You would go, and they would serve food and beer, and they would show movies. - Not in the combat zone, though. - No, no, no, it was in Austin, which is next to Boston. And we saw it there, and it was fucking scary. And at that point, it was probably like, you know, I was just making him take me to horror movies, which I was probably like 11. Like, we gotta go bang out leather face, dad. But the thing I remember is, I don't remember much, but I do remember being like, say anything gonna happen in this fucking movie? You know, this 30 minutes past, you're like, all right, and then leather face shows up. And it's pure chaos and fear for 50 minutes. - The leather face shows up and hits like a 550-foot homework, and then does a homerun trap. And you're like, oh, I get it. Okay, now I'm scared. But you're right, there's something about the patience of these old movies combined with, you know, we don't see a lot of the merch. Like even when he kills wheelchair guy, you don't really see it. I feel like now it would be like the chainsaw would be in his torso. - And when you watch the second one, it's way more-- - Yeah, so much more graphic. - Yeah, and you know, there's always this debate about whether Hooper was cutting this movie to somehow get like, I guess a PG, 'cause I don't think the PG-13 existed back then. That's been dispelled. I think what he really wanted was not to get an X, you know, rating and wanted to get an R. But in any case, whether it was cutting for sensors or whether it was just simply not having special effects that-- - I think that was the big thing. - Blood spray and everything else. It's way more effective that for instance, like you're seeing Franklin getting cut up from behind and not like, you see leather face coming down on the wheelchair guy from behind, not like right up. - Well, the single scariest moment, in my opinion, other than when we first see leather face is after he hangs the girl who doesn't survive on the meat hook. And she's on the meat hook, like, obviously. - That's a pain, right? - Yeah, obviously gonna die, but she hasn't died yet. And then he's like, I'm gonna go back to work. - On Kirk. - And get the chainsaw. But you don't see him chainsaw on Kirk, but you see her face watching it. - Yes. - And I think that's part of why this movie is so fucking scary 'cause you put yourself in these positions of like, it's actually would be better just to die right away. - The worst part would be-- - I power ranked the deaths. - Oh, but all right. So we'll see. - Yeah. - One other thing Hooper said, he was like, the film you're about to see is true. It was a response to being lied by the government about Watergate 73 old crisis. The recession, Vietnam. Again, I'm not positive, I believe this. I think it makes for a great story after the fact, but I really think it might have just been, he was in line at a hardware store and was like, what if I just used a chainsaw and killed all these people and that just became a movie? - I think it's both. I think he, you know, when he was kicking around Austin, by the time he makes this, he's made one feature that was kind of experimental, like counter-culture movie, but he's made like commercials and docs. So he's a pretty experienced filmmaker even at a young age. And I think the opening credits with the pathologists, the medical examiner photos of whatever we're seeing in addition to the radio reports. - Well, the radio reports. - The radio is like industrial accidents, environmental disasters, inexplicable violence. And this is the world that these people are growing up in. And this is what they find out there and what would be the manifestation of all of the shit. Is this monster out there, you know? I really, I mean, - You're right, I think that's right. But I also think he might have just wanted to make a movie where a guy goes at every other chainsaw. - Yes. - We're a category before the categories. The Steven Segal's "Shitting On Himself" award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. - I wonder if we have the same one. - 'Cause they made this for 60 grand in 100 degree heat, Texas. I just couldn't believe this. We probably do have the same one. After getting a grandpa's old age makeup, actor John Dugan decided he couldn't go through the five-hour process again and said, we have to shoot all of these scenes now, which they then did for the next 30 hours in 100 degree summer heat. And most of it was the dinner scene and it was a room filled with dead animals, riding food and no air conditioning whatsoever. And the stench from the riding food and the body odor of the cast members was so terrible that people were passing out and becoming sick. - They were going outside and puking and coming back into shoot. They also had blackout curtains on the windows because it was supposed to be night. Edwin Neal played the hitchhiker and he said, filming that scene was the worst time of my life and I had been in Vietnam with people trying to kill me. - It shows. - 30 hours. - Yeah. - Think how long 30 hours is this? Like if you stay up, like I flew back from Boston early on Tuesday and the flight was at like 830. So we woke up at, you know, 630. It was easy to get to the airport but it was 330 Pacific time. - And then you went to bed. - I had a podcast that day and that night and I probably went to bed at, I don't know, 1230 which was 330. So I was basically up 24 hours and I felt like I was up for five days. - Yeah. - And at some point, I was like, I went to sleep, I didn't even know what time was. They went six hours past that in the heat. - And they were making Texas chains on that. - They were making Texas chains on that skirt. - And Marilyn Burns is tied up the entire time and just screaming as these guys are mocking her. - It was like 150 bucks. - Like that. - Yeah. - I can't imagine anything worse. - I was, all the stories about the production of like, they choose to shoot it on these 16 millimeter cameras. - Yeah. - But you need like all these light, all this light for those cameras because of something about the stock. So the amount of like extra heat they were generating on people just by lighting like interior scenes, it's just so crazy. - That's what we try to do in here when it gets hot, after about an hour. - May report Marilyn Burns. - After I get twitchy, about 45 in your like a how. - Yeah. - Jack up the heat, make it hotter. - Marilyn Burns, who I think is arguably the, what's the category we have for somebody who is all in? - I had it, the Peter North Award. Most effort put into a movie. - Yeah, she screams for the last 30 minutes. She has to run. - The band out of bio of screaming. - She does all of her own stunts. - She jumps out of two windows. They have her just running through like a branch forest, wherever the fuck that was at night. - Yeah, all the branches. - And it just seems like she's getting nailed, left and right. She's got like real cuts all over. And she's the first final girl. It might have been the best one. I can't imagine, like Jamie Lee Curtis, when you look at what happened to her at the end of Halloween, it's like, cool, you fell down a staircase and you ran across the street. - And you hit in the closet. - Yeah, you stabbed somebody. This is like 3,000 times worse. - And every one of the things that she does or experiences. Like I was rewatching the truck scene at the end. - Yeah. - It really looks like that truck's pretty close to them. Like as they're cutting back and forth, like the 18-wheeler hitting the hitchhiker, I was like, this looks really real. I know that's a fake body, but this is, how, like if you're making a $60,000 movie, do you really have the best stunt drivers and best stunt coordinators out on there? Like are they, you're like, - It's funny, when you brought this up, I thought you were gonna say the other part when she's climbing to the pickup truck at the end. She can barely get into it. And then fucking leather face comes in with a chainsaw. It feels like it's like four inches from her as she's getting in. Like he's like, it could've just fallen forward and chainsawed her. I don't know if they would've shown that. - My favorite Marilyn Burns anecdote, aside from the, the bit about like Toby Hooper, enjoyed bucks and women. - Yeah. - And so this was an easy cast and call for him. Well, as he, that Marilyn Burns is like, basically like Jared Goff speed. So get Gunner, Gunner Hanson had to like slow down. - Yeah. - And always like run in circles and like get distracted and start chainsawing like trees because she was like. - If she is very slow. - Yeah. - As Frank Trebbin would say, she's the kind of breast that say, hey, look at these. (laughing) They're not afraid to break about this whole movie. No nude scene in this movie. - Nope. - But yeah, the research about Toby Hooper being infatuated by her, really enjoying her movie. - Yeah. - I thought she was great. She's awesome. - It's definitely one of those like, damn. I want you and more stuff but like why was she Jamie Lee Curtis for Jamie Curtis or like take center stage in the last 35 minutes of the movie yeah because Pam's the one reading all the zodiac stuff and it seems like the guys are in like she's the flashlight fight Franklin in his wheelchair is kind of like the big deal and and then she kind of emerges Franklin in the wheelchair pretty high usage rate also maybe that guy the whole movie is pretty tough on Franklin he doesn't get a single wind home no no he's eating human flesh I assumed he would be the one to make it out that was my guest going in but they kind of like they kind of make it clear that's impossible because it's like this is pre-American disability acts like this guy is like there's no ramps he's basically dependent on these people to push him places yeah which makes it scary yeah there's like a like a two-minute scene where it's just him trying to get up like that little hill to get