Classic Movie Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) 

Directed by: Tobe Hooper.

Written by: L.M. Kit Carson based on the film by Tobe Hooper.

Starring: Dennis Hopper (Lieutenant 'Lefty' Enright), Caroline Williams (Vanita 'Stretch' Brock), Jim Siedow (Cook), Bill Moseley (Chop-Top), Bill Johnson (Leatherface), Ken Evert (Grandpa).

 

In retrospect, it’s very odd that it took 12 years to make a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – one of the greatest of all American horror films, and one of the first that could be described as a slasher film. By this point, there had already been multiple Halloweens and Nightmare on Elm Streets and Friday the 13ths – all series that started after Texas Chainsaw, not to mention all the other series that we have forgotten over the years. It’s surprising then that the studio didn’t either push director Tobe Hooper to make a sequel, or simply gotten someone else to do one. When Hooper finally did make a sequel, we got this – a crazed satire of the Reagan-era that is as over the top as the original was realistic. It feels like Hooper felt he couldn’t top the original film if he tried to repeat himself – so he decided to do precisely the opposite with the sequel. It didn’t sit right at the time – but it has gained a cult following over the years. As is often the case when this happens, the truth lies somewhere in between – as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is neither the disaster people thought it was at the time, nor the classic some seem to think it is now.

 

The original film was very much a product of its time and place – a story about ignorant teenagers, who feel entitled to go wherever they want, who don’t really understand what they’re walking into or why. They’re being cut down and slaughtered but are ignorant of their own sins. It has been read as an allegory to Vietnam and many other facets of the 1970s, when cynicism started running high as Watergate broke. By 1986, that era was over – and Hooper correctly sensed that. He could no longer make a verité style horror film about naïve teenagers – so instead he makes a film about the go-go ‘80s, and corporate excess. The cannibalistic family at its core of the first film have no become entrepreneurs – and successful ones at that with their chili business – no points for guessing the meat they are using.

 

Instead of teenagers this time around, the families has two nemesis. The first is Stretch (Caroline Williams), a local DJ who draws the attention of the family when she plays a recording on the radio station that could get them into trouble, and the second is Lefty (Dennis Hopper) – a former Texas ranger, who was related to some of the victims from the first film, hellbent on revenge – even if most people think that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was just a myth.

 

The film lets you know right from the start that this isn’t going to be a repeat of the original film. The opening sequence involves two high school seniors – jackasses both, entitled, spoiled rich brats, racing down the highway, destroying everything in their path. They call into Stretch’s radio show – that’s when she gets the recording – but will run afoul of Leatherface, and his family, and when you do that, you don’t last long. From there, the film is basically made up of very long sequences – first in the radio station, where Leatherface and Chop Top (Bill Moseley, basically doing what Moseley does in all those Rob Zombie films)- harass Stretch, and then at the family “home” – an abandoned amusement park, littered with corpses and bones, where Stretch will again wind up, this time with Lefty right behind her.

 

There are interesting ideas throughout The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2- but many of them feel half formed. Chop Top has a metal plate in his head, and the lasting image you will undoubtedly take away from the film, and never forget no matter how hard you try, is him picking at his scalp with a heated up closed hanger, and then eating what on it. He is a Vietnam vet, and brings up many different battles and massacres throughout the film – which connects it to the original, but I’m not sure is ever really explored enough. The most fascinating sequence is undoubtedly when Leatherface has Stretch cornered – and has been ordered to kill her – but she charms him out of doing so, resulting in a moment you won’t forget, when basically Leatherface uses his chainsaw as a phallic stand-in, in a show of pure impotence. Again, this is a fascinating idea – one that could be used to deconstruct many slasher movies – but here is abandoned before it is fully explored (I think the scene later with Grandpa and Stretch is supposed to explore it further – but it’s so weirdly over the top and deliberately comical, that I don’t think it works).

 

Much of the time is over-the-top in the extreme. This is a film that makes great use of Tom Savini’s special effects makeup – blood flows in geysers throughout the film. It’s hard to tell if Hooper was really making a satire here, or maybe just a film that was supposed to be pure camp. Perhaps had the film marketed itself that way – like have they used Hooper’s original title, Beyond the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, critics and audiences would have better seen what Hooper was doing at the time (at the very least, you’d think Roger Ebert – who hated this film, but of course was also the screenwriter for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) would have seen what it was doing.

 

In a way, I admire what Hooper does here. The first film was a very serious attempt to not just scare you, but also delve into some issues of the time revolving around death and violence, and how people are dying without understanding why. It was a serious film. This film is anything but serious – it goes over the top well before it has Dennis Hopper and Leatherface engage is a chainsaw duel, and just keeps on going further and further throughout. You have to admire Hooper’s gumption here – his willingness to go for it, to not repeat himself, to try and make a film for the 1980s that commented on the time much like the original did for the 1970s – and recognizing that in order to do so, he had to make a completely different film tonally. It’s a valiant effort, and there are things about it that work wonderfully. And yet, for a film that is as wildly over the top, and trying to so hard to be comical, you would think that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 would be more fun to watch. But it really isn’t – it leaves a sick taste in your mouth somewhat. What Hooper was intending here was a tight rope walk tonally, and he doesn’t nail it. You can admire the effort though.

