I thought I was done buying The Texas Chain Saw Massacre after upgrading to the 40th anniversary edition Blu-ray in 2014. Between the crisp presentation and the copious extras, I was certain it was the definitive version of Tobe Hooper‘s 1974 masterpiece. Yet here I am, nearly a decade later, ready to sing the praises of Dark Sky Films‘ 4K Ultra HD edition.
Long before “gritty” was an industry buzzword, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre epitomized the term. As such, one might be wary that a 4K restoration could hinder the viewing experience, but that is not at all the case. Utilizing the 4K scan from the aforementioned Blu-ray, which was approved by Hooper, and now with a wider color gamut courtesy of Hdr, the picture is presented in staggering clarity while maintaining the 16mm film grain. The oppressive heat is virtually palpable.
Co-written by Hooper and Kim Henkel, the plot...
Long before “gritty” was an industry buzzword, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre epitomized the term. As such, one might be wary that a 4K restoration could hinder the viewing experience, but that is not at all the case. Utilizing the 4K scan from the aforementioned Blu-ray, which was approved by Hooper, and now with a wider color gamut courtesy of Hdr, the picture is presented in staggering clarity while maintaining the 16mm film grain. The oppressive heat is virtually palpable.
Co-written by Hooper and Kim Henkel, the plot...
- 2/21/2023
- by Alex DiVincenzo
- bloody-disgusting.com
In the conversations about the scariest horror movie moments ever, Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" tends to land in the top ten, usually for its jarring introduction to slasher icon Leatherface. Beyond the chainsaw and the dysfunctional cannibal family who revere it, the "Texas Chain Saw" franchise has put great stock in its stifling Lone Star state setting, particularly the Sawyer family home which so many victims stumble onto. Filled with real animal bones and shot to the ambient discordance of Hooper and Wayne Bell, the grimy farmhouse was as much an antagonist as its flesh-eating maniacs.
During filming during the summer of 1973, the creepy 1900s house sat on Quick Hill Road in Round Rock, Texas — located at what is now the development site La Frontera. In the late '90s, an investor couple had the entire place deconstructed and re-assembled in Kingsland, Texas, on the...
During filming during the summer of 1973, the creepy 1900s house sat on Quick Hill Road in Round Rock, Texas — located at what is now the development site La Frontera. In the late '90s, an investor couple had the entire place deconstructed and re-assembled in Kingsland, Texas, on the...
- 11/14/2022
- by Anya Stanley
- Slash Film
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a shocking movie. Women are impaled on meat hooks. Men are chopped to pieces. Furniture crafted from animal bones and human limbs lurk in the corners. Yet there is surprisingly little gore to be found. The deaths are mostly bloodless. Flesh wounds appear on screen in only a handful of scenes. When Leatherface plunges his chain saw into the wheelchair-bound Franklin, the audience is given a mere handful of viscera rather than the volcano of blood they might expect. "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was marketed as being based on a true story. But it uses suggestion just as effectively as it does verisimilitude.
Why avoid gore? Realistic blood and guts cost money, which director Tobe Hooper and his crew didn't have. It was to their best advantage to scare their audience via creative shortcuts. But Hooper had more on his mind than saving money.
Why avoid gore? Realistic blood and guts cost money, which director Tobe Hooper and his crew didn't have. It was to their best advantage to scare their audience via creative shortcuts. But Hooper had more on his mind than saving money.
- 10/27/2022
- by Adam Wescott
- Slash Film
Christopher Young‘s brilliant Hellraiser score is nearly as synonymous with the film as Pinhead — but if writer-director Clive Barker had his way, the soundtrack would have been composed by British industrial music pioneers Coil.
Barker first became aware of Coil through Forbidden Planet, the UK’s enduring genre bookshop where band member Stephen Thrower worked. When Barker happened into the store, Thrower mentioned that he was a fan of his Books of Blood, and the two hit it off. Thrower eventually played him some of Coil’s music, and Barker was immediately won over.
