Second Chances: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (page 2)

SECOND CHANCES

christopher funderburg

page 2

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2

Despite their reputations, some films and filmmakers just don't do it for Funderburg and Cribbs. This series, Second Chances, follows their attempts to find greatness where they've previously failed to see it; to actively make an effort to appreciate esteemed artworks for which they currently have a distaste (or feel indifference). They'll give cult favorites like Let the Right One In another shot and dig deep in the filmographies of beloved auteurs whose appeal baffles them (like Nicholas Ray) - and with a little luck, maybe they'll even end up as newly-minted fans...

The Second Chance:

Before the film even starts, I know I'm in trouble: the Cannon films logo comes up on screen. I'm exactly sure when I saw2 before, at that time I didn't have the faintest idea who Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus were. Now I know better. And I know that the chances are if their Cannon Films are involved, that film is either going to be choppy, tonally imbalanced and borderline incoherent (as Golan/Globus were notorious post-production hijackers who put Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein to shame), a catchy genre concept with poor execution (unlike, say, Roger Corman or Samuel Arkoff, they were experts at blowing the potential of solid b-movie concepts) or an outright shitfest (prolific and, in a way, influential they're almost entirely responsible for the fact that the 80's were so dismal for movies.) They fell in and out of the mainstream, so some of their productions include big budget spectacles like Masters of the Universe, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and King Solomon's Mines, but also exploitation films like the Deathwish sequels, all of those dance movies about niche trends that never caught on (like Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo and Lambada) and just about everything Chuck Norris did in the 80's.* Off the top of my head, I'm not sure if they worked with Tobe Hooper before or after this one, but it wouldn't surprise me - he's exactly the sort of unreliable, borderline-mainstream talent that they liked to employ. Their logo means trouble, if only because their films tended towards a certain drab, mean-spirited aesthetic - Cannon films are generally ugly in every sense of the word. They're exactly the type of films that give action blockbusters and b-movies a bad name. But don't worry because Golan and Globus had their pretentious side, too: the first I can ever recall having heard of them is their moronic deal made at Cannes to have Woody Allen star in an adaptation of King Lear for Jean-Luc Godard. They apparently wrote the contract on the back of a napkin. The whole thing was the type of hacky idea that drove their other productions, only now with a disinterested mid-80's Godard involved - that they would do such a thing shows how truly clueless and self-indulgent they were. I'll try not to hold that against The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, but now I have a sinking feeling about why I hated it so much to begin with. Their involvement certainly explains that horrible poster.

Once the film starts, I can immediately see why this film has a horrible reputation and why I hated it: the opening sequence is awful. Two squealing yuppies on their way to the Big Texas/OU football game call in to a local radio station using their giant cell-phone and harass the DJ. Almost everything element is as bad as it could be - really, if I were going to change this opening bit to make it more irritating, illogical and cheesy, I'm not sure what I could do. Have one of the characters prone to making puns? The yuppies, in their fancy little foreign, are the exact opposite of the original film's victims: they are over-written caricatures who in no way resemble human beings, just stock movie stereotypes. In the original film, Sally and company are underwritten to the point that it's hard to even describe them: the guy who kinda looks like a hippy David Letterman? The not-ugly other guy? The other girl? Franklin has a bit of a personality, of course, but it doesn't amount to much beyond "has emotional problem related to being confined to a wheel-chair." The fact that the original group is basically unremarkable is one of the original film's virtues and contributes to the raw veracity of the film: you don't know much more about these folks than you would about a complete stranger with whom you spent an hour hanging out. They're kinda hippies, but just regular folks. In contrast, 2 seems really intent on recklessly spewing out its character development in bogus cinematic terms: "annoying yuppies, the kind you always see in movies, you want them to die, got it? great." They don't resemble people - they remind me most of the actors from Peter Jackson's Bad Taste for some reason; maybe because they're more likely to squeal and chirp and giggle like a lunatic and contort their faces than to simply deliver their lines. The initial scenes introducing TCSM's youngsters feel unrehearsed and unfocused, authentically aimless in the way real life is generally narratively diffuse. It's hard to tell where the film is going because these directionless scenes offer very few clues about how we are supposed to think and feel - it's disorienting: everything feels a little dangerous and a little off, it's unclear what form the threat will actually take and how anyone will respond. 2 on the other hand plays its cards immediately, insistently and tediously - after 10 seconds, you're thinking "will somebody just kill these jackasses already." And that's clearly exactly what the movie wants you to think.

