Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Special Limited Edition

I’ve got friends who love horror movies, in fact, they are obsessed by them, especially those really dodgy ones from the 70’s and 80’s. Now I’ve always liked a good horror movie, the operative word being good. After all the hype that ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ received, not to mention its cult like following, I thought I could sit back and comfortable enjoy one of the most well known horror movies ever. Boy was I wrong.

For all those that have seen the movie, and for those that love it, I will apologise in advance for this review. I really did try, I wanted to enjoy the movie, but there are just so many things wrong with this film that make it almost painful to watch, and that’s without including the supposed horror scenes.

The basic story lines runs like this, five young people (including your token blonde girl) are on a road trip out to the middle of inbred, cousin kissing America. After running out of petrol they stumble upon an old abandoned house which has some next-door neighbours that are less than friendly. Enter leather-faced bad guy.

For the first forty odd minutes of this film you don’t really see any action at all, apart from the token hitchhiker who stabs the token wheelchair bound cripple. Ten minutes later four of the five kids are dead and your preparing yourself for a less than climatic ending.

Overall I found it very hard to be enthusiastic about this movie. The performances aren’t good, the storyline is weak, and I think I flinched in fright more times during ‘The Rugrats in Paris’ than I did during this film. For horror buffs this may actually be a classic, but for a film critic this is nothing more than an indicator of how bad cult films really can be. The cinematography however is good, and for a horror movie in the 70’s I can understand why TCM was such a revolutionary film. However this wasn’t enough to sell me on this film. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or maybe its because I’m part of that horror-hating group who declared that ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was over-rated.

Presented with a widescreen enhanced aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (the alleged original theatrical format) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been remastered into the best possible condition available (or so they say). The video detail is less than impressive and at first I had been hung up between whether this was the fault of the source material or just a pathetic attempt at a DVD transfer. I’m going to blame it on the source material however, considering the age of the movie and the choice of film used during production. Film artefacts are constant, but not overly distracting, the detail is far from sharp, and the colours looked bleached and bland. Shadow detail is non-existent, which is disastrous considering the final few scenes involve frantic running around under moonlight alone.

Aliasing is not a problem considering the film never gets sharp enough for this to occur. Grain is a minor problem, but the movie is generally too soft and bleached of colour and detail for this to be a problem. MPEG artefacts are in a pretty bad form. There is a lot of posterization and macro-blocking, and the entire film just has the feel that it has been compressed rather poorly. Every time we see any form of movement the whole picture just turns into a wobbling wreck.

Overall, the whole film just has that cheap 70’s feel to it that really can’t be improved too much for DVD. The little booklet including with this double disc set describes the digital re-mastering involved in this release. The remastering from the original ECO’s has probably given us the best transfer we can get for this movie, but the transfer from this to DVD was still quite a shamble. If you’ve seen VHS versions of this movie you will appreciate the work they have done and the time spent remastering this 27-year-old horror ‘classic’. However don't get your hopes up too high, you can’t remove that cheap 70’s feel to it, so despite the transfer being terrible and