CHILDREN OF THE CHAINSAW T
he column you are about to read is an ac- count of the tragedy that befell Tobe Hooper, his villain Leatherface and the various cre- atives behind 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. It is all the more tragic because they were original. Hooper could not have expected, nor would he likely have wished to see, so many of his mad and macabre musings from TCM bla- tantly copied by other directors for their own films. Regardless, paying homage to a classic doesn’t automatically make a film cringe-worthy; let’s take a quick survey of some of the more accom- plished recent DVD releases that owe everything from a debt of gratitude to a cut of their retail sales to Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel. Headcheese-ing up the
list is Krist Rufty’s Psycho Holocaust (2009), avail- able on DVD from Inde- pendent Entertainment. Rufty follows the TCM template of twentysome- things who take a road trip to a remote back- woods locale, ignore warnings, and fall into the clutches of a crazed can- nibal clan, including one Leatherface. Actually, the
chainsaw-wielding masked maniac here is called PillowFace and, as you may have guessed, this isn’t an overly serious take on the Hooper/Henkel mythos. The fun includes spotting Fulci references (!), the wicked score by Giallo’s Flame, and plenty of ’80s-style shot-on-video splat- ter, including a gnarly scalping, sundry acts of dismemberment and some strap-on saw blade sodomy! Then there’s Bunnyman (2009),
which boasts a completely ridicu- lous concept: the principal villain is a relentless, silent stalker in an Easter parade costume! But direc- tor Carl Lindebergh portrays the character humourlessly, crafting an absurdly creepy and instantly
RM60 If A Tree Falls
iconic slasher. Three couples driving through the remote California wilderness become embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with an imposing dump truck, à la Duel (1971), and are run off the highway. They set out on foot after one of them is killed and their car is wrecked, and it isn’t long before they’re running for their lives from the titular chainsaw- wielding furry and his demented sib- lings. Despite budgetary limitations, Bunnyman plays big. It looks and sounds fantastic; the cast is impres- sive. It’s plenty bloody and has some cool grue (a woman stabbed in the mouth and another ripped in half be- tween the truck and a tree, in partic- ular), but it’d be tastier with a little more meat and a little less sauce. But the Golden Saw
Award of this column must go to Canuck film- maker Philip Carrer’s gritty grindhouse throwback If a Tree Falls (2010). Carrer made the feature film for $1000 and went on to pre- miere it at Montreal’s prestigious Fan- Tasia Film Festival. No mean feat! The new extras-jammed Black Fawn Pro- ductions/MKD Cinema DVD features a
leaner version, for which Carrer trimmed eight minutes to ratchet up the pace. Although the least gory of the lot – the garden
shears impalement and disembowelment scenes that bookend the film are the only gags of note – it’s the most disturbing. A brother and sister each bring along a friend on a cross-country road trip to a family reunion on the East Coast. They pull off the highway to camp, but are dragged off into the night by a number of silent, stocking-masked assailants to be cruelly tormented and slaugh- tered. Convincingly emulating a ’70s film, Carrer went the grind- house route visually as well (in- cluding faux splices, damaged reel ends and colour bleed), and the approach complements the psychedelic cinematography and organic rock tunes of the sound- track. The story, though, has more
in common with recent French films such as Ils (2006) and Martyrs (2008). The motiveless vio- lence that the mysterious mob of killers inflicts upon their captives is especially uncomfortable – the actors really beat each other! And just as in the famous dinner scene in Hooper’s film, the hys- teria is genuine.
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