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If it is oppressively hot, I wait until it is late at night and see THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE with the full sensory experience.
I rewatch movies into the ground, but not this one, which I see again carefully and only once in a while. That first viewing was too important to me https://twitter.com/Shudder/status/1278069826846588928
I rewatch movies into the ground, but not this one, which I see again carefully and only once in a while. That first viewing was too important to me https://twitter.com/Shudder/status/1278069826846588928
Have I ever tweeted too much about the first time I saw this movie as a teenager? Somehow it seems I have not
I didn't really know anything about it. No Internet, you just went off the VHS boxes at the video store.
I didn't really know anything about it. No Internet, you just went off the VHS boxes at the video store.
And this looked like straight-up sleaze, I mean look at that title. "WILL DO FOR MEAT-EATING WHAT 'PSYCHO' DID FOR SHOWERS!", read a breathless blurb on the back of the box. Yeah, this will be art I'm sure
So I rented it and then didn't get around to seeing it, until it was already due back the next day.
And then it was very late, and very hot and humid, and I couldn't sleep so what the hell.
And then it was very late, and very hot and humid, and I couldn't sleep so what the hell.
Everyone loves making fun of or hating Franklin, but I felt his pain. I had a lot of hatred in my life for happy, laughing friends in groups of which I was never a part, and being dragged along on a car trip by my popular sister (I had one!) seemed like a nightmare.
That scene where he hears the other kids having fun upstairs, and hurts himself on the doorframe while wheeling back out of the house. Oof. Shattering. I have trouble watching this movie with other people because that usually gets a big laugh
And later, when his sister is arguing with him over what to do, but she can't just *leave* him. The desperation and the warring needs in that scene, whew
But back to the heat. I'm watching all this just as uncomfortably hot as that movie looks, really feeling it. The insects. The defeated smell those too-hot cars and exhausted gas stations must have. That music—the nauseous drones and drunken bonging sounds.
And it's working because this movie is beautiful. Oh, grainy and inexpensive, but the style. The kids running through the field holding a towel aloft, like a magic carpet upside down. Closeups of the sun that explode out of focus.
That's earlier on. Then it gets abruptly horrifying—you thought it would ease into it a *little* more than this.
No. It's fast-fast-fast and then that metal door slams and it's over, and after a fraction of a second the soundtrack goes WHUMMMMM right in time with your guts
No. It's fast-fast-fast and then that metal door slams and it's over, and after a fraction of a second the soundtrack goes WHUMMMMM right in time with your guts
And then it's night, and Sally is arguing with Franklin about what to do, and by now it's becoming a dream where you run and run but can't get anywhere.
And then one where you're stuck in the same minute over and over, the last minute before something horrible happens to you
And then one where you're stuck in the same minute over and over, the last minute before something horrible happens to you
And then morning crashes into it with the sound of shattering glass, and it's so *bright,* and you need a second but there's no time, and a few minutes later the movie ends with a sharp cut, just as it should
And I was left there, gaping at what I'd just seen, at about 2:30am.
And had to try to go to bed, right next to a window with only a flimsy screen between me and the dark, hot country night outside. Good luck
And had to try to go to bed, right next to a window with only a flimsy screen between me and the dark, hot country night outside. Good luck
That experience is so precious to me. Only when the weather is right and I know I'm in the mood do I rewatch my favorite movie. I never want that magic to get worn from overuse
