The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 - Articles - Zimbio

Great Moments in Terrible Filmmaking: Eaten Alive

Mon, 11 Nov 2008 20:23:00 GMT

posted by fenskemelissa
The Common Man, because he kept getting turned off by the terrible production values, the utter incoherence, and the overall yuckiness of Tobe Hooper's second film, Eaten Alive, kept putting off this edition of Great Moments.... But having finished the film, and again wanting to feel like the time spent watching it wasn't a total waste of his time, The Common Man is good to go.

Hooper, of course, you'll remember from the vampires from outer-space film, Lifeforce, which The Common Man reviewed in August. Eaten Alive, Hooper's follow-up to the cult success of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is the heartwarming tale of a man and his crocodile, who live together at the man's dirty, falling-down hotel that is probably the single biggest reason The Common Man will never visit the South. When business from the local brothel begins to spill over, Judd, the hotel's owner takes offense to the lasciviousness that has landed on his doorstep. The trouble starts small, as Judd pushes one hooker over the totally not-safe-for children handrail of his porch and into the croc pit.

While his first crime goes off without much of a hitch, Judd's dream existence of living a solitary life in a perpetually dark corner of nowhere with just his cuddly croc (who he tells everyone is from Africa and warns will eat anything) to keep him company goes awry when more guests inexplicably begin showing up on his doorstep, desperate for shelter. Shockingly, many of these people end up going ass-over-tea kettle into Judd's croc pit, most of them after getting a throat full of the business end of Judd's scythe.

Does this sound convoluted yet? Good. It should. The film makes no sense for a number of reasons. First, the plot focuses entirely on Judd's increasingly panicked attempts to hide his crimes. And as Judd loses his sanity, the movie slides deeper into chaos. Perhaps this is intentional. Or perhaps Hooper simply felt the need to justify the film's title. New characters show up out of the blue and leave almost as quickly (usually via crocodile); before The Common Man had time to feel sorry for them, they were dinner. Finally, and most ridiculous of all, the entire series of events begins when that first hooker is kicked out of the brothel for refusing to accomodate a john (played by Robert Englund, who would grow up to be Freddie Krueger) whose big, kinky request was to have non-missionary sex. Apparently, down South, the hookers have standards (which she, of course, pays for when she's fed to the croc).

No! Wait! The Common Man forgot the dog. Indeed, the most implausible part of Hooper's film is when a family, road-weary, arrives on Judd's doorstep and rents a room, even after finding a dead monkey in a cage on the front porch. When the family dog gets too close to the crocodile, it is of course a goner. However, despite the fact that their daughter is crying and screaming uncontrollably, her laughably incompetent parents still decide to spend the night. And rather than try to comfort the child, they yell at one another about whose fault it is that they stopped in the first place.

Anyway, film feels greasy and is a precursor of the Saw and Hostel-style torture-porn in today's theaters. The primary difference between those movies and Hooper's work here, however, is that those movies feel far less half-assed. They ramp up gore and the horror, while Hooper downplays the blood and ramps up the scuzzy. And while those films tend to torment men and women relatively equally, Hooper's movie relishes over the domination and torture of women. In its most disturbing scene, after disposing of the husband (who was going to report the croc to the local sheriff, leaving his wife and daughter alone in the hotel with Judd and his pet), Judd ties the mother up a bed and gags her. While her mother struggles, the daughter runs down the stairs and ends up under the porch, right next to the crocodile. Meanwhile, for 45 minutes, the movie follows other subplots while continually cutting back to the partially disrobed and bound mother struggling and writhing suggestably against her bonds and the daughter cowering under the porch.

So, while the comically incoherent plot is enough to sink Hooper's project, his unabashed and unsubtle hatred of women makes it a sick exercise. The Common Man was really hoping to see a good horror movie for Halloween, when he initially recorded the film. Instead, he just got queasy and needed to take a shower. And while he gave the world The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, after seeing Eaten Alive, The Common Man feels confident in saying that Tobe Hooper should never be let near a camera again. His films are not the campy fun of bad movies, but woman-hating, nasty bile that are as scuzzy as they are incompetent. If you'll excuse The Common Man, he's going to go take another shower. And disinfect himself with some steel wool and rubbing alcohol, which sounds infinitely more pleasant than ever seeing this film again.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) - Vinyl Rip Of OST (Remastered and 320! Includes A Bonus Track Not On The Vinyl!) Thanks "xysma" For Sharing!

Fri, 9 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

posted by TheLongIslandRipper

Here's a worthy upgrade from my previous edition I posted of this entry in the Chainsaw saga. It's a rip off the original vinyl album that's been out-of-print for years! I added a bonus track to the mix that was missing from this album rip. It's a Roky Erickson tune that I could not locate where it was played in the movie when I rewatched the "Gruesome Edition" DVD this morning. It's definitely credited in the end credits and in IMDB, that's why I bothered to look. Now this makes the soundtrack complete.

