TCP#10: Texas Chain Saw Massacre
This week’s theme at Tuesday Couch Potatoes is Urban Legends. If you happen to know of “an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true,” and has now been popularized on the big screen, then come share it with us. Most of the stories are gory, creepy and apocryphal at best. Be prepared to be scared!
Origins: When The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit movie theaters in 1974, it quickly supplanted the previous year’s top horror flick, The Exorcist, as “the most terrifying movie ever made.” Unlike The Exorcist, however, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre eschewed standard production values and modern special effects in favor of a grainy documentary-like approach with decidedly low-tech visual effects. The tale of five young students who unwittingly meet up with a sinister hitchhiker, the mask-wearing maniac Leatherface (whose mask is actually made from dried human skin, not leather), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre turned “a lumberjack’s tool into the stuff of nightmares and the blood-curdling scream into an art form,” in the words of Toronto Star writer Melissa Aronzyk.
The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been touted with the tagline “Inspired by a true story,” leading many horror fans to wonder whether the grisly film was actually based on real events, or whether the claim is simply another bit of Hollywood promotion intended to attract filmgoers via the extra-chilling lure of a macabre tale not entirely the product of a screenwriter’s imagination (a technique successfully used by the Coen brothers to entice viewers into suspending disbelief for 1996’s Fargo, their gruesome cinematic depiction of a kidnapping-for-hire scheme gone awry).
Read more at Snopes.com
This movie was scary not because it was “based on a true incident” but even if it’s not true, ghost towns are enough to make me miss a couple of nights’ sleep. Imagine reaching a town and see empty cars or traces of people being there yet wasn’t able to leave. Even scarier is seeing a lone girl walking towards you in the middle of the dessert telling you that “they are all dead.” Definitely one freak fest!
Check out the preview below:
one of the those violent, bloody, gory films that i got to watch with eyes entirely half-closed. i thought i might have a heart attack!
thanks for joining this week! next week, we will feature SUPERNATURALS movies. happy TCP!
This movie scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it. I watched it with my older brothers (I was around 11 or 12 years old) and they made it extra scary for me. I wasn’t very old but I know I wasn’t able to sleep alone for a couple of nights….hehehe
here is my urban legend entry.
I am trying to generate some support for my daughter. I entered her into a Smile Contest, so if you could please cast a vote for her, the contest runs until October 31st so your vote would be so much appreciated. To cast your vote, please go to this link. Please look for Jillian Rylie Cottrill. Thank you very much for all your help!
im not really a fan of gory/creepy movies, but i still watched this one because of jessica biel. she’s soo hot even in a horror movie like this. teehee.