The question of how to get the most authenticity possible out of actors has been riling up filmmakers for as long as the film medium has existed. William Wyler ("Ben-Hur") did 40 takes; Robert Bresson ("Pickpocket") insisted on simple movements and monotone line deliveries; Italian Neorealists cast people off the street; Robert Altman ("Nashville") let actors improvise; Andrei Tarkovsky ("Solaris") kept them in the dark about how the story would end.
When it comes to horror, the quest becomes even more daunting: How do you convince viewers that the people they're seeing on screen are genuinely disturbed and terrified, while also securing enough distance between actors and characters to keep the shoot sustainable? Some films have attempted to split the difference by instilling genuine scares, discomfort, and emotional distress on their actors. Others assembled their respective violent scenarios to within an inch of their lives, placing performers into circumstances that were...
When it comes to horror, the quest becomes even more daunting: How do you convince viewers that the people they're seeing on screen are genuinely disturbed and terrified, while also securing enough distance between actors and characters to keep the shoot sustainable? Some films have attempted to split the difference by instilling genuine scares, discomfort, and emotional distress on their actors. Others assembled their respective violent scenarios to within an inch of their lives, placing performers into circumstances that were...
- 1/15/2024
- by Leo Noboru Lima
- Slash Film
Tobe Hooper's 1974 horror film "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," just by its very aesthetic, is one of the grimier, more disgusting movies ever made. Shot on 16mm film, every frame looks stressed and overexposed, as if the film stock itself had been stored in a slaughterhouse. It's a film that looks like it was made by the killers who live inside of it.
The mythology of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is well-known to all horror aficionados, and has inspired a massive subgenre of feckless city dopes who get lost in the impoverished backwoods of America only to be slaughtered by the mutated locals. The film stands as a commentary on the great forgotten swaths of the United States, shoved aside by economic hardship and a lack of resources. In most cases, the forgotten people turn to cannibalism to survive. The poor feed on the well-to-do.
The film itself...
The mythology of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is well-known to all horror aficionados, and has inspired a massive subgenre of feckless city dopes who get lost in the impoverished backwoods of America only to be slaughtered by the mutated locals. The film stands as a commentary on the great forgotten swaths of the United States, shoved aside by economic hardship and a lack of resources. In most cases, the forgotten people turn to cannibalism to survive. The poor feed on the well-to-do.
The film itself...
- 4/14/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
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