"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
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