Dipping My Toes in Horror: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist

Honestly, this month has gone on forever. It seems like years ago that I saw The Cabin in the Woods and The Evil Dead, and a whole lot of the other horror films I caught up with this October. I'm finishing the month off with an unintentional Tobe Hooper double-feature: his 1974 gorefest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and his 1982 ghost story Poltergeist. Then we'll get to my overview of the month, and what's in store for next month. (just a note: my monthly review will be up tomorrow because, come on, I had to do a horror film post on Halloween!)

I have filed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre away into the pile of films that I don't ever want to think about again. And hey, that's a pretty select few. Maybe that's because I watched it late on a Friday night, when I was practically drunk from sleep-deprivation (yes, I'm a teenager). Or maybe because wholey mother of crap, what the hell was going on in this movie.

Chainsaws terrify me.

I mean, I know that I've been spending this entire series going on about how witches terrify me, and black-and-white terrifies me, and pumpkins terrify me...well, I gotta say, chainsaws take the cake. Honestly, I was terrified of getting my two arm casts off because of the chainsaw they use. And then I saw this movie, and now I can't listen to that grating sound without hearing "death death death".

Honestly, I don't even know what to say about this movie. To be honest, everything in the movie has been clouded over by that end scene. All the screaming. All the blood. All the creepy Leatherface going wild over his chainsaw. 

That's how you do a horror movie. Seriously.

I'm not saying that this is my favourite horror, but I can see where all of today's horrors get their influence from, and how they can't really imitate it all that well. The graininess does it. Everything is low-fi and grainy, which adds this weird kind of atmosphere to it. A sickening kind of atmosphere to it. Oh, and by the way, Tyler, you berated me on Letterboxd for giving it a 7/10 (Seriously? That's a high rating in my scheme of things). It has kinda upped since then as I've had time to have nightmares and moments to be scared of chainsaws and such. And yeah, I can't even put this movie into words so I suppose this wasn't a very fruitful review for any first-timers looking to get scared.

Poltergeist is less gory than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and there may be a reason for that: even though the two were directed by Tobe Hooper, apparently Steven Spielberg (the producer) had a huge influence on the making of Poltergeist. I don't know if that's the plain reason we don't get to see much blood, but you'd never be able to tell that they were made by the same person. Poltergeist kinda tells a pretty tame story, of how a families house is haunted and it sucks up their young daughter (Heather O'Rourke), which means they have to stay in the house until they can get her out. At face value, it isn't all that exciting, but I really enjoyed it. There was just some sort of energy about it, which is a little hard to explain. It all seemed very real, while seeming very unreal at the same time. To be honest, the film kinda lost me when they were trying to "clean" the house and all of this light was flashing around and stuff. It struck me as a little over the top when the rest of the movie was kinda 'homespun', but then again, I've never been a fan of these paranormal kinds of offerings.

I think what scared me a little more, though, was this whole Poltergeist curse business. I was pretty shocked to see that Heather O'Rourke died at such a young age, and to die that way would have been terrible. And then I heard that Dominique Dunne (who played the eldest daughter) was killed by her boyfriend just after she made this movie. Gosh, that is just awful. And then there were some more untimely deaths surrounding the cast of the sequels...wow. Yeah, I don't really like reading into those theories. And guess what? I'm terrified of ghosts, too.

Anyway, what did I think about my experience with horror as a whole?
Just to clear things up, I wasn't exactly a newbie to horror. It had just been a while since I'd bothered to see any horrors. My Mum literally forced me into watching a whole lot when I was younger (she denies this, but she really was so irresponsible, haha). This time around, I found myself quite disappointed with a few, or unable to really connect with others. But most of the time, I'd forget that I was watching horror movies and I'd get really surprised when someone died. Oh, and I made a pretty sizeable list of everything I'm terrified of.

How would I rank the films I've seen, from least favourite to favourite?
10. Suspiria (1977) Dir. Dario Argento
9. The Evil Dead (1981) Dir. Sam Raimi
8. Halloween (1978) Dir. John Carpenter
7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) Dir. Tim Burton
6. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Dir. Robert Weine
5. Poltergeist (1982) Dir. Tobe Hooper
4. The Cabin in the Woods (2011) Dir. Drew Godard
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Dir. Tobe Hooper
2. Scream (1996) Dir. Wes Craven
1. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez

What will I be "Dipping My Toes" in next month?
I won't be doing any 'toe-dipping' per se, but I will be doing another two-a-week marathon challenge. Every Wednesday next month, I will be bringing you Nic November. Yes, I will be wading through eight Nicolas Cage films just for fun, and I will bring you my coverage of them. As you may know, I love to make fun of the guy, but maybe I should watch a few more of his films. Be ready with some recommendations next week! For now, what do you think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and/or Poltergeist, and horror in general?