Consequently, nothing resembling the loose, free-form aire of the original film has any just of manifesting: over-determined narrative machinations rule from the get-go. The whole damn opening scene revolves the dubious notion that this small radio station has the inability to cut off its callers - our lady DJ, Stretch, can't get the jerks off the line without her chaw-spitting yokel tech-guy randomly plugging and unplugging wires from the switchboard for five minutes. Come on, movie, what radio station takes callers but can't get them off the line? I can suspend my disbelief far enough to go with the notion that they might be able to tie up the line, but for Christ's sake don't expect me to believe that she also has to keep their goofy squeals and football-centric hooting on the air. The whole scene feels phony as a three-dollar bill with Dean Cameron's picture on it. And each character is given the "Franklin" treatment: one broad trait that quickly defines them in an exaggerated manner. Lady DJ, chaw-spewing yokel, yuppie pinhead, monstrous lunatic. I haven't even gotten to the travesty that is the introduction of Leatherface. In the original film, our first brief glimpse of Leatherface must surely rank among the most shocking and memorable moments in all of cinema history. As the progresses, it becomes clear that Leatherface is an exceptionally strange character brought to life by an exceptionally strange performance by erstwhile beat-poet Gunnar Hanson. He's a non-lingual, cringing man-child transvestite given to haunting moments of malaise and confusion, completely under the thumb of his abusive brothers and patriarchal grandpa. And, of course, he's more famously a chain-saw-wielding, meat-hook-utilizing, human-skin-wearing, massive beast of a cannibal. Hanson plays the role with an unforced sensitivity and neurosis - especially in comparison to his more recognizably human brothers-in-crime, he's the film's most complex character. In 2, he's just some dude in a mask. No, worse than that, he's some talentless hack's impression of the idea of "Leatherface," Horror Icon and Chainsaw Massacrist. Gunnar Hanson delivers a real (genuinely great) performance; Bill Johnson comes across like a shitty impersonator from one of those low-rent haunted house attractions that pop up every October.

At a certain point, I've got to stop comparing the sequel to the original (and after I finish up here discussing Leatherface's first appearance in 2, I swear I will.) The opening scene makes abundantly clear there's just no comparison; or rather, it makes clear the only comparison: 2 is a cartoon version of TCSM. In the original film, part of what's so deeply unsettling is its use of eminently dangerous, but still everyday items like chainsaws, hammers, metal hooks and freezers. But those items aren't given any supernatural qualities, it's enough for the film that hammers and chainsaws are common but dangerous - there's just no need to embelish. In 2, Leatherface's chainsaw is transformed in a six-foot long, smoke-spewing machine of mass destruction: it slices through the yuppies' car like a hot knife through warm butter. In the original, the chainsaw couldn't even get through Leatherface's thigh.** We're in a world that's simply a cartoon version of the original nightmare, a goofy, candy-colored fantasia in place of the original's muted palette and harrowingly evocative portrait of violence and depravity. After the opening scene, there should be no surprise that 2 climaxes in a double-fisted chainsaw fight in a Christmas-light strewn labyrinthian lair underneath a campy amusement park called "Alamoland." Or that the "Sawyers" (oh wait, there's that fucking pun I was looking for) win a good ol'-fashioned Texas chili cook-off with their "special ingredients." The (re)introduction of Leatherface in 2 sets the tone: a cheesy skeleton-puppet taunts the yuppies with an outlandishly large chainsaw... but who's controlling the puppet? Surprise - it's Leatherface! The idea is stupid, the reveal of Leatherface is lame and everything about the situation is (to quote Homer Simpson) "fruity." Unsurprisingly, the original make-up artist, production designer, costume designer and special effects artist didn't return for the sequel, so Leatherface doesn't even look like he's from the same universe as the original character - he does, however, now belong to the universe of Freddy, Jason, Chucky and Horace.*** There weren't necessarily specific individuals assigned to those production roles on the first film, so the loss of Hanson stings all the more: Leatherface is clearly his creation in many ways and much of the care and idiosyncrasy that went into his realization of the character disappeared along with him. Seeing the film, it was hard for me to get over the idea of Leatherface as just another masked slasher coming up with "creative kills."