into the walkway yeah what do you think he was eating human remains but what do you think it was I think it was like a I really don't want to speculate because it seemed it seemed kind of like yeah yeah a lot more in the research from the movie later but 125k budget ultimately when you throw in the promotion made 31 million dollars Roger Ebert two stars this is a really interesting review it's without any apparent purpose unless the creation of disgust and fright is a purpose yet its own way the movie is some kind of weird off-the-wall achievement I can't imagine why anyone want to make a movie like this and yet it's well made well acted in all two effective and set it belongs with then living dead last house to the left films that are really a lot better than the genre required Roger never liked horror can I read one more excerpt from his review yeah a true crime movie like Richard Brooks's in cold blood which studies the personalities and compulsions of the two killers dealt directly with documented material and was all the more effective for that but Texas chainsaw massacre could have been made up from whole cloth without any apparent difference no motivation no background no speculation on causes is evident anywhere in the film it's simply an exercise and terror that's the point yeah because if you're experiencing terror like that of what uses somebody's compulsions or personalities like listen Roger likes story yeah he does he loves story character love story there wasn't was it a ton of stories like Marilyn Burns thumbs up I'm gonna tell Russ Meyer better all right we'll take a break then we'll do the categories most rewatchable scene I'm not gonna say the opening is a rewatchable scene but I do really like it I also like when they put the date it gives it like this attitude August 18 1973 and they say oh shit did that happen did you crack did you like that opening where like because the the opening crawl the credits and the shot of the graveyard is like one of the great tone setting opening two minutes of a movie ever made especially because for the next 35 40 minutes it's it's really not much it's easy confused yeah I think it was really effective first seeing the hitchhiker join in the van this goes about as well as when Antonio Brown joined the Patriots just bad idea picking them up went worse than we thought and did with people bleeding this guy's just bought is this guy two bonkers are the right bonkers I'm gonna do one of my hottest takes right now okay this guy's scarier than leather face oh to me in a lot of ways because I think I think probably everybody has a story of some sort of interaction like this where you're like oh shit like this guy's fully gone and I'm accidentally like talking to him at a bar or outside it like in a street in the night or whatever and usually usually the modern version of this is getting stuck with somebody in the corner of a bar yeah and you slowly realize oh no yeah this isn't this guy this guy wants to take my picture yeah this is going to be rough this guy wants to show me his this is going to be tough his knife yeah and hitchhikers in general I have a lot of thoughts I had it experience actually like a couple years ago and Philly at a bar where guy was like check out my knife and I was just like okay okay and like everybody chilled him out but he was like he was like check it out check it out and we were all like yo man the scariest parts about those situations is like they're calling the shots you're like I'm I'm in their world right now and I just kind of have to roll up the punches and hope I get out like you kind of can't you have to play along because if you're just like you're making me uncomfortable like I don't know what the reaction is gonna be yeah I mean the weirdest thing is that the ringer this always happens with Danny Kelly I know when you put like three drinks in them and he just something a switch snaps except he's just like you see it in his eyes hey I want to show you Legion of Boon highlights yeah he's like this is a running back on Florida State I don't really feel like you're listening to me you're not going to believe how he gets to the corner uh Kirk and the girl break off and check out the house they're going to check out a water hole there's no water in the first gas station stop yeah okay why you want to you thought just love the redhead washing the windows yeah and he keeps going back and forth it's like one of the funniest parts of the moon yeah he's he's coming up in deham waiters later uh they go there's no water in the watering hole and then for some reason they decide to walk toward a house because they might have guests yeah um finds a tooth inside mm-hmm looks a little rotten on the on the end of it thanks it'd be funny to give it to his girlfriend I'm out at that point that's a human tooth we're leaving the amount of times I would have been out that was my number one yeah stop can't that's a two I'm out no um I went out when somebody's like should we pick up that hitch right right true uh wait an animal squealing in the house yeah I think I'll go in oh no curse leather face the rare no sound murder there is a sound though and it sounds like while let's getting cracked and it's this skull getting it is one of the grossest things I've ever heard and it is like oh like this isn't even gonna be like like psycho music or anything it's just like brutality no music at all um and then the metal door slam which is impressive how fast it is I'm gonna give this the Todd Parker word for best character entrance and you could argue it's the leather face or word among the best ever wait wait frantically slams the sliding door shut it's really good yeah really effective also have we explored hardhammers enough in horror movies I think there's such like it doesn't have the like invasive sleekness and almost eroticism I think that a lot of like you know the knife kills do you know I would argue it's pretty great yeah she's pounding somebody in there maybe the unconscious and then you can go to work on that leads to the uh to uh Kirk's I guess girlfriend whatever she is coroscope lady not understanding why Kirk hasn't come out of the house yet she ends up going in because that's a good idea and ends up in the chicken room I'm sure what's happened in there a lot of feathers this is the scariest place ever invented it's just I mean there's a lot of research about the uh the art director just going around Texas and picking up decomposing animal parts and going to like skeleton dermis and ripenarians and stuff yeah and this guy I mean obviously this could have been the the sequel to the movie could have been this art director who might have also been a serial killer thought stuff you found yeah puts together the creepiest room maybe in the history history horror movies reassembled bone icon kind of like the guy sitting there yeah fucking bonkers um then leather face shows up carries her to the other room and puts her on a hook um and then she gets to watch Kirk get chainsawed this is like you can't even believe this is happening was your wife here for that she was just like what was in these drinks you're going for a half hour like is anything gonna happen in this movie it's like yeah stuff's gonna happen actually and here we go um so we got that movie we have uh buddy Jerry goes to find both of them the classic horror movie of the guy going in the creepy house knowing something's wrong and doing the quit playing jokes I'm gonna be really mad if this is a joke just get the fuck out a 1a for this scene is just the interaction between Franklin and Sally because she obviously really wants to go with Jerry hang out with him but Franklin is immobile and that reminded me that I forgot that their brothers and brother and sister and that this movie is basically like Hooper said is a riff on Hansel and Gretel like it's supposed to be the two of them's their story of like this they they go off in the woods and meet a monster and that's like the moment I'm like oh right she can't leave him and it kind of saves her life that she doesn't leave him but it costs him his well we get the girl in the igloo and then we get Kirk's buddy Jerry just really taking it get smoked yeah get smoked so that happens we get leather face killing uh wheelchair guy the brother Franklin another good jump scare it's like I think I hear noise uh Sally freaks out and then she's running around gas station guy that really helps and Sally. That's another scene. Go get your grandpa. Don't drop them. How do you remember? I guess because you were 11 the first time you saw it. But when you were watching it, when you watched that scene for the first time, did you, were you like surprised that the gas station was bad? Oh, yeah. Yes, I thought he, I mean, when it was happening, I thought he was going to save her. He was there to help. Okay. So he wasn't there to help. One of the great like that has become like a turn of like the person you run for for help is like there was something about the way you grabbed her face that made you pause. It's incredible. Like where you're like, oh, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. There's one way he's like, it's fine. Don't worry. No, because I'm looking at her like, I'm going to eat you later. Like, and yes, my favorite, it's not my great shot quarter, but one of my favorite little moments of the movie is when he's like, I'm going to go get my truck and we're going to drive to the other town to call the cops. And she's just looking out the door and it's that shot of the door before the truck pulls up where she's like, should I run? Like, should I get out of here? I kind of feel like she's the organs. And she sees all the all this shit roasting. She's like, this is wrong. This is wrong. And then he pulls up and he's got the bag and the rope. And she's like, fuck, you know, like, it's such a great moment. Friday 13th rips