Leatherface Is Back... Yet Again

Well, it appears that another Chainsaw film is in the works. Bloody-Disgusting broke the news days ago, and it was confirmed, that we will now be seeing a franchise wide prequel depicting the events that take place before the events of the Hooper's classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It's being described as taking place during Leatherface's "teen years". 

It was originally described in a BD exclusive that it would take place in between Hooper's original and the travesty that was Texas Chainsaw 3D, but now it appears that it will be taking place before Hooper's original. Confusing, I know.

I don't know what you guys are thinking about this, but after seeing TC3D, I'm not exactly excited about seeing Leatherface return quite so soon. Especially being that the same folks are still behind it. 

What say all of you?

RIP Marilyn Burns (Sally Hardesty): May 7th, 1949 - August 5th, 2014

Some sad news hit the horror community last week. I was pretty shocked when I heard the news, and have wanted to wait until I could really take the time to sort my thoughts and speak my piece regarding the matter.

Marilyn Burns is oft overlooked in favor of Jamie Lee Curtis when the term Scream Queen is brought up in conversation amongst horror fans and non-fans alike. She was the original surviving lady, the original scream queen and she helped stoked the fire that would eventually become the raging love of horror that I have today.

Her passing is untimely (she was 65 years old), and it's made even sadder by the fact that we are now celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the film that gave her the greatest role that she would ever play, that of Sally Hardesty in Tobe Hooper's seminal The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. She helped create one of the greatest horror archetype's, that of the strong woman who defies the odds and bests the maniac on their trail. Marilyn endured the summer heat, the dangers of the chainsaw and endless bruises, scrapes and injuries that went along with the filming of TCM. Even the fake blood used was a painful endeavor to remove once the cameras stopped rolling.

While the film ended up hurting her career in terms of mainstream success, she starred and co-starred in several other films throughout the years, including Eaten Alive, Kiss Daddy Goodbye, Texas Chainsaw 3D and The Butcher Boys. She also took on the role of Linda Kasabian, real life member of the Manson family, in the 1976 television mini-series Helter Skelter.

While she focused on stage acting in the later years of her life, horror fans the world over would still flock to appearances she made at various horror conventions in order to snap a picture with the iconic scream queen herself.

While it's very sad that we had to lose Marilyn at such a young age, it is important that we take the time to celebrate her life and the monumental impact that she had on the genre that we all love so much. If it weren't for people like her, the horror landscape would be a very different beast than what we have today.

RIP Marilyn Burns, May 7^th, 1949 – August 5^th, 2014

The Beautifully Restored TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE Gets It's Release Date!

To celebrate the 40 year anniversary of the one of the most iconic horror films of all time, Dark Sky Films and NOLO Engineering spent a grueling 5 months (of 40 hour work weeks) to completely restore Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

While most people will wax philosophical about Halloween being the god father of slasher films, I will stand firmly in my beliefs that that title was claimed four years earlier (although if you want to get technical, 1960's Peeping Tom was the first slasher film). It's a magical film that was created under disgustingly painful circumstances that you can literally feel when you're watching it. It was and always will be one of my favorite horror films and the opportunity to see it on the big screen is one that I am honored to get. I mean, this is coming from the guy that sleeps beneath a framed TCM poster. As a native Texan, it's how I show pride for my home state.

SO, before I get emotional and ramble on for another eight paragraphs, today Dark Sky Films announced the theatrical release date for the restored film: June 20th! 

It's safe to say that the film will also see a blu-ray release, most like special edition, as well, but that date has yet to be released. You can read more about the exhaustive efforts to restore this film here and here, I've been covering it pretty heavily. 

So will you be going out to your local theater to partake in the depravity? Heaven knows I will. I almost want to see if it will be playing at a drive-in in the LA area. Now that would make it a perfect experience, no?