But this second time through, I did get over that idea a little more. For whatever reason, I was able to settle in and take 2 in as a stand alone and forget about the source masterpiece. Even then, however, it's not so hot. Granted, it's never as bad again as it in the dismal opening sequence, but it's never exactly what anyone could rightfully call "good" either. The best that can be said about it is that it's pleasantly weird and the "just barely keeping this crazy thing on the rails" vibe that pulses through Hooper's later work gives everything a certain loopy energy. If the original film didn't exist, there would certainly be no reason to hate this movie, even if there isn't exactly any reason to love it either. I guess some people love a good double-fisted chainsaw duel and, in this crazy world, who am I to argue with such sound thinking? Hooper's work would increasingly become characterized by ridiculousless: in addition to making that movie about a cocktail dress haunted by ancient Aztec spirits, he also adapted a Steven King story about an industrial-grade laundry machine haunted by homicidal spirits (bonus points for Robert Englund as the machine owner/victim with prosthetic legs) and a boy cursed with military-medical-experiment-sourced superpowers that cause the people around him to blow up (kinda like Spiderman, only if he had been bitten by an atomic bomb instead of a radioactive spider.) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 fits comfortably in with that company. Turns out I wasn't mistaken that this really, truly isn't the vintage of Hooper á la Lifeforce or Poltergiest. It's the tale of a family of subterrean-dwelling Texas chili-cooks who, in addition to using human meat in their award-winning recipes, also run a modest Alamo-themed amusement park. And are puppet enthusiasts? They certainly love Christmas tree lights and underground mazes, that much is not in dispute. The film is a mess, is what I'm sayin'.

But if it sounds like I dislike the film, that's incorrect, too. I really have surprisingly few negative feelings about what's a pointless and very silly desecration of a favorite artwork of mine. My relationship to the film is embodied in the main character: a female radio DJ named "Stretch." Female radio DJ's were a popular horror film heroine for a bit there with Stretch, Nicki Brand in Videodrome and Adrienne Barbeau's character from The Fog. But that's beside my point. It's just something I noticed. My point is, Stretch (played by Caroline Williams, who I don't recall having seen before or since - except at horror conventions) is a pretty lame character and the retarded ending involving her is just a stupid, obvious idea and she's not at all attractive, but I still have a bit of affection for her. She's really flat and unimpressive on-screen - another example of that weird thing where she feels much more like a phony character in a movie than Marilyn Burns does in the original, even though Stretch is actually give a personality and all Sally does is shriek. And shriek. And shriek. And hate Franklin. The conception of Stretch is a too on-the-nose playfully knowing feminist take on the standard horror film heroine - the film is crafted with an awareness of how the hero in most horror films is a woman and how the audience (of mainly teenage boys) is manuevered to identifying with this would-be victim. 2 plays games with the phallic nature of the Sawyer family's murder implements and has meta-textual jokes about Leatherface's crossing-dressing tendencies and impotence. The final shot of the film is an ironic mirror of the first movie. Stretch, as the heroine turned Sawyer, is a nuanced commentary on how the mechanices of these films function by turning their heroines into violent killers (even if the violence is justified, most horror films end with the villain getting a violent come-uppance), how they get teenage boys to identify with middle-aged women by turning those women into teenage boys. It would all being very smart, if it weren't so completely fucking stupid. That's film in a nutshell: it has similar "if it were any smarter it would be functionally retarded" takes on vegetarianism, country vs. city tensions and how countercultures function.