it off the girl at the end when she's running and runs into Jason's mom. Yeah. And thinks Jason's mom's going to help for a split second. Oh, he's good when it's like, oh, you're not going to help. Yeah. Yeah. You're his uncle, right? Yeah. This is going to be bad. The bloody finger suck for grandpa is super disturbing. Yeah. For sure. I like that she passes out. I thought that was the correct response to I'm being tortured by all these guys. Fucking grandpa who I thought was dead when I went up in the room. He's actually alive. They cut my finger and now grandpa is sucking it. I'm going to pass out now. Is this just like early platelet treatment? Like, how is grandpa still alive? Is it just, is he like just getting like his blood spun? It's like the 1970s version of our Emmanuel eating probiotic worms. Yeah. He grandpa's going on the town with my melody next week. It's going to explain everything. I read that that her it was real that they like they cut a finger. They actually cut a finger and it was actual blood because they ran out of fake blood or something. They couldn't figure out how to pull off the finger cut. They just cut a finger. A lot of people saying you're a cannibal. I'm not saying that. Are you interested in Paramount? That's Skydan's been in touch. The blood sucking. Let's get into that. Dinner with grandpa. I'm going to say worst dinner invite of all time in the movie. This is it. You're tied up. Yeah. You've three psychopaths. It's not just that they're going to kill you. They're mocking you. They're gooning out. Like those guys are doing like they're like yelling at each other. They're trying to put together like some sort of human feast. You're you're strapped down. This is a desiccated old man is going to start sucking on your blood. I mean, it's it's the worst of the worst. And then when you watch it knowing that all the actors are going outside to puke. Yeah. It just makes it seem like the most miserable experience of all time. The family therapy session with those three would have been really interesting. I really also like one of the most nauseating things in the movie is the old man hitting her with the hammer. It's like grandpa come back for one last kill. You got this, you know? Well, he's the best killer there ever was. It's like Ben Johnson and Case Keat him out there. I wrote that grandpa was like Drake May this season. Rodgers, grandpa can't run anymore, but he can call out protection. And he gets the ball out fast. He couldn't really pull it off. No, didn't have it in him anymore. Tried to play one last season. Mistake getting him involved. Then she ends up getting away and jumping out the window. Second time. And then the ending is really an all-timer. This poor truck driver is just he stops. I still don't have this for picking this later, but I'm still not sure why he didn't just drive away in the truck. Yeah, there's one weird scene where they kind of both get into the truck. Yeah. And they could just drive. But then they end up they walk in. They get in through one door and they leave without the other. He starts chainsawing the driver's side door. And I think she gets out and he gets out and they start running the other direction. I don't know. This is the most haunting ending to any movie I've ever seen. It's an all-time greatest last shot. Other than possibly Halloween, Myers not being there at the end. I cut it out. Loomis's face and go to all the places Myers had been. I still think this is better. I think you're right. Her face covered in blood, screaming, and him screaming back, waving a chainsaw in the dawn sun is just like it will I will think about the first time I saw that for the rest of my life. And it kind of turns from a scream to scream to like a maniacal laugh a little bit. It's like this weird blend of like hysteria. Yeah. It's very good. However, my most re-watchable scene is Kirk getting killed and they'll lead up to that. I agree. I don't think there's any question. Yeah. If this movie is on cable and we're around that area. I'm going to watch it because I love one of the other officials. What's the most 1974 thing about this movie? I could offer you the Polaroid camera. The hit checker has. Chess that weird little attachment flash bulb. They spell it. Chain saw is two words in the title. Interesting. I don't know when we stopped doing that, but now chain saw is one word basically. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The old, old wheelchair Franklin has. That's like a classic. You know, you're not even in the 80s. Yeah. Calling someone's girlfriend, your old lady. I don't know when that's stopped. Yeah. It somehow became offensive, but you know, I kind of like it though. Yeah, I don't mind it either. Chris, your old lady coming today. And then I think the winner is just hit trackers. Yeah. I mean, the only other thing I have was the girls outfits. Yeah, which kind of have come back a little bit somewhat. Yeah. Hit trackers have not come back. No, we can't pick up a hitchhiker, Craig. Hell no. Yeah. It's always the most like we can talk about it now. I mean, this movie, my only answer for a question is does this movie end hitchhiking? No, because I think it was still going through the 70s. Did you ever pick up a hitchhiker? No. Did you ever hitchhike? No. I remember there's a TV movie called Diary of a teenage hitchhiker during the height of ABC TV movies in the 70s. They had a couple different ones, but this was the best one. And this guy in a van was just wiping out hitchhikers. And that I felt like was the final nail in the coffin. Yeah. But you know, my mom, my dad went to college at Holy Cross and my mom went to college at Boston College, and they started dating the last couple of years. It's like 45 minutes apart. My dad hitchhike back to Boston every weekend. So this was a thing that happened. Basically late 60s through the mid 70s, which as I mentioned on other pods, this is why the mid 70s. Well, like, what like Boston hitchhiking? Isn't that just getting in a truck with a guy who's like the fucking bees to kill in me? Yeah, you're going to get on the highway. It's like, what's up with Freddie Land? Is he ever going to play? But this was why I always say this is the glory era for Syracurs. Yeah. Like 75 to 78 because if you're a Syracurie, be like, I feel like going to somebody. I'll just drive around. I get a hitchhiker. And then I'll kill them. Yeah. And that's it. So you lost that. But the internet has replaced it now. I think um, fluid gun dolly butter on my ass, lollipops on my mouth, the word for something I just enjoy. What do you got? Kids on on a normal road trip or something abnormal happens. I have leather face moves and acts like Warren and there's something about Mary. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. He does the same run, everything. And I said it to my wife yesterday and she was fucking dying watching it. You should hit up. He was with the chance. He's like freaks and beans, freaks and beans. But uh, it's, it's hilarious. Everything about leather face, how he runs, um, is General demeanor. I think he's just hilarious. Yeah. What say it's the best? Slotter houses in a horror movie. Pretty great. Yeah. Not sure. There's a creepier location. Yeah. And I think even just in tying the human violence to like a larger kind of like larger carnage. Like murderous bent of like society. Yeah. Violent of society. Grave robbing as a horror movie kind of premise device. It's, it just creates so much dread to hear that report and to see that opening shot of like the, the sort of statue of bones that they've created in that graveyard. God, that graveyard scene also low-key, incredibly creepy. Like the old drunk guy. Yeah. And all the people leering at the women. Yeah. Like that's, you know, the whole thing was this idea that like all these locations that they're stopping at are supposed to be like quintessential like small town America backbone kind of upstanding places like a gas station where you can get help and gas and directions and a graveyard where everybody puts to rest their family and can go visit. And it's like every one of those things is like the most demonic version of it. Yeah. It's just, uh, it's worth, I just thought it was worth pointing out. 70s vans. Yeah. And he seats in that thing. They're all just kind of like lying around the back. It's kind of how it went back then because we never see belts. Yeah, you just would have the two seats in the front. Everybody that was compiled in the back. There's a car accident and everyone's just gonna die immediately. - Yeah. - And that's how we did it. Oh, we slaughter a barbecue sign? - That is the biggest best. - That would be a great addition to the room. - It's aggressive. You could say we have barbecue. - Yes. - But you're basically saying we slaughter our own barbecue. - Yes, our own barbecue. - This is the freshest possible. We've literally just killed this barbecue today. Chainsaw deaths. I just feel like chainsaws. I've still been underrated. Scarface has a great one. - I think people are scared off because no one will ever touch this. Like, I don't even know if there is another chainsaw horror movie outside of this franchise. But if there is, it's probably like-- - Well, and also, from a Woodstage the best standpoint, every time you see a chainsaw, you kind of just want to grab it and do the leather face. (laughing) - I like the dad and his hitchhiker son. - Yeah. - Some of the stuff he says to him, stuff like, "Come here, you napp here, did he?" (laughing) - You can start talking to Ben like that. - I'm gonna pick it up. The fear of picking up the wrong hitchhiker just as aged the best. The poster of this is aged incredibly well. - It's really good. I love that they only had one chainsaw for the whole movie. Instead of having enough money to buy backups. So it's basically like one outfit for leather face. One chainsaw, we've