After Thoughts...The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974] (spoilers)

Anyway you look at it, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a brutal, grotesque and horrifying movie.  It is also funny.  Well, sort of.  In a movie filled with psychotic torturers, chainsaws and meat hooks, director Tobe Hopper finds a way to shed some humor onto this densely laughless circumstance.  The humor of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes in the form of satire.  It is subtle, neatly positioned under what I would argue to be the most horrific scene in the entire movie.  Given its context, the terror erupting out this scene overwhelms anything “funny” about what is going on.  But it is still there.

The “funny” scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes in the movie after Sally has been captured, tied up to a chair made of human bones and seated at the table.  When she awakes to find herself here, she gives out a blood-curling scream.  There’s clearly nothing funny for her.  But still, in a sick way, this is also the funniest and probably only funny part of the movie.  Let me explain using this picture-

The Killer B's...Dawn of the Dead [1978]

When does an excessively violent zombie flick from the 1970s permit itself to be something more than a low grade horror movie?  I know it seems a bit counter-intuitive to begin this post describing the movie’s retraction from B status, but for as bad as some of the selections of The Killer B’s have been so far, I'd say it’s a far better start than most. 

Admired both as a great cinematic achievement and a terrific midnight fright, George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead received almost a universal appeal on its release backed by both critics and horror junkies alike. Even to this day some 30 years later, the movie still has a marvelous showing, despite the many remakes it has produced and itself being a sequel.  Romero’s classic zombie piece consistently remains towards the top of many lists concerning the greatest horror movies of all time.

Our fascination with the living dead is nothing new, even at this movie’s release.  Dawn of the Dead is in fact a sequel to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead released ten years prior to this one and still we can dig deeper.  White Zombie, considered the first true zombie picture ever made, came out in 1932.  But even before this so-called invention of the cinematic zombie there were precursors of the zombie craze, most notably the stiff, muted somnambulist of The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1921).  Dawn of the Dead provided nothing particularly revolutionary or innovative in its story or zombie depiction compared to previous movies of its kind.  There’s not much you can do actually.  When zombies enter, it always becomes a struggle for survival.  And other than Danny Boyle giving zombies the ability to run in 28 Days Later, the creativity of one such creature is limited.  Despite the rather atypical and unoriginal formula left for these movies, Romero’s second installment of the zombie trilogy was a huge success.  Many consider Dawn of the Dead to be the best zombie movie ever made and I would certainly agree.   So to circle back to the initial question posed, what makes Dawn of the Dead such a spectacular movie?

The Killer B's...The Food of the Gods [1976]

posted for THE CAMP & CULT BLOGATHON hosted by SHE BLOGGED BY NIGHT

The Food of the Gods is already an elite B-movie for two reasons:

1. It is an adaptation from an H.G. Wells story

2. It was nominated for an award that wasn’t a Razzie, more specifically the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films’s Best Horror Film of the Year award (rightfully beat out by The Omen)

If the movie 2012 reaffirms to us that our greatest apocalyptic fear is an array of giant, global warming induced mega-disasters, one can only assume the great apocalyptic fear of the 1970s would have come in the form of giant man-eating farm animals and monstrous, bloodthirsty mice.  Then again, you can’t believe everything you see in the movies.  We'll have to wait and see if 2012 and the Mayan prophecy hold true come December 21st.

In their original form, B-films came to life through low budgets, short schedules and flimsy morals. Every so often you’ll come across a director who wants to make a tacky horror movie about giant, bloodthirsty mice while trying to insert a social commentary about man’s disregard for the environment. I have a feeling the end result never pans out to the initial intentions.

Case in point with The Food of the Gods.

What on Earth?...The Food of the Gods [1976]

              posted for THE CAMP & CULT BLOGATHON hosted by SHE BLOGGED BY NIGHT

Watching The Food of the Gods reaffirmed the notion that anyone, anyone can not only make a movie, but make a giant-animal-apocalypse movie for that matter.  CGI is overrated.  All you really need is a few dozen mice and some Lincoln Logs.    

This is just one of those things where an explanation is far too bizarre to leave with only words.  In the age of computers, its easier than ever to grab a few screen shots and let the movie do the talking.  And that's exactly what I've done.  What you'll find below are a handful of my favorite captured moments from Food of the Gods. Hopefully it will convince you to watch the movie and experiene this disarray in real time, or better yet, inspire the creation of your own man-eating farm animal movie.

These are giant, man-eating mice.  Those are real people in a normal sized Jeep.

Why See This...Dirty Harry [1971]

      The job of a sniper requires hours of reclusive sitting; waiting for a target to come across the scope.  In most cases, a sniper doesn’t chase his or her target; the target comes to them.  It’s a lonely job that doesn’t demand much more than a man and a gun.  Sure, nowadays equipped with radio sets and GPS trackers, they can do a lot more, but before all that, it was just a man and a gun.  It makes sense why Scorpio (Andrew Robinson), the sadistic serial killer in Dirty Harry, is a sniper.  Scorpio’s not given much back story in Dirty Harry, but he’s a definite loner.  He works as a groundskeeper at a nearby stadium, where he lives alone, in a decrepit room beneath the stands, probably no bigger than a closet.  We also know that he kills, for the fun of it.

      In a very different way, Police Officer Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is a loner too.  His wife died many years ago, leaving him to live alone.  When the department assigns him a partner to work with to catch Scorpio, he informs the guy that every partner he’s had has been shot or worse, killed.  Callahan’s character resembles that certain type of gun-slinging, “my way or the highway” Western sheriff persona that Eastwood became so synonymous with during the ‘60s.