How could we have made it this far and I haven't even I mentioned Dennis Hopper? Like Hooper, in real life, he's a strange symbol of what the 60's were actually like, not the white-washed version that exists as a cultural short-hand. The beatnik, Texas-based Hollywood horror filmmaker and the drugged out corporate hippie rebel, creators of two of biggest independent hits of all time, two countercultural eccentrics that flamed out spectacularly within the system and had second lives as spectral caricatures of their former selves: their pairing seems as inevitable as it does illogical. Hopper's enjoyable/pretty terrible as Sally and Franklin's revenge-obsessed uncle and in fine form during the aforementioned chainsaw showdown. 1986 was a busy year for him, making not only this one but also The River's Edge, Blue Velvet and Hoosiers. He obviously has an exceedingly strange track record and his role here fits in nicely in a career pocked with turns as wide-eyed loonies in semi-legit detritus. Anyway, one of my biggest false memories concerning the film concern's Hopper's character. I genuinely thought that he died fairly early and unexpectedly in the film - like he was set up as the film's would-be savior and then the rug is pulled out from under the audience when he's killed before saving our heroine or exacting revenge. So strong was my impression of this plot-point, that 2 was my go-to example for a film that pulled the ol' "would-be hero killed before getting down to business" shtick. Now I have to go with Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. But that film's my example for everything - Saffron Burrows is hot, the stereotype has reveresed and black guys never get killed in movies now, Thomas Jane is pretty cool, breeding super-intelligent sharks is a bad policy, every film should end with a rap about the movie, Renny Harlin deserves credit - you can literally use that movie as an example for anything. Anyway, Hopper makes it to the very end of this one and even accomplishes his mission: the Sawyer clan gets a fatal taste of their own medicine. Plus, his look is pretty sharp - I kinda feel like I should wear a beige suite, bolo tie and ten-gallon hat everywhere I go. Certainly, I should wear something like that whenever I'm investigating whatever implausible conspiracies in which I find myself all wrapped up. So, in summation, Hopper and Hooper: they go together like sunglasses on dog.

Again, maybe I'm being too cruel or dismissive in my description - the film is essentially "not good," but I really don't feel anounce of animosity for it. As a matter of fact, I almost feel like this film is the definitive proof that Tobe Hooper is a great (or original or singularly talented or esteem-worthy) director. His whole career, he's been plagued by allegations that he's not really the one responsible for his most famous and well-recieved films. You know the shtick: the original TCSM was the miraculous end result of a disastrous, choatic shoot that Hooper barely had control over or producer Steven Spielberg is the one who really directed Poltergeist. And, on the surface of things, the mess that is 2 has Cannon film's fingerprints all over it: a completely unnecessary sequel, a lavish budget employed to questionable effect, a pervasive cheesy tone. And I think the rumors have a grain of truth in that Hooper appears to be the type of artist who can be easily pushed around by businessmen and has no talent for playing the Hollywood game - if Steven Spielberg directed even one frame of Poltergeist, it's because he's the type of producer who had no qualms about throwing his weight around, shoving his director to the side and stepping behind the camera. And throughout his career, Hooper clearly was clearly unable to resist businessmen like Golan/Globus and the mobsters who distributed TCSM imposing their will on him. It's easy to wish he had been able to join forces with one of those tough-minded, take-no-shit producers who fought on behalf of their directors, someone like Serge Siblerman or Christine Vachon, but those aren't the cards he drew and we're left with what we are left with: an oddball genius shining through in even the most star-crossed, ill-considered projects. 2 is painfully, disappointingly the work of a talented artist, it couldn't have sprang from anywhere but a truly eccentric, unpredictable imagination and it is infused with a tricky sense of humor and intelligence all the more frustrating for being buried under the Cannon group's bad ideas about how to make art and money at the same time. Like Poltergeist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, there are clearly influences at play other than the director; but like those films, no one else could've made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 except for Tobe Hooper. There's nothing else like it. I'm glad it exists.

* Dear internet, I am sorry that I have to be the one to break this to you, but those movies suck and Chuck Norris blows.

** It doesn't hurt him because he's insane.

*** Pinker. From Shocker? No? It is too late to go with Pinhead for that final slot?

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