just got to make this work. - One outfit for everybody, 'cause it takes place for 24 hours, yeah. - There are 868 edits in an 83 minute movie, which apparently is a lot. Texas Chainsaw Baskers would inspire Ridley Scott to make Alien. - Yes. - I have one more, but what do you have for what's interesting? - Again, hugely influential. Like Scorsese, he loves this movie. Spielberg thought this movie was incredible. Like pretty much-- - Parenting, no. - And Friedkin, all these people thought it was amazing. I think Daniel Pearl's cinematography is like easily the best aspect of this movie. It's like part of it feels like precursor to Paris, Texas or like these like incredible vistas of the Southwest, but some of it feels like documentary style, like handheld. The shoestring budget that they made it on, there's no reason it should look this good. And there are some just unbelievable shots. You mentioned the cutting, it's amazing. Probably Marilyn Burns' screen and what has now become a trope in horror movies of the person you think is gonna help you turning on you, which we discussed. - I asked, so I didn't realize this until I read this, that there's three different masks. - Oh, yeah. - Gunner Hanson, who played leatherface, said there was the killing mask, the old lady mask and pretty woman mask. - Yes. - And that old lady mask was the domestic kitchen mask. I thought old lady mask and dinner masks were the same, but they weren't. - Me too, yeah, I guess he changes for actually eating dinner. - He said at dinner, the pretty woman makeup, female wig in a black suit because he's in Texas, you dress up for dinner. And then killing mask is like, this is my go time mask. This is when I kill and torture people. I put this one on. - I would also say what's the best is the fact that this movie is such a rich text. Countless books have been written about it. Everybody from gender studies to anthropologists have analyzed this movie and talked about its relevance in the history of Texas. - Yeah, an American history and what was going on with Nixon and all this stuff. And it definitely has a resonance. And I think the best horror movies often do. They say something about the time that they were made in. Great chat, go to a word, we covered it, the last shot. - Oh, actually, I have a different one. Then the last shot. - Under the swing, Pam walking towards the house. Why? - 'Cause she's got a great ass. - Couple random just like long ass shots. - Yeah, there was a great tech craigs progression through the movie of, oh cool, only 84 minutes. A lot of ass shots in this movie. Jesus Christ. - I'm gonna use two of you. - This is the nature violation. Big hunter burger where a best use of food or drink. Obviously, the human sausage. - I was gonna say maybe also just the discussion of head cheese. - Yeah. - Which was, first and last time I ever considered. - Which is head cheese. - I didn't know that was the thing until it's organ. It's like, it's like awful, right? Just like, it's ground up cow head that is turned not into cheese but into like a jelly. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It sounds like the worst thing of all time. Franklin eating human meat? I thought he was just eating barbecue. - Yeah, 'cause you can see he's like, what is this? Oh, and this is what he got from the guys. - It's like a sausage and he's just like, he eats it. I mean, he finishes it. But he's like the first time he bites into it, he's kinda like, what is this? Like, - Chess Rockwell, Barclanders Award. Best character name, it's gotta be Leather Face. The best part is his brother calls him Leather Face at one point. (laughing) It's like, go get him Leather Face. - What if it's in a dairy nick name or his name? - Well, I think it's 'cause it's the only way to communicate to the audience his name. Like, you have to say it all out otherwise, how would you know? - Do you think he had like a Kevin Durant ask problem with Leather Face as a nickname? He was like, I'm not the sling river. (laughing) I am not Leather Face. My name's Michael. - Was there a better title at this movie, God no? - They worked on Saturn's return. They also considered Leather Face and head cheese. But no. - Head cheese is not a bad title. - Head cheese, this movie makes one dollar. - Right now. Leather Face is fine. They could have done that. But Texas Chainsaw Masker is the best. - Yeah. - I would argue one of the better titles of the last 55 years, Texas Chainsaw Masker. - It really does. - Kinda know what it's gonna do. - Kinda know what's gonna happen in this movie. All right, we'll take a break and then Sierra as a flex. Sierra, your flex is. - He got Game Hooker scene for the most awkward scene if someone randomly walks in the room. I'm gonna go with Pam getting thrown on the meat hook. But this movie might have the most key got game scenes of any film I've ever seen. If you're watching the dinner scene and someone walks in and they don't know what you're watching, there's some answers. You're gonna have to have some answers to some questions. I also had another one which was this "Den of Divas Benihana" scene stealing location for the chicken room. - Oh. - Pam's chicken. - I like it. - Butch's girlfriend award week link of the film. - I say this fully understanding he's supposed to be the week link. - I was waiting to talk about Franklin. - I get his purpose in the movie. I fully understand it. I absolutely hate Franklin. It's, we had the good hang, bad hang, category sometimes. Just, there's nowhere saying then Franklin. And you want him to die. But this is Texas Monthly Road. His constant demand for attention is high-pitched cries of Sally, his anger to Vernaus. Making one of the most despicable handicapped people in film history. He's the only one who almost seems to deserve his death. So, I think that's the point. - It is. And I think the most important moment for Franklin is when everybody pairs off at the first house when they go to his parents' house or whatever. And he's kinda like, I'm the fifth wheel. Because it kind of explains why he was even engaging with the hitchhiker. 'Cause he's almost like, I'm this lonely dude. - Yeah. - These guys are all gonna go fuck later. Like, I don't know, I'm just asking questions. I'm trying to, I'm trying to get some conversation started. Trying to get some takes off. And nobody wants to deal with me. But it, nevertheless, I've been brought on this trip. I just think it's like a really like, he's longing for something. He's longing for connection. And he finds the worst possible connection ever. Do you think that? - 52 years later, he'd have a lot of reddit posts. - Sure. - Yeah. - Being a lot of different redditsites. And we'd be like, why is Bill leading with the Celtics again? - He'd have 82,000 lettered boxed reviews. - What is Bill talking about free bull again? - I sounds like Paul Party was a bit of a pain in the ass method actor, based on like the reports. - Yeah, I was like that when everybody's like, "Hey, it's a fucking asshole." - Can you imagine being a method actor on a $60,000 movie? - No. I, I, I, I still can't imagine being a method actor. - Yeah. - I just think feel like it's, every time we get that in the research and when I was like, let's deal with these dudes, they're supposed to be actors, turn it on off. What stage is the worst? My wife brought this up actually. She was very surprised there wasn't a nude scene or some sort of where they shoehorn something in because that's what's in every horror movie. They didn't do that in this. And it's kind of interesting to watch it 'cause especially when they go to the water cooler, they, what, what do they call it, the water? I'm saying water cooler. - Oh, when they're going to like, - The watering hole. - Yeah, the watering hole. - And you're like, okay, here we go. - She's going to take her top off. - No, nothing. - So you're disappointed in that? - No, it's just from a what stage the worst from our expectations of a horror movie. - Right. - It's like, oh, I guess. - It's a slight misdirect because like we, the previously mentioned ass shots, Sally, her shirt, you kind of expect it's coming. And even like the people, the, you know, the family, it's almost like, they're not even interested in the fact that she's like a pretty, - No, they're not like, and I thought that was coming the whole time. - Yeah. - No, they just are in it for the love of the game. - I don't know if that had something to do with like the ratings board or something like that, but maybe I mean, this movie is like, doesn't really have anything about like, they're not killed because they're having sex with you. - Yeah. - They killed because they go looking for gas. - You would expect one line of like, "Oh, you're a pretty girl." Like, there's none of that. - Nothing. - Well, this is another what takes the worst when she's at the dinner table. And she's like, "Please, I'll do whatever you want." It's like, "Whoa." - Yeah. - "Settle down, Sally." What do you mean? She's trying to live. I would be like, "That eats too." - Yeah. - I'll suck. - I'll get primpo. - I'll get primpo. - Laptops. - But it's just, it's tough that they put her in that position and say that. - Kind of along these same lines about something falling short of expectations, I guess. There's only one chainsaw death in this movie. - Yeah, Franklin. - Yeah. - More hammer. - Yeah, I mean, in some ways. - Texas hammer masquerade, it goes the same. - A lot of talk, not a lot of chainsawing. - People are saying. And then all the characters just got the shit kicked out of them in this movie. - Yeah. - Most, most, uh, primarily Marilyn Burns, who got hit and head over and over again with the rubber hammer had to land from windows and ran through. - Yes, and he'll let on her last costume is stuck on her, all this stuff. And Hooper said at the rap party that everyone just basically hated his guts and