![]() In fact production on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre lasted for one month from 15 July to 14 August 1973, while the Houston Mass Murders were not revealed until Henley shot Corll dead and confessed to his crimes just days before the film completed shooting. So this kind of moral schizophrenia is something I tried to build into the characters.’ He wanted it known that, now that he was caught, he would do the right thing. Well, that struck me as interesting, that he had this conventional morality at that point. ‘I saw some news report where Elmer Wayne was identifying bodies and their locations, and he was this skinny little ol’ seventeen year old, and he kind of puffed out his chest and said, “I did these crimes, and I’m gonna stand up and take it like a man”. Henkel meanwhile cited the influence of Elmer Wayne Henley and what would become known as the Houston Mass Murders, where Henley and his fellow teenage accomplice David Owen Brooks lured dozens of boys and young men to the house of the serial killer Dean Corll, who tortured, raped, and murdered them before burying their bodies. Instead Hooper argued that his intentionally misleading framing device echoed and called out the lies of the American government, over everything from Vietnam and Watergate to the first oil crisis. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.’īut The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was based on no single case and drew from the life of no one serial killer. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. ‘The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. Now the motion picture that’s just as real.’ Narrated by John Larroquette, the opening crawl states in yellowing text: The billboard signs at the time of release read, ‘What happened is true. Years after the release of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Hooper and Henkel would elaborate on their influences to the point of distorting timelines and mythologising some of the contemporary resonance of their film. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was the second feature by the 30-year-old director Tobe Hooper, who reunited with the 27-year-old screenwriter Kim Henkel following their work on the 1969 experimental hippie daydream Eggshells. While the weather that year was relatively mild by the standards of rural Texas, temperatures still hovered in the region of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and concern over the cost of equipment rentals meant that shooting lasted for up to 16 hours each day, seven days a week. One of the most influential horror movies of all-time, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains more famous for its small budget than its hellish production in the summer of 1973.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |