CHAIN REACTIONS

**

Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe.

Starring Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, Karyn Kusama.

Documentary, US, 103 Minutes, Certificate 18.

Released in the UK On Demand by Lightbulb Film Distribution on 27th October

After fifty-one years, how much more can be said about Tobe Hooper’s seminal TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE? Documentaries, books, studies, disc commentaries and more have all delved into what exactly makes the cannibals with power tools flick so open to so many forms of interpretation. Documentary director Alexandre O. Philippe, who has also gone in-depth with the likes of MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN, LYNCH/OZ, and LEAP OF FAITH: WILLIAM FRIEDKIN ON THE EXORCIST to name just a few of his previous works, takes us back to that remote white painted house decorated with all manner of elaborate bone sculptures once again to gain the perspective of five very different individuals and what the film means to them.

With the aid of previously unseen outtakes and deleted scenes illustrating the proceedings, Philippe sits down with comedian Patton Oswalt, directors Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama, writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and another author called Stephen King who apparently has also written some books concerning horror. Five very different personalities who all have some connection to the horror genre (if you are only aware of Oswalt as a character actor, you would do well to check out his stand-up bit on the perseverance involved to make DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS). The structure of the interviews is repeated across each “chapter”; how they first encountered the film, the effect it had and what it means to them. While somewhat illuminating, the results tend to be repetitive, with some insights cropping up more than once across the whole film.

Unlike Philippe’s previous works, this feels quite unneeded, coming across like a glorified DVD extra. The presence of the unseen footage used to wallpaper each contributor's thoughts and recollections is interesting on its own up to a point. Otherwise, this is quite a flat experience. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’s contribution may be the most interesting on both fronts. She recalls watching the film on a bleached out VHS when it was finally released in her home country of Australia, where the film was sourced from a knackered old print almost devoid of colour. The result, to her, felt on par with the likes of such close to home classics as PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and WAKE IN FRIGHT. Phillippe recreates Nicholas’s memories of the film in a style that will no doubt feel familiar to a lot of us who watched the film in less than legal ways when a pirate copy was the only way to experience the film, thanks to the over zealous BBFC at the time. 

King, Kusama and Miike also provide illuminating thoughts that sometimes touch personally on their own lives. Most notably Miike, who only saw the film after taking a trip to the city to see Chaplin’s CITY LIGHTS, only to find it sold out and watching TEXAS because it was the only other film playing at the time. The result being a life changing experience that set him on the path to his wildly eclectic film directing career. Such insights however are few and far between, making the experience of the film as a whole rather dry, feeling a bit like homework. Completists will no doubt snap it up but for the rest of us there is definitely an overreaching sense of deja-vu at play here. Maybe it’s time we started asking people about the life changing effects of LIFEFORCE and THE MANGLER instead.

Iain MacLeod