was pissed about it. Any other words, say the worst? - Uh, I think that the sound that the hammer makes when it hits Kirk's skull is aged the worst and so much is it like. - Every time I like crack my shoulder a little bit, I'm like, oh, I'm like, kind of like thinking about that. - Ruff Lohan and Rubenick Partridge overacting award. A lot of possibilities here. - I got hit. - I got hit checker. - Gas station guy at dinner. - Yeah. - You ruined it. - You know, like all that stuff, yeah. - It was apparently the only sag actor. - Yeah, they needed one of them. - When would I have died? Thriller and horror movies only for this category discounts. I die when grandpa sucking my bloody finger. That's it. I think I swallow my own tongue. - Or just die of fright. - I would just jump out the window when hitchhiker starts going off. I would be like, I guess I'm gonna just roll out of this van at 45 miles per hour. - Yeah. - If I'm Franklin, I don't know if like, I'm getting up from getting knocked off the road by a truck while I'm got my dick in my hand. - Yeah. - And you're relating into a coffee can. And then that's like a weird like miss like bad omen in the beginning of this film. But yeah, I don't think I make it through the hitchhiking. - The CR thinks Luke Wilson could've been here to support how to take a word. What do you got? - This is the scariest movie I've ever made. I watched this movie for the first time in the late 90s. I was not like really a horror person, not scared of them, but just didn't really see a lot growing up. So horror is more something I've watched like in the second half of my life. But I watched this movie when I was like 18 or 19 or something like that. I was moving into a house in Mission Hill that was kind of like dilapidated. It was fine, but it was kind of rundown. And by the time we were done like all the runs to move our shit in, just to get it in the house, it was like midnight. So we were like looking at a box that we had and somebody had Texas chainsaw on VHS. And we were like, well, let's watch a movie and have a couple of beers before a good event. And we were worried about all this tomorrow. We watched this from like 12.30 to 2. I was up for the rest of the night. None of us had seen it. We were all freaked out. And then like we were watching in the dark and all our shit was everywhere. And it's like typical like 20 year old guy where it's like, we got like an air hockey table on the wall and everything is in boxes. Like the TV's on a crate. I was so freaked out at the end of this. The same way I felt with Blair Witch where I was like, was that real? What did I just watch? Are those people dead? Like how is this legal? And it's just stuck with me forever. It's no movie has ever disturbed me like this one. I'd have to think about that for my own pick, but it's definitely in the running. It's about as unsettling as it gets. 'Cause there's parts of like, I think there's also the fact that it's not supernatural that freaks me out. It's not the exorcist. It's not like these people could really exist. My exorcist is terrifying and everything. But like Jason and Freddie and Michael Myers all kind of like exist in this kind of like supernatural evil. You know, aliens scary. There are modern movies like, you know, Blair Witch or Green Room or I, there's a bunch of movies that are scary, but this is, this scares me because it feels so real. - Did you have a had a steak? - I did. - Craig's gonna start adding had a steaks. - It's good. - It's to mix it up. - I can. - And he's the master of the had a steak. I think we need to go back to nightmare shoots. Movie shoots. I think we need to start. I think it's gotten too soft now and it's hurting the art. And I think we need to go back to like, this is gonna be really hard. Maybe you can sign a waiver. It's like climbing Everest. It's like, hey, you're about to enter something that's really difficult. But I think we need to get back to like, it's gonna be 100 degrees. You're gonna have to wear the same outfit 'cause it's gonna get the best performance out of you. - I like it. - It's interesting to- - There will be some HR violations committed. Here's the waiver. You don't have to do it, but once you sign, you're in it. - You'll probably talk about this at internet research, but this was a movie that got some dubious funding. - Oh yeah. - And then after the fact when it became a hit, none of the actors participated in the profits from the movie. They got paid a couple grand, $100 or whatever. Kind of reminds me of what happened with Obsession. Where the set designer came out like, as the movie is kind of on this rocket ship and was like, none of us, we all have to work our asses off and none of- I don't think this could ever happen again. I just think you'd have people like on the set putting up stories being like, this is being tortured. - This guy just puked next to me. Like don't go see Texas chainsaw mask or inhumane working conditions. Maybe for better for worse, but obviously you just get a different kind of movie when this kind of thing happens. - By how to take leather face was the victim. - Jesus Bill. - He's just in his own house. - Good. - Can a guy just be in his house? - This is a really good take. You know what? Multiple people came in. He's just defending his property. - He's got a hobby. It's taxidermy. - Stay out of your house. - Do you think he's just working? - These kids were cursed by the photo. - By the photo. - By the photo and the blood on the van. - The burning photo. - And that there was gas, but he pretended like there wasn't. And that like all this stuff that happens is basically like they're getting pushed towards the house or is it completely random and if they had never gone to the house next door, they would have lived. - I think there's some voodoo stuff with the burn picture, something sinister with that. But for the most part. - And Franklin's keyed in on that. He's like, do you think that guy's gonna follow us? Do you think that guy knows where we are? Do you think that guy's gonna come after us? - He's like, is that the Mark Azura? - Yeah. I think it's scarier if it's random. - Sure. - I mean, the big ultimate lesson here is get fucking gas when you need to get gas. Just stop it there. - That's the Miyagi. - That's the one thing. - Don't drop below a house egg, yeah. - Leather face is just home. Somebody came in and my house right now. What would I do? - You put on your old lady guard hammer. - Casting what ifs. - I don't know. - Gunner Hanson regarded leather faces having intellectual disability. And that's how he performed the part. John Leraquette performed the narration in the opening credits and was paid by Marijuana. There aren't really any what ifs 'cause the men of these actors were known actors. - Also as of like 2008 had not seen the movie. Or something like that. I read interview where he's like, I've never watched. - John Leraquette. - Joey Pance Award for Best That Guy None. - DM Waiters Award. I can either offer you grandpa or a gas station washing the windshield guy. - Wash in the windshield guy. - Do you think he's part of the family? Does he get to imbibe in the public? - No, 'cause he didn't get invited to dinner. - I feel like he's like, they're damp or something. - Part timer. - Do you think he goes home and he's like, "We're at the office." - Yeah, another weird one. I had to clear up more bones. - Recast and couch director city. I tried to come up with a cast if this was a big movie with real actors. - In the 70s or now? - In 1974. - Okay. - Jeff Bridges, Rob Reiner and Ron Howard. Maybe Rob Reiner's in the wheelchair. Penny Marshall and Goldie Hans. Goldie Hans, the one that survives. Goldie's last girl, the final girl. It would be tough watching Penny Marshall get killed. - Would it? - No. - No, she would be the horoscope comic relief. - I think the unknown quality of the actors is what makes it, 'cause you're just like, they just seem like real people. - Craig's got a flex. - Dennis Peck, relationship test. - Jesus. - You think Dennis could have gotten out of that house? You think you could have charmed the family? You think leather face would have been like, I like Dennis. Do you think so? Is Peck wearing the polo tucked into the jeans? - Yeah. - The colors looked up. He shows up, clean hair, clean cut. - You think leather face looks like what's up with your sailor? - Yeah, he's like, what kind of dress do you have on there, Mr. Leatherface? - I think it works. - Usually after we do rewatchables, I don't watch the movie for a couple years 'cause we've dissected it so immaculately. I never go back. - Yeah. - Internal affairs, I watch like six months later. (laughing) I was like, Gary, it's just incredible. I love him so much. - Yeah, I think he definitely could have turned. I just would love to know if there would be somebody who had enough charm to kind of talk his way out of that house. - Yeah. - And I think I could have thought. - Talked to him out of, are we sure we need to kill Sally? - Yeah. - I mean, look at her. Look how luscious she is. Let's keep her around. Have I started a research? They filmed mostly at a 1900's. farmhouse near round rock, Texas. I don't know where that is. The art director who drove around and picked up the cattle remains and all the weird shit was named Robert A. Burns. So if he ever ended up, it comes out that he murdered 10 people. Sure. Don't be shocked. This is what I'm just going to read this one verbatim. We already covered this, but I thought this was so funny. Gunner Hanson later admitted in his book, Chainsaw Confidential, that after several failed attempts, he secretly removed the protective tape from the knife and cut Maryland Burns' finger for real. Yeah. That's that's a workplace violation. That's OSHA right there. Did he go on the town at which promoting Chainsaw Confidential? Mayor with Gunner Hanson. Did you take