Barker was quoted as saying that Coil is “the only group I’ve heard on disc whose records I’ve taken off because they made my bowels churn.” That’s high praise coming from the master of the macabre. Shortly after completing the script for Hellraiser, he told Coil that he wanted them to compose the music.
Barker first became aware of Coil through Forbidden Planet, the UK’s enduring genre bookshop where band member Stephen Thrower worked. When Barker happened into the store, Thrower mentioned that he was a fan of his Books of Blood, and the two hit it off. Thrower eventually played him some of Coil’s music, and Barker was immediately won over.
Barker was quoted as saying that Coil is “the only group I’ve heard on disc whose records I’ve taken off because they made my bowels churn.” That’s high praise coming from the master of the macabre. Shortly after completing the script for Hellraiser, he told Coil that he wanted them to compose the music.
- 9/20/2022
- by Alex DiVincenzo
- bloody-disgusting.com
Wayne Bell’s score for Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is in a word unsettling. Bell and Hooper worked together to conjure up aural elements that mix creepy sound effects with a synth-heavy staccato married with a keyboard that brings the chainsaw to life.
For Leatherface’s 2022 reboot, Colin Stetson came on board to craft an equally unnerving environment as the slasher returns. Of Hooper’s and Bell’s original work almost 50 years ago, Stetson says, admiringly, “That score was genre-exclusionary and abstract. It was trying to divorce itself from the shackles of the score and sound design to enter a new space.”
That separation of genre, Stetson says, opened up doors for him when it came to scoring the new film, out on Netflix Feb. 18. “I knew it would be an opportunity to go as far as I wanted in searching for the musical score.” Director...
For Leatherface’s 2022 reboot, Colin Stetson came on board to craft an equally unnerving environment as the slasher returns. Of Hooper’s and Bell’s original work almost 50 years ago, Stetson says, admiringly, “That score was genre-exclusionary and abstract. It was trying to divorce itself from the shackles of the score and sound design to enter a new space.”
That separation of genre, Stetson says, opened up doors for him when it came to scoring the new film, out on Netflix Feb. 18. “I knew it would be an opportunity to go as far as I wanted in searching for the musical score.” Director...
- 2/10/2022
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
When I think about the American New Wave, I’m always traveling through the vast open roads of North America, its forever-changing landscapes and mythical American dreams, with all its bittersweet promise. Sonically speaking, I’m in that space, too. So much of the New Hollywood cinema is vast Americana; Death Valley and desert-hot gas stations, the ultimate nihilistic road movie. But so much of it is everywhere else too; sleek Manhattan apartment blocks, the old Wild West, and the outer regions of space. In my head it’s a mixtape of philosophical and artistic ideas, one of cinema’s counter-culture melting pots where more questions are raised than answered and the plot is not driven by a desire for resolution.This mix was dreamed up as a mixtape: driving across state lines, re-adjusting the radio station on the dashboard as the trip moves further towards a destination that is unknown.
- 10/13/2019
- MUBI
Ryan Lambie Nov 2, 2017
Far from a curse, Tobe Hooper's tiny budget made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a timeless horror classic...
In the summer of 1973, the cast and crew of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were suffering through what was, by most accounts, a thoroughly miserable shoot. The heat and humidity were almost unbearable; the interior location where much of the film's third act took place, an old farmhouse outside Round Rock, was dressed with animal bones and blood, which had begun to stink in the broiling Texas air. The stench was so bad that some crewmembers were throwing up outside between takes.
See related Gunpowder episode 2 review Gunpowder episode 1 review 26 new TV shows to watch in 2017
Directed by Tobe Hooper, then a largely unknown 20-something filmmaker from Austin, the film's painfully low budget only added to the misery. Funds didn't stretch to a wardrobe of multiple costumes, so the cast...
Far from a curse, Tobe Hooper's tiny budget made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a timeless horror classic...
In the summer of 1973, the cast and crew of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were suffering through what was, by most accounts, a thoroughly miserable shoot. The heat and humidity were almost unbearable; the interior location where much of the film's third act took place, an old farmhouse outside Round Rock, was dressed with animal bones and blood, which had begun to stink in the broiling Texas air. The stench was so bad that some crewmembers were throwing up outside between takes.