Here's some info courtesy of the original ripper on this rip: "This was ripped from the original Lp using my Xion usb turntable. I then dropped the whole mess into Sound Forge 9, cleaned the songs up, removed pops and hiss, and then encoded them (using the LAME codec) at 320 kbps. The sound is quite good (not flac, I know, but more than adequate for the vast majority of potential listeners) and this will make a nice addition for the TCM2 fan's collection. I've also included digital pics of the front and back cover (my scanner isn't that big) to try and make the torrent as "authentic" as it can be without owning the original."

BTW a interesting bit of trivia for you owners of this DVD. originally it was announced that director Kevin Smith ("Clerks", "Chasing Amy" etc.) was gonna be on a commentary for this DVD. He's a big fan of this movie as he's stated in the past. He thinks this movie is a brilliant satire. According to one fella on IMDB. he claimed he saw stickers on some DVD copies that said there was a commentary by Mr. Smith included. Unfortunately it seems the commentary never happened. Apparently Tobe Hooper was busy working on projects and Kevin was busy with "Clerks II". Damn. Would've been pretty sweet to hear Kevin talk about this movie. It would've been somewhat like a fan commentary like he did with the "Roadhouse" DVD special edition. Maybe for the eventual Blu-ray of Chainsaw 2??? One could only wish...

To see the trailer, head over to Insomnia Video Stash at this link.

Good To Be Bad (4:36) - Lords Of The New Church
Goo Goo Muck (2:54) - The Cramps
Haunted Head (2:41) - Concrete Blonde
Life Is Hard (4:00) - Timbuk 3
White Night (3:41) - Torch Song
Strange Things Happen (2:54) - Stewart Copeland
Over Your Shoulder (3:16) - Concrete Blonde
Shame On You (4:54) - Timbuk 3
Mind Warp (3:36) - Lords Of The New Church
No One Lives Forever (4:04) - Oingo Boingo
Bonus Track - Crazy Crazy Mama (2:01) - Roky Erickson

Total Duration: 00:38:33
Total Size: 74.6 MB
Bitrate: 320, VBR

Drayton: You have one choice, boy: sex or the saw. Sex is, well, nobody knows. But the saw, the saw is family.<---The Download Link

For a Change, Something for Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fans to Be Happy About

Sun, 28 Jan 2008 22:12:00 GMT

posted by bsolomon1
Seems there's a very intriguing project currently in the early stages, and you can count me on board from now. Vern at Ain't It Cool News has a fascinating interview up with Christopher Garetano, a young director who is pitching a script for a movie called South Texas Blues.
An ardent TCM fanatic, Garetano has written a screenplay all about the making of Tobe Hooper's original 1974 classic. Not a documentary, mind you, but a fictional movie based on the making of the film (think Shadow of the Vampire or Ed Wood). Further, he plans to include a lot of fantasy or magical realism moments as well (think The Big Lebowski or The Fisher King), making this a very unique concept indeed.
Part of what interests me is Garetano's casting ideas. For instance, he happens to be good friends with Ed Neal, who played the deranged hitchhiker in the original movie, and is considering casting him in the role of Jim Siedow, the actor who played his older brother in the original. And in a particularly inspired move, for the role of Neal he's hoping to cast Ray McKinnon, who played the preacher on the first season of HBO's superb Deadwood. Anyone who's a fan of that show should understand how perfect McKinnon is for the part.
It's a pretty in-depth interview, so I'd suggest checking it out to get the full idea. Garetano seems like a bit of a flake at times, but then, most great thinkers are, so I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be quite a piece of work.
Here's a little featurette Garetano put together for potential investors in the film. I know if I was an obscenely rich producer, I'd certainly risk a couple mill on it:
Online Videos by Veoh.com

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Almost forgot, I find it necessary to acknowledge the box office triumph this week of Meet the Spartans. This is the strongest evidence I've gotten in years to support my long-held hypothesis that most people are stupid.The Vault of Horror

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Thu, 24 Oct 2008 13:51:00 GMT

posted by klawedkillerkitten
Tobe Hooper must have gotten on the bandwagon that began when all the slasher films started a trend in the mid-'60s that continues to this day, getting bloodier and gorier with each new film, only done a little more stylishly by someone like Quentin Tarantino. This one seems more like a cheap exploitation film that capitalizes on the idea of a man running berserk with a chainsaw, intent on

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Wed, 15 Nov 2007 10:21:02 GMT

posted by distorria

Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the best loved horror films of the late seventies. It’s a great film that I always felt could have been perfect, if someone would have tweaked it a little. (This is a review of the original film, not the remake, for the slow folks who can’t follow along.)

The story is basic but effective. Five friends on a road trip run into scary inbred cannibals and are hunted down. The gore is nice but the violence of the film is what makes it good. You believe that these people are actually getting hurt and if you watch the behind the scenes you find out that they were. So many films only care about making people like good, and not about the gritty dirty reality of pain. Give me a actress who isn’t afraid of looking ugly and insane over the blonde goddesses any day in a messy horror film.

I just wish Hooper could have showed some restraint at times. It just makes me cringe when I re-watch the film and see the dining room table scene. It’s just so unnecessary to display her breakdown in such a goofy way. Of course the girl is messed up, she just watched her friends get cut into pieces. I think the film could have been better if someone would have just edited some of the sillier shit out.

Overall it’s a great film and well worth any horror freak’s time.

Tags: , 70s horror films, Tobe Hooper

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