the tape off Gunner? Gunner, how do you feel about the Paramount Berger? Would you be bad if Elon Musk bought it? Paramount? The gas station, which is featured in several scenes, is now a horror themed attraction in a Texas barbecue restaurant at a motel. Should we do a live show there? I was thinking when we were in Dallas a few years ago, I wonder how far away that was from where we was. This is closer to Austin, right? So I think it's several hours. They still have the vintage sign. We slaughter barbecue. You mentioned the financial story. This is if people care, they should really google this whole thing, but it is basically- The Texas monthly article has it broken down. I think the most important part is that- Well, there's a couple of most important parts. They didn't have enough money to finish it. They ended up getting financing from basically the mob and this company that also did deep throat and had money that needed to wash the money from deep throat because deep throat made like $45 million. The cast was supposed to get a piece of the thing. They ended up getting a piece, but it's only half of the movie because they lied about whatever. Then it was even worse than that because then they had to sign away their half because they ran out of money. They couldn't get the print to finish it. They said to give away more of the movie and they basically just kept giving away more of the movie, combined with the mob on the movie and was lying to them about how much it made and everybody got host. It was the worst version of that social network scene where he's like, what did your equity get down to? Andrew Garfield, yeah. I think even more tragic is that nobody from this movie then slingshot into any kind of future acting career because that's the argument for obsession. You get paid on your next job and you're participating in the success of the movie which will create opportunities for you and that didn't happen. And the company that actually owed them all the money when they figured out what was owed had gone bankrupt so they didn't get that new line cinema ended up buying the stuff from that and belatedly gave them some money. This is kind of like still going on. When you see an independent movie and it's got like 70 producers credited executive producers. This guy gave $100,000 and this guy raised $100,000 and everybody's giving notes and everybody gets a credit. Everybody gets to go to the premiere of the festival if it happens. One of the recurring themes of the research was that pretty much everybody involved with this movie. They didn't make money from it. It was an emotionally scarring experience and they're kind of bitter about it years later. Except for Gunner Hanson who got to appear on Matt Bell and his town. It's almost like perverse because not only did they not get to participate in it and they might be scarred from it but they obviously have to basically make it the crowning achievement of their life so whenever you see interviews with them they're always in rooms full of Texas chainsaw massacre or memorabilia and they've got a lot of conventions and sign stuff. But I don't think they had the conventions in the same way they have now. This is like 20 years later. These people are golden. They're just going to conventions left and right and signing chainsaws and but they didn't really have that back then so I'll know. Apex Mountain indie horror movies. This in Blair Witch. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say this. Final girls. Was there a better final girl? I think Lori's a more iconic final girl ultimately. I mean they've certainly made more movies about Laurie Strode so I think she probably stands out and Ripley from Alien. Most underrated final girl. Yeah. Now for who would you say? Ubs Sally. I'd say I would say the girl in front of 13th part two. Oh yeah. Can I do some Jason? Is there a Jason movie we could do we could do it this month. Let's do it. What would you want to do? Final chapter you want to do two? I mean the most ones pretty great from the story of it and them ripping off. Sure. I think two is a better movie. Me too. I think the last half hour of four is probably the best of all of them. I don't know. Maybe we should have a vote. We just put a vote. One, two, or four. Which final Friday the 13th you guys want us to do? Chainsaws? Yes. Texas. No not Texas but I think cinematic rural Texas. Yes. Scary Texas. Yes. Scary Texas. Hot 70 blondes named Maryland. Nope. Maryland Chambers. Toby Hooper. Walter Geist is for him. If he directed it. He did. Headcheese for sure. Movie murders. Would you put Anthony Burke and say come up here? He lives in a real way, not like a Halloween where he got shot six times and it becomes stupid because obviously he would have been dead. Yeah. This guy just lives. He's going back to the slaughterhouse and business as usual. I like it. I'd put I put Norman Bates up there. I put lector up there. I think the answer is probably Myers because of the body of work. Just keeps coming back. It's kind of a stone's over beetle. Sequel's, re sequels. Well, they're faced. They kind of come into he's kind of a schedule merchant. A little bit. Oh, you think he's that's a home game. Yeah, there's like walking into his house and grab some. It's like dome team. They play robbing. It's like cool. Anybody can do that hitchhiking. Probably not. The 1972 Ford Club. Is that the van they use? I'm going to say a Picksman for that. Oh, I thought it was a VW Ford Club wagon. Okay. That's all I got. Cruiser Hanks. I have I'll let you pick here. I have Hanks is one of the dudes in the van. Yeah, but I do think crews could could have done the hitchhiker. Especially the crews were getting now these guys at the red carpet, digger hues could have been the hitchhiker. How long are you driving? How long have you been in the van? Two dollars is a fair price for this picture. You've got to be so you're such a good brother to Franklin. Dude, the fucking give me two dollars thing is freaks me out so much because it's like that's the kind of thing that you're like, oh shit, this is going wrong. Like that is literally the moment where you're like, oh, now this dude wants to get paid for taking a picture of them. And it's like this is this is all wrong. Like this guy never should have gotten the van. Franklin, how long have you been in the wheelchair? That's amazing. Did you see that? Did you see the video of you? Yeah, of course I saw. Inputation. He comes back for the third handshake. I can't believe Craig thought crews should be on the rewatch most cruises of maybe. Come on. We're going to be in a room with crews for an hour and a half. Oh my God. He lost his mind. Can you imagine him sitting here right now talking about Texas chainsaw masker? I would just be I wonder if he would have gotten through like I think crews is gone. I think he's Mark and sin. Marks is gone. There is no crews. Cruises gone. That Hans Gruber scale villain ranking. I have leather face has to be a 10 out of 10. Yeah, highest we can go shattered the ceiling. The Borat Sagnaf, Rancid body order, body order award also goes to leather face Gunner Hanson in his book chainsaw confidential. You'll hear him on the on the town next week. He only had one shirt to wear as leather face because they couldn't get another one. The shirt had been died. He had to wear it for four straight weeks. And by the end of the shoot, no one would stand near him. I can't even imagine the level of B.O. I have it for the grand. How'd you shake his head? How rarely reacts there in the pod? The grandfather. Because I think the grandfather would have been thrown some incredibly disgusting off-speed stuff with his desiccated body. Yeah, true. Fueled only by young virgin blood. He's been probably sitting up in that attic in the heat for weeks. Yeah, what's he doing up there? I don't know. I think the grandpa's like one of the freaky things I've ever seen. But he has a mask on, right? So underneath the mask is probably like some true horror. Picking nits. So you're passing a slaughterhouse and you're like, "Should we pick up that hitchhiker?" Nope. Keep going. Would you die right away if you were lifted onto a metal hook? Or would you survive with the metal hook, rip your body? Would you sink down? Does it hit one of your shoulders? Is it hit like an internal organ? So you think it was like under for the shoulder? - Yeah. Like on the blade kind of because it should have slid down, right? Yeah. I mean, she like was only able to hang up there. They had it like the way they had it with the harness for like a couple of minutes. Yeah. The van's running out of batteries with the lights on probably in a half hour. Yes. They just leave it on like more. Yeah. I think a lot of their priorities were all at a whack in the van. First of all, it's like, no gas when Jerry gets blown off the side of the road. That's a big deal, you know what I mean? Like, that's embarrassing. Then tie that also with like, we've picked up this hitchhiker who cuts himself, cuts Jerry, cuts Franklin, rather, uh, takes our picture, lights it on fire, and then smear's blood all over the van and spits and like screams into the sun at us. Like we're the trip is over. Well, what's the trip? Like, I just have a lot of questions swimming. What is this road trip? It's my tinerary to go to their old, like their father's old place and make sure grandpa wasn't grave robbed, and then we're going to drive down a desolate highway in a hundred degree heat because I want to show you where I live. And meanwhile, it's the scariest, craziest house like this is their spring break. Plants, I guess, right? And so and should we bring Franklin the most annoying person ever? Yeah, let's bring them and look. I mean, I remember going on road trips with my family in the eighties. And it would sometimes be like, if you made a wrong turn, you were on the wrong road for like