‘Chain Reactions’ Deftly Contextualizes a Grisly American Classic

As Hollywood scraps over who’ll be the next to take a bite out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a new documentary is here to remind us just how much Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original stands alone. Chain Reactions follows the elegant, thoughtful style of director Alexandre O. Philippe’s earlier film-centric docs, including 78/52 (about the shower scene in Psycho), Memory: The Origins of Alien, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, and Lynch/Oz. Five talking heads and carefully chosen footage and clips weave together, exploring Texas Chain Saw‘s impact on cultural, artistic, and personal levels.

The interviewees are also carefully chosen: comedian Patton Oswalt, filmmakers Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) and Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body, The Invitation), film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, and author Stephen King. They all have in common a deep love of Texas Chain Saw, but they come at that appreciation from different angles and contexts.

Oswalt speaks about his earliest movie memory—a terrifying encounter with the silent Nosferatu at a childhood Halloween party, probably around the time Texas Chain Saw was released in 1975. A budding horror fan, he became fascinated with what felt like a forbidden text, an impression that held up once he finally got to watch Texas Chain Saw as so many Gen X kids did: on a friend’s VCR, from a tape that had seen better days.

“It has the feel that the killers in the movie have stolen a camera and are filming all this,†he muses, and also points out that “every frame has something unnerving in it.†You can tell Oswalt has watched Texas Chain Saw many times since that first viewing and has thought a lot about it, especially its portrayal of Leatherface and themes of blue-collar survival. His apocalyptic reading of what the sun represents in the movie is something I’d never considered but now can’t get out of my head.

Miike’s first Texas Chain Saw experience, he explains in his segment, came only by chance, after the Charlie Chaplin movie he’d wanted to see was sold out. “For the first time, I felt movies could be something dangerous,†he remembers, and admits buying that second-choice ticket ended up changing his life. If his 15-year-old self hadn’t ducked into Texas Chain Saw, he says, “life would have been different. I likely wouldn’t be a film director now.†He also talks about the film in comparison to Japanese horror, both traditional and the more recent J-horror releases—and gives some fascinating insight into the use of violence in cinema, including his own notably squishy titles.

Heller-Nicholas may be the least recognizable among the talking heads, but her point of view is no less interesting, especially as she speaks about growing up in Australia and how Texas Chain Saw was perceived there. Like Oswalt, she first got to see it thanks to a “shitty VHS release†and recalls that the yellowed, low-quality presentation actually enhanced the “feeling that you were watching something really covert that you weren’t meant to see.†The film leans into that sense no matter which version you’re watching—but Heller-Nicholas’ memories are something people who’ve only seen Texas Chain Saw‘s pristine 4K restoration will never fully understand, for better and for worse.

Best-selling author King, who recounts watching Texas Chain Saw for the first time in the early 1980s in a nearly empty theater, appreciates the way Hooper—who he worked with on 1992’s Sleepwalkers; Hooper also directed the 1979 Salem’s Lot miniseries—approached his tale with “no barrier that makes you think this is just a movie,†likening it to Night of the Living Dead in that way.

King also digs into the difference between “horror†and “terror,†something he’s uniquely qualified to speak on, while praising Texas Chain Saw for its “outlaw†aspects. “The artist’s job is to make you uncomfortable,†he points out, though anyone watching Chain Reactions has surely willingly endured that agonizing dinner scene—including Grandpa’s feeble attempts at striking a killing blow with his hammer—more than once.

Kusama also saw Texas Chain Saw for the first time on a big screen, at an art-house theater. Her discussion explores Leatherface’s confusing role in the cannibal family and the ways the film can be read as “a vision of America’s failure†as well as “a depiction of primal human urges and disappointments.†She’s the only interviewee to point to the opening crawl’s claims of the movie being based on a true story, a warning that barely prepares the viewer for the nightmare to come.

After you watch Chain Reactions, you will immediately want to rewatch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to look for the new meanings the documentary may have helped you discover, as well as to appreciate the film’s singular blend of beauty and grisly anguish. As Kusama notes, there’s “always more subtlety and meaning to glean from rewatching it.†Even more poignantly, as Miike says, “We must hold Texas Chain Saw dear and continue to nurture it.â€

Chain Reactions opens September 19 in New York and Los Angeles; it expands nationwide September 26.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.