HORROR FUN FIND: Tobe Hooper Shares the Grimiest of Stories From The Set of TCM

For those of you unaware, the great The Texas Chain Saw Massacre recently underwent an extensive make over and was debuted at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, TX. The original 16MM prints were taken and digitally transferred, color corrected and presented in a new and spiffy 4K transfer, as well as the audio, which was remixed into 7.1 Dolby Digital. From everything I've read, it's jaw droppingly beautiful (the film will see a theatrical release this summer). 

Tobe Hooper was at the festival, and according to Bloody Disgusting, he had quite the story to share with the mass of fans who turned out for the screening. TCM is known as one of the grimiest horror films of all time, and a lot of that has to do with the conditions in which it was filmed. In sweltering heat in the middle of a Texas summer, this cast was coated in sticky, home made fake blood and dealing with real rotting meat is one thing, but what Hooper went on to reveal is a whole different thing entirely. Read on for the story: 

“The last day of shooting went on for like 26 or 27 hours. Maybe even longer because I had to shoot an actor out. And it was the last prosthetic job on Old Granpa, and he was melting. The lights were so damn strong that the bones [they were using as props] started cooking. So every time I’d say cut everyone would run to the window and puke, throw up. A doctor had to come out and administer dramamine to help settle people’s stomachs. 

This family was into death art, it was a hobby. And we needed animals. The city pound had done their due for the month and they came out with a dump truck, I was in the house I didn’t even know it has happening. Anyway they pulled up about 20 meters from the house and dumped about 500 lbs of dead animals out front. I came out and looked at it and realized it was over the line, that a domestic animal is like a child so seeing all those dead cats and dogs would ruin the movie. So I said, “get rid of these.” And then I went back inside and I was shooting.

The house was tinted because we were shooting the dinner table scene, which takes place at night but we were shooting part of it in the day. But when I told them to get rid of it, someone got 5 gallons of gasoline and poured it over all of those dead animals and set fire to them. I guess they were thinking that they were going to disappear or go up into ashes. The house was bad enough with the bones cooking and everyone throwing up, but then all of this smoke [from burning fur and flesh] started coming in through the house. That’s when everyone really started losing it. ”

Yup. And believe it or not, this is what I love about horror. 

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE Gets Restored For Summer Theatrical Release!

 
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the top tier horror films in my life. There is no one single film that turned me onto the genre; it was a combined effort in which TCM played an integral part. It showed me the terror beyond Satan, ghosties and ghouls; it showed me the very real terror of the atrocities that human beings are capable of. 

Yesterday news broke that, in honor of the films 40th anniversary, the original 16mm film that it was shot on has been transferred to a beautiful 4K scan. Taking a staggering 5 months, of 40-hour workweeks, to complete the restoration, Boris Seagraves (engineer at NOLO) stated, “This film probably needed the most restoration of any project we’ve done.”

It was originally filmed on 16mm film, which was not exactly the best quality of film at the time, and also meant that there was no negative. The result was hodge podge of rough splices, dirt spots, scratches and film stains. Seagraves went on to say, “There were hundreds, if not thousands, of instances where you’d find a splice mark cooked into the middle of a frame. Some frames would have close to two hundred dirt events on them. We also spent a lot of time stabilizing the image. When doing a digital scan of a conformed 16mm print with a splice at every cut, it can be tough to achieve the high standards we all aspire to in the era of digital cinema. What might have passed as acceptable in the 70′s looks jarring now. So we worked hard to smooth out the tremors that almost inevitably occur when scanning this type of film element. There were tears in the film that we had to digitally rebuild from adjacent frames. There were tens of thousands of things we were dealing with."

 Tobe Hooper, director of TCM, was heavily involved in not only the video restoration but the audio as well. I am much more excited about this aspect than that of the video, however Hooper says that the film has never looked better: “I haven’t seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on the big screen for many, many years. This 40th anniversary restoration is absolutely the best the film has ever looked. The color and clarity is spectacular, displaying visual details in the film that were never before perceptible. The newly remastered 7.1 soundtrack breathes new life and energy into the film. I am very much looking forward to audiences experiencing this film as they never have before.”