hours, and then you'd be like, we've been going the wrong direction. Like that would happen five friends getting together to make sure that one of their grandfathers wasn't grave robbed is just a weird thing to do. It absolutely is. But Greg, this is what the seventies were like, we had three channels. We didn't have no phones, I mean, three channels. We had 10 movies. We had no internet, no phones. Here's my great robbing. So you want to go check it out. My biggest nitpick is after all this stuff happens in the beginning. Pam immediately starts reading the zodiac book. I'd be like, I don't give a fuck about astrology right now. Yeah. Can we talk about the checker's work? What was the chainsaw battery on that chainsaw that Leatherface said? I thought it was gas power. But when he's running around, there's no extension cord. No, no, no. So how long do you think he has battery power for? I don't think it's running for 12 hours. Yeah, it's like a lawnmower. This guy is like the village idiot. He's going to be like repeatedly remembering to charge his chainsaw or put more gas in it. Maybe he was like an inventor. And he had like a really long lasting battery. Yeah. The ending, why is there suddenly traffic on this dirt road? There's a giant truck that goes by and then a pickup truck. We're in the middle of nowhere, not near anything. She got very lucky. And it's early morning during the day. Yeah. And wow, there's one more, but I can cover it on that answer. We'll see if any picking hits. Just the zodiac stuff and constantly going back to the zodiac book after all this crazy shit. And then also, if Sally, like leather face just never runs in a straight line, I feel like Sally could have put some more invasive moves on him. Sequel prequel streamer, all black cast, spin off remake or untouchable. So there's been eight films that followed this that were either Sequel's prequels or remakes. I'm a fan, including Texas chainsaw massacre, the next generation with Renee Zoegger and Matthew McConaughey. Yeah. Do you like this movie? The 95 one? The next generation. I've only seen it once. I haven't revisited it. It's entertaining. It's entertaining. I remember it was like people kind of liked it. Two is awesome. I like to a lot. It's completely different, but Toby who directed it. And then the next generation Kim Henkel who wrote Texas wrote, I don't know if he directed it, but he definitely was in Hooper. And then there was a Jessica Beal reboot. That's pretty much so. Say no more. And then there was a Netflix one that was about influencers going to a town and they all get killed by leather face that I kind of enjoyed. Don't forget the prequel leather face released on Direct TV exclusively in 2010. It's still in Dorf. Yeah. Well, and now Curry Barker is rumored to be rebooting it. Glenn Powell is rude to be involved and yeah, it's a hot property coming soon to Skydance. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Flores, Zayn Lowe, anybody else? They're thinking about the voices. Yeah. Watching a lot of Affleck this week, because he's been in the news with the AI company that he sold. Yeah. Who do you think you are? The only guy in Texas with a chainsaw? You guys eat people and make furniture out of their bones. You're an old guy with a fucked up face who doesn't know his glory is a behind it. You ain't fucking making head cheese out of me. You got a problem with that? I live in a van that's out of gas over by the old Freaklet place. Stop by any time. Well, Doug McCray. Wow. Yeah. That was exciting. Yeah. I think of some new guys, you know? I have a, I have one as well. I thought I had a new blood. Steven A. Smith, doing straight shooter the next day after the chainsaw murders. Does he have his full cowboys troll hat on? But he's somber. Okay. No, he's not trolling. He's upset. There's a lot of noise right now about these murders that happened in Texas during this week. Five young people, four dead, one girl barely survived. You know the story. To be honest, I don't care. What I care about is leather face. My brother, the best at what he does, probably the best slaughterhouse chef in this country right now. Potentially not being able to do his thing anymore. Steven A. Straight Shooter. Just want to ask her who gets it. I got editing Toby Hooper or Daniel Pearl, this cinematographer. So what an air word would happen the next day we don't get to do this enough. Yeah. Canonically Sally is like basically in a coma from trauma. And then her years with the sequel was that's what Texas to is. And then her uncle played by Dennis Hopper goes off looking for the family. Oh, it's a pretty fun movie. I wrote down Sally was definitely dead of a cocaine overdose by 1976 and probably did cocaine with Jenny Gump. They ran into each other in San Francisco. Yeah. Probably an incident. Questions. Where did the truck driver go? Where did he go? Yeah. Does he just keep running? I really wanted a couple of times. He's just running off. Yeah. He's just going the other way. Yeah. He's running away from his truck. Leather face is doing his thing. Girls driving away the other direction. The next 15 minutes with the truck driver could almost have been its own living. Yeah. This poor fucking guy. I know. Leather face tracks him down. No, Leather face is like, I'm staying, I'm on my track. I think somebody tracks down the truck driver. But the hitchhiker's dead. Yeah. Grandpa is kind of like, he's out of commission for the next couple of weeks. I guess the gas station guy could have gotten there. I mean, he probably runs to the gas station, which is the worst possible for a second. And gets killed. Yeah. What were Leather faces next couple of days like, you think? Lost his breath. A lot of reflection. A lot of tape study, you know, in the film room with Sean Payton trying to figure out how to be better. You know, we're the windows thick enough. How did she just jump through like that? What did we do wrong? Should we think about double paintings? Yeah. Should we get another chainsaw just to have another one over the second one? Maybe do I go electric chainsaw, maybe going forward? I have one more, but did you have any an answer, boss? I mean, I mentioned this, but the impact this movie must have had on hitchhiking. Ed Neill said, taxis state troopers told him like, thanks for making this. Now there's no more hitchhikers. But, you know, I think statistically it still lasts for a couple more years after this. But I would never pick up a hitchhiker in my life after this movie if I saw it. Last one, I'm just going to read verbatim from the internet. Okay. On August 15th, 2014, at the age of 65, Marilyn Burns was found dead by her brother Bill at her home in Houston for cause of death was not specified. Oh, come on, Bill. I'm just reading that to you. Verbatim. So what happened, Marilyn Burns is your question. What happened to Marilyn Burns? Yeah. I'm not sure if he was experiencing it in Tyler or maybe to attack this. Do a deep dive. I also have-- Why didn't they give a cause of death? What she probably had in it, of course. That is strange. Any time the final girl in a horror movie dies in real life and there's no cause of death. Explicable? Yeah. That always makes me nervous. My last one to answer, Bull, was who's death would you want? I'm going to go Kirk, because I don't think Kirk really sees it coming, and I think it's done right away. He's the first one. I don't think he's conscious for all the sawing that happens. Hammered to the head. Yeah. By the time he's getting sought up, he's dead already. His last thought is, I hear an animal in distress, like I think I'll go help it. And then, yes, there is that brief flash of like, oh my god, the devil just jumped out, but it's over fast for him. I don't think-- Wheelchair guy. It's pretty tough, because that chainsaw's not killing you. But, like, Kirk is basically like, Edward hits you, it's lights out, you know, you're out. I would least want to be Pam, because I think Pam, Mead Hook, Freezer, Slow Death, Slow Death, Huge gap. - And the last thing she really probably remembers is the chicken room. - And she's watching somebody else get killed, which means she's next. - Yeah. - Memorability you'd most want from this movie. Definitely not the mask or the clothes, but I think the original chainsaw would be amazing. I can't even imagine what that would go for in an auction. - Yeah, I think the hitchhiker's little pouch that he had with the pictures and the-- - And the sign, we slaughter barbecue. It would be a good one. - Yeah, that'd be cool. - If that Polaroid photo existed, that'd be cool. - Yeah. - Coach Finstack, Mr. Miyagi, we're best worse life lesson. The gas station guy says this at one point, there's just something you do for, to do it. You don't have to lack it. But I think the real lesson is don't pick up hitchhikers. - Yeah, we're always having full tank. Best double feature choice. - I probably go last house on the left, although it is equally disturbing, so I don't think it would be like, it wouldn't be a good night, but it is an interesting snapshot in movie history. - I'm gonna go with the help. - The help. - No, I'm kidding. - I'm gonna go with, I'm gonna go with Halloween. I went deliverance. Oh, deliverance is good. - Oh my God. - Yeah, I just wrote "Trip Gone" raw. - I went to Halloween just to compare and contrast, like how much Halloween crib done, chain saw all that stuff. Who won the movie, Hooper? - Yeah, I think so. 