See related Gunpowder episode 2 review Gunpowder episode 1 review 26 new TV shows to watch in 2017
Directed by Tobe Hooper, then a largely unknown 20-something filmmaker from Austin, the film's painfully low budget only added to the misery. Funds didn't stretch to a wardrobe of multiple costumes, so the cast...
- 10/30/2017
- Den of Geek
Shaggy maniac Neville Brand was born on the bayou. He lives by his high morals and so just can't resist feeding random visitors to his gargantuan crocodile. If they resist that idea, he uses a giant scythe for a persuader. Tobe Hooper's sopho-gore feature boasts several name stars, plus, in this new edition, a brightly colored, picture-perfect transfer. Eaten Alive Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (U.S.) 1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 87 min. / Death Trap, Starlight Slaughter, Horror Hotel / Street Date September 22, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund, Crystin Sinclaire, Janus Blythe, Betty Cole. Cinematography Robert Caramico Special Effects Robert A. Mattey Makeup Effects Frank Gluck Confirmed Original Music Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper Written by Alvin Fast, Mardi Rustam, Kim Henkel Produced by Mardi Rustam Directed by Tobe Hooper
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Tobe Hooper is an odd duck...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Tobe Hooper is an odd duck...
- 9/15/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On Monday, March 10, a forty-year-old terror will return to Austin, Tx., when a newly restored version of horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is screened at the SXSW Festival ahead of the movie’s theatrical rerelease this summer. “It’s great on the big screen,” says filmmaker Tobe Hooper, who cowrote and directed the infamous 1974 film in the countryside outside of Austin, and also worked on the restoration. “It’s in 7.1 sound that completely wraps around you and in 4K . The film works as well, if not better, than it originally did.”
Above, you can exclusively check out a...
Above, you can exclusively check out a...
- 3/6/2014
- by Clark Collis
- EW - Inside Movies
Like most of you out there, anytime a new entry in a horror franchise is about to hit theaters, I can’t help but revisit all the previous entries in that franchise to prep me properly for the theatrical going experience. And seeing billboards plastered all over town with Leatherface’s visage has put me in a post-Christmas Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of mood! So what better way to ring in the New Year than with Leatherface and family? We’ll have to go back to the very beginning with Tobe Hooper’s infamous 1973 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I can’t remember exactly how I discovered the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I do know that when I was around 12 years old, I was already helping myself to a steady diet of horror titles courtesy of the mom & pop owned video store on the corner from where I lived.
I can’t remember exactly how I discovered the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I do know that when I was around 12 years old, I was already helping myself to a steady diet of horror titles courtesy of the mom & pop owned video store on the corner from where I lived.
- 12/27/2012
- by Rob Galluzzo
- FEARnet
The scariest horror films don't just make you want to cover your eyes, but your ears, too. Stephen Thrower on movie music with real menace
Please note: some of the links in this article point to gory or graphic horror movie scenes
There are two schools of thought when it comes to film music: some say you should scarcely notice it, while others are attuned to every flattened fifth. Being a musician as well as a film journalist, I've always been staunchly in the latter camp (although I did have to look up "flattened fifth"). It seems inconceivable to me that we should fail to notice something as profoundly affecting as a movie soundtrack, and that goes double for the horror genre.
From the moment Bernard Herrmann's violins assaulted the shower-loving public in Psycho, horror soundtracks have rarely been content as mere background gloop. James Bernard's music for...
Please note: some of the links in this article point to gory or graphic horror movie scenes
There are two schools of thought when it comes to film music: some say you should scarcely notice it, while others are attuned to every flattened fifth. Being a musician as well as a film journalist, I've always been staunchly in the latter camp (although I did have to look up "flattened fifth"). It seems inconceivable to me that we should fail to notice something as profoundly affecting as a movie soundtrack, and that goes double for the horror genre.
From the moment Bernard Herrmann's violins assaulted the shower-loving public in Psycho, horror soundtracks have rarely been content as mere background gloop. James Bernard's music for...
- 8/19/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
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