The prospect of seeing this film on the big screen for the first time, as always, excites me like no other. There is something about this film that will also send a tickle of excitement down my spine. I don't think I'll ever forget how excited I was when I held that VHS in my hands for the first time; it was this taboo thing that I had heard of, this film that shocked the world. To be completely honest, I don't know how I feel about the restoration of the video. Part of what makes this film are all those dirt spots and scratches and inconsistencies. It makes the film seem quasi-voyeuristic, like Leatherface himself spliced the film together as a deranged monument to his family. At the same time, it's very exciting to know that steps are being made to ensure that this film is never lost with time. I couldn't be more excited about the audio restoration though. That makes a horror film, and one like this in 7.1 surround sound in a crowded movie theater sounds like heaven.

The restoration will premiere at this years SXSW Film Festival, and news of the theatrical release this summer will break in the coming months. 

New Stills From Joe Begos' ALMOST HUMAN

On February 21st, Joe Begos' creature feature inspired flick, Almost Human, hits VOD platforms and select theaters and they are gearing up by releasing up a new set of hi-res stills!

I am excited about this one, if for no other reason than simply that it'll be the first in-theater horror flick of the year for me! It's been far too long since I hunkered down to one in a theater, I believe the last one was The Shining on All Hollows Eve. 

In what is being called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets The Thing, "Mark Fisher disappeared from his home in a brilliant flash of blue light almost two years ago. His friend Seth Hampton was the last to see him alive. Now a string of grisly, violent murders leads Seth to believe that Mark is back, and something evil is inside of him."

The flick was directed by Joe Begos' and stars Graham Skipper, Vanessa Leigh and Josh Ethier. It is being released by IFC Midnight on February 21st. Dig on those tasty hi-res pics below and take a peek at the trailer if you haven't already!

HORROR IN PRINT - Gunnar Hansen Tells The Other Side of the Making of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE

The man behind one of the most iconic masked mad men in the history of horror has stepped out from behind the leather and is telling his side of the making of what is possibly the first great slasher film to ever appear on the big screen. Gunnar Hansen, known for unleashing Leatherface upon the world for the first time, has released his autobiography in which he tells his story in regards to what went into making The Texas Chain Saw Massacre the classic that it has become today. 

The official (and rather lengthy synopsis) is as follows: 

When first released in 1974, the terrifying film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was both reviled and championed, seizing the imaginations of audiences and critics alike. From its early days as a controversial cult sensation to its showing at the Cannes film festival and inclusion in the collection of New York’s MoMA, it is now recognized as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, even while mystery and mythology around the film endures.
 
A six-foot-four poet fresh out of grad school with limited acting experience, Gunnar Hansen played the masked, chainsaw-wielding “Leatherface.” Now in Chain Saw Confidential, critically acclaimed author Hansen steps from behind his “Leatherface” mask to tell the true story behind the making of this iconic film. 

Combining his unique perspective with conversations with fellow cast and crew members, Hansen debunks myths and offer fresh behind-the-scenes details on the film’s inventive but often quite dangerous independent production, illuminating insights into the film’s reputation and place in popular culture, and a thoughtful meditation on why we love to be scared in the first place.

Find out:

● What footage director Tobe Hooper cut for being too disturbing
● The psychological ramifications for several of the cast and crew members
● Which actor maintained character for the entirety of the filming
● What major newspaper called it a “despicable film”
● How the film’s marketing as a true-story created confusion and claims that people know “the real” Leatherface, even today.

This film was, and is, more than just a film to me when I was growing up. It shaped my opinions on film, it opened up a whole new world to me just as much The Exorcist and The Omen did a few years before. I mean, I still sleep underneath a TCM poster every night, so I am understandably very excited to get my hands on this and dig into it myself!