This episode covers The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series and features interviews with Director Tobe Hooper, "Leatherface" Gunnar Hansen, and Actor Ed Neal. Along for the ride tracing the history is Director John Carpenter, Ed Gein Detectives, our friend Heidi from Pretty-Scary.net, and various TCM fans. Noticeably missing from this impressive line-up are stars Marilyn Burns, Jessica Biel, and Bill Moseley. Noticeably included for limited reasons are teenyboppers currently working on the new TCM: The Beginning film.
The episode begins with the true story of serial killer Ed Gein that spawned the idea for TCM. They go in detail about the trials and tribulations that Tobe and cast suffered while filming the original. They briefly described the TCM ban with hardly any mention of the Video Nasty era.
The breakdown does like this: There is a good chunk devoted to explaining the original. TCM 2 was passed off as a goofy film and treated with no respect. Leatherface: TCM 3 was completely brushed over and only given about 3 minutes of the hour feature. And then there is TCM: The Next Generation. They completely ignore the fact that this was a bad film and angered fans and choose to instead blame poor distribution on Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger's agents delaying the release. The coverage of the TCM Remake mainly consists of old clips from 2-3 years ago with no new commentary. And the talk of the new TCM: The Beginning is uninspiring.
Bottom Line: Okay for a quick overview of the history, but you should probably stick to DVD commentary or documentaries such as TCM: A Family Portrait for more info.
Rating: 5/10
Molly Celaschi www.HorrorYearbook.com MySpace.com/HorrorYearbook