Classic Movie Review: Poltergeist

Poltergeist (1982)
Directed by: Tobe Hooper.
Written by: Steven Spielberg & Michael Grais & Mark Victor.
Starring: Craig T. Nelson (Steve Freeling), JoBeth Williams (Diane Freeling), Beatrice Straight (Dr. Lesh), Dominique Dunne (Dana Freeling), Oliver Robins (Robbie Freeling), Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne Freeling), Michael McManus (Ben Tuthill), Virginia Kiser (Mrs. Tuthill), Martin Casella (Marty), Richard Lawson (Ryan), Zelda Rubinstein (Tangina), James Karen (Mr. Teague).

There is a strange symmetry between Poltergeist and a movie that opened just one week after it in the summer of 1982 – E.T. Steven Spielberg directed E.T and he co-wrote and produced Poltergeist, and there have been rumors that Spielberg actually directed much of the film himself – not credited director Tobe Hooper. The two films were shot concurrently, on the same street, and when there were delays on E.T. – and there were a lot – Spielberg would spend time on the Poltergeist set. Neither he nor Hooper have ever commented on the rumors – but in a way they don’t need to. We know what a Spielberg film looks and feels like – and we know what a Tobe Hooper film looks and feels like, and Poltergeist certainly feels like a Spielberg film. Comparing the film to E.T. is interesting, because they kind of feel like opposite sides of the same coin – both the positive and negative sides of suburbia, even if ultimately both films end up in a fairly good place (which is one of the reasons you know you’re watching a Spielberg, not a Hooper, film).

Poltergeist takes place in seemingly perfect suburbia. Unlike the family in ET, which is breaking up, the family in Poltergeist is outwardly strong. The father, Steve (Craig T. Nelson) is a successful real estate agent – selling home in the very development that he and his family lives. The family has three seemingly perfect kids – the teenage wisecracking teenage daughter (Dominique Dunne) and the adorable little girl, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) – and a son right in the middle. The most interesting character in the family is the mother, Diane (JoBeth Williams) – and when does that ever happen? At first, she seems like typical, movie suburban mother – like the ones that are often in Spielberg movies. But the movie gives her some subtle depth. She’s undeniably more sexual than most mothers in the movies, she still smokes pot (in a great scene, where she’s smoking pot, and her husband is reading a book on Ronald Reagan, bringing these children of the 1960s full circle). The Freeling family is seemingly a perfect, sitcom like nuclear family – other than these touches, that the movie subtly sprinkles through the movie. Like the fact that it is revealed that the teenage daughter is 16, and later than Diane is 32 (do the math), or the jokes that teenage daughter makes about sex (she is away with her boyfriend for much of the action, and remarks “Oh yeah, I remember that place” when she is told they will be staying at a local hotel – a remark that causes her mother to eye her dubiously, but chooses not to say anything). Still, the family has the appearance of perfection, even if they are in fact more flawed than that.

In E.T., the outside force that eventually visits the family – especially the kids – is one of good. He even helps to heal the children, before he heads back to space and reunites with his fa,ily. In Poltergeist, the outside force is one that quite literally tries to destroy the family. It all begins with little Carol Anne and a fuzzy TV screen, which she says she can hear people talking. Strange things begin to happen in the house – and eventually Carol Anne will go missing – sucked into whatever is haunting the house. This sets up what we think is the climax – where a strange woman, with psychic powers (the wonderful Zelda Rubinstein) helps the family fight off whatever is haunting them, and get their daughter back. But no, the movie isn’t over yet.

The weakest scenes in Poltergeist are the ones where they have to try and explain why everything is happening. Of course, it’s because of corporate greed and land developers taking short cuts, etc., which is all pretty standard stuff, and to be honest, all more than a little dull. It’s one of the flaws in these movies that they always feel the need to explain everything – which I never think is necessary, but whatever – I seem to be alone on that. The special effects sequences, which would have been revolutionary back in 1982 have, of course, aged – but that doesn’t mean they are no longer effective, at least for someone like me (my wife is the opposite – I have pretty much given up watching any old movie with her that has special effects, because she cannot get over how fake they look compared to the “new” special effects, which often look more fake to me. Different strokes, etc.).

But for me, as good as the special effects sequences, and as intense as the movie gets, it is the rest of the movie – the quieter scenes that I truly found most interesting. Perhaps it’s because I have never really been too scared by the supernatural movies like this, since I have a hard time believing in ghosts. However, I did find the movie endlessly fascinating for how it views suburbia, and the similarities and differences between it and Spielberg’s other movies.

Poltergeist ends with a joke – order has been restored, the family remains intact, etc. In the end, Spielberg offers the audiences a little bit of comfort after confronting them with the perils of suburbia and denial (because really, this is a family that lives in denial much of the time, not wanting to deal with their issues). Spielberg does this sometimes – comes right up to a point where he may say something daring, and then pulls back. Still though, Poltergeist works. It works as a horror movie, as intense entertainment. And it works as something a little bit more than that as well.