'Cause he's the one who has the most, most of her career afterwards, becomes a Hollywood hot shot for a while, is at the Universal Lot with Spielberg gets involved with a direct poltergeist. So he had the best career coming out of this. - All right, Craig, you never saw it. - Nope, I expected to hate it. And I have to admit, I don't know what's happening with me, but my tolerance is getting better. Or I'm starting to be able to enjoy these movies a little bit. And I'm also starting to find humor in the horror films, which I don't think I ever really used to be able to do. - Thank you, yeah, thank you. - But like the dinner scene is funny. Like it's like a fucked up sitcom a little bit. It's like a weird disturbed stage play of those three as she's sitting there screaming, or like the guy washing the car at the gas station. I'm just like starting to be able to relax and kind of enjoy these a little bit. - Yeah. - I'm sure Liz is psyched. - She didn't get close to this. - She's like, "Well, I'll walk." - No, no. - No shot in hell. She don't even wanna hear about the movie. Yeah, I don't know. Everything you guys said I completely agree with. I thought the aesthetic of this movie is wonderful. I thought it was super well acted. The editing was great. It's just sticky and this movie feels so real, which I think is the, I agree with you that I actually prefer stuff like, I like stuff rooted in reality more than I do, supernatural demons in cities or the conjuring stuff like that. This, to me, is just more interesting. And yeah, we had an interesting exchange on text where you were like, this is why this country is fucked up. It's 'cause we make movies like this. And I said to you, I think that we make movies like this 'cause this country is fucked up. - It's a chicken egg thing. - Yeah, that's interesting. - Well, I'm more right about the movie and like the intentions of the film, I understand what you were saying. - Yeah. - Or if you listen to Bill, it's because he was in a hardware store. - There's a little bit of Bill. - I do, when I was in college in film school, I remember, we had this one professor that did this really cool exercise where he showed this scene. I think it was from Jaws, I can't remember. And it was like us analyzing the scene and why it was so smart and how it was composed and all this stuff. Talking about the themes, why they chose what they did, why the lightpost is right here. And then at the end, you find out that Spielberg or whatever the director was like, oh no, we had to shoot it like that because right to the left was a construction site. - Yeah. - And he was like, sometimes it's both. Like it's sometimes everything is intentional. And other times, they're just making it work with what they got. - I like, I basically look at it as like, I don't think about intention. I think I try to think about text. Now thinking about intention is super fun and it's interesting to talk about. But when you're actually analyzing a movie, it doesn't really matter whether or not, they only shot that because they had two minutes of light left or like they were running out of film that day. It's just, it's more interesting just to think about what it winds up being. This movie's just a great example of if you have no budget, if you have no actors, if the director and probably the editor just have good taste, if they just have a good eye, anything can work. - Yeah. - Literally, which was like that. Paranormal was like that too. Although I thought that star of that movie was pretty good, actually. What was your name, Katie Featherstone? - Of Paranormal Activity One, I think so. That she was all right. All right, so we're gonna do some horror movies or what? - Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do at least one or two more this month. There's some good ones. We have a lot left, I mean, as you know, I love horror movies about as much as anyone, and we've intentionally kind of seen it. - Not done too many of them, just 'cause some people don't like 'em, but it's my big one. - Has any recent horror films, did you see Resident Evil? - No, I haven't seen Resident Evil yet. I'm excited for that one. - I love it. - People liked it, right? I think it's been a good, listen, they're making more than ever. They're all varying degrees. - Some big names now, like the Craigers and obviously already asked her. It's a really vibrant time. I mean, there's streaming services that do nothing but play horror. Like, you know, a lot of horror is pretty readily available on services and on physical media. - We'll give it, like, the Simmons family, we'll give it about 10 minutes. - Yeah. - If it's a streamer horror movie, like there was one recently, "Passengers." - I thought it was okay. - It was okay. - Yeah. - And the premise was like, I don't know, they're driving along, and somebody's, somebody they see some, and accident, and then it's a little like it follows this. I couldn't quite get there with it, but everybody's making an effort just to try to scare us. - I appreciate it. It's October. - I just changed the mask. - It takes a few years out, but it's still Halloween. - Thanks to Craig, thanks to Gahav, thanks to Eduardo and Chris as well, and we'll see you next week on the rewatchers. (upbeat rock music)

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. *Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is widely regarded as a perfect, albeit brutal and unrelenting, horror film that embodies the raw, accidental artistry of indie filmmaking.
  2. The movie’s chaotic production, low budget, and real-world Texas setting contribute to its authenticity and terrifying realism, making it a foundational piece of horror history.
  3. Director Toby Hooper was inspired by *Night of the Living Dead* and a hardware store moment where he imagined using a chainsaw to kill people—resulting in a film that reflects societal anxieties of the 1970s, including post-Vietnam disillusionment and suburban distrust.
  4. The film’s structure, including its minimal narrative logic and abrupt violence, serves a deliberate purpose: to evoke primal fear through shock, confusion, and the unpredictability of violence.
  5. The character of Leather Face, with his multiple masks and ambiguous motivation, becomes a cultural icon, representing both the terrifying unpredictability of the "other" and the human need for a terrifying, tangible antagonist.
  6. The film’s legacy includes influencing nearly every slasher genre, from *Halloween* to *Friday the 13th*, establishing core tropes like the final girl, the masked killer, and the use of power tools in horror.
  7. Despite its graphic content, the film’s success lies in its emotional and psychological impact—particularly in scenes like the metal door slam or the final confrontation, which remain among the most iconic and rewatchable in horror.
  8. The film’s enduring appeal is rooted in its cultural resonance, its unapologetic realism, and its ability to provoke discussion about power, violence, and societal decay in a post-war America.

Summary:

*Texas Chainsaw Massacre* (1974) stands as a landmark in horror cinema, not for its narrative coherence or entertainment value, but for its raw, unfiltered execution and deep cultural resonance. Made on a $60,000 budget with minimal resources, it captures the dread of a post-Vietnam America through its chilling depiction of rural isolation, moral decay, and violent unpredictability. Director Toby Hooper, inspired by *Night of the Living Dead* and a moment at a hardware store where he imagined using a chainsaw, created a film that feels like a real-life nightmare—unscripted, chaotic, and terrifying.

Its lack of exposition or character development is intentional, emphasizing fear through sudden violence and surreal horror. The film’s iconic elements—Leather Face with his multiple masks, the gas station scenes, the silent, brutal murders, and the final scene of the truck driver and final girl—have become cornerstones of horror storytelling. Despite its flaws, such as repetitive pacing and unsettling violence, it is widely praised for its authenticity, visual impact, and emotional power.

Influential figures like Scorsese, Spielberg, and Friedkin have acknowledged its significance, and it has spawned countless analyses in fields ranging from gender studies to American history. The film’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to shock, unsettle, and provoke thought—making it not just a rewatchable horror classic, but a cultural artifact of its time. Its legacy is clear: it didn’t just start a genre—it defined it, proving that horror can be both terrifying and profoundly meaningful.

FAQs

The film is considered perfect because every frame serves a single, clear idea: the terrifying reality of a deformed, brutal adult world. Despite its lack of narrative depth or humor, it achieves cinematic impact through raw, deliberate imagery and pacing, making it a powerful statement on societal fears.

That moment is one of the greatest horror scares in film history. With no music, a sudden noise, and a completely unexpected, terrifying figure emerging, it creates pure shock and disorientation, making the audience feel helpless and deeply scared.

Despite a $60,000 budget, the film's cinematography, use of handheld shots, natural lighting, and real locations created a raw, authentic feel. The production team used minimal effects and relied on practical elements, resulting in a gritty, realistic aesthetic that feels timeless.

The film was made in response to societal anxieties of the 1970s—like the Vietnam War, Watergate, and economic instability. Director Toby Hooper was inspired by real events and the idea of a deformed, violent world outside the idealized suburbs, making the film a cultural commentary of its time.

Burns screams for nearly 30 minutes without pause, creating an intense, visceral experience. Her performance is so intense that it has become a hallmark of horror cinema, setting a standard for long, sustained screaming in the genre.

Leather Face is both realistic and inexplicable—he’s not a supernatural monster, but a human with a disturbing, unexplained motivation. His multiple masks and lack of a backstory make him a symbol of the unknown, influencing countless slasher films that followed.

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