Talk Is Cheap, Chainsaws Are Forever
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Forget the anemic political documentaries that flow from the hordes of Michael Moore-locks who huddle in the cities, issuing their paltry digital video missives; the only movie about America’s red state/blue state divide that matters is 1974’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” from Texas native Tobe Hooper. Released immediately after America’s trouncing in Vietnam and at the height of the Watergate Scandal, “Chainsaw” burst forth two years after “Deliverance” first taught city slickers that this was a country divided into those who squealed like pigs, and those who made them do so.
Shot mostly in daylight, the better to see the flyblown scuzziness of Texas with its economic back broken, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” gave us two varieties of American: soft, overly-educated, under-dressed, love children of privilege and the hardworking locals in the hills and dales of America waiting to saw their heads off. Produced by the genius behind “Deep Throat,” the flick was a massive hit and launched an entire genre of “Don’t Go In the Heartland” flicks: “Southern Comfort” (killer Cajuns), “Just Before Dawn” (killer mountain dwellers) and the current spate of remakes, one of which, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning,” opens this week.
“Chainsaw” had its roots in 1964’s “2000 Maniacs,” a riff on “Brigadoon” wherein a Southern town obliterated in the Civil War reappears on its Centennial so its living dead citizens can torture Yankee tourists to death. In “Chainsaw” the grievance is economic: The family of psychopaths are unemployed slaughterhouse workers. Jobless, there’s nothing for them to do but carve up any blue state liberals who come within chopping range. In the excruciating “Texas Chainsaw Massacre II” the killers are small businessmen who despise taxes, but in all these movies the message is clear: “Lee surrendered, but I didn’t.”
The 2003 “Texas Chainsaw” remake channels red state rage about as authentically as a trucker cap on a Brooklyn hipster. These days, $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon and a love of Willie Nelson are badges of downtown cool, not signs of dangerous redneck inbreeding and the remake has a hard time distinguishing their “That 70’s Show”-looking cast from the grizzled locals who hate them. But even with all its plasticized values, there’s something about the red state/blue state divide that keeps these movies fresh. The Northeast feels guilty for ruining the Southeast in the Civil War, the Southeast feels rage at the complete mismanagement of its economy in the 1920s and ‘30s. Middle America can’t comprehend the godlessness of the big cities and the big cities don’t understand why Middle America is so superstitious. We know we’re different and we know we can’t overcome our differences by talking or voting — God knows, we’ve tried. These movies say what we fear: The only way to hash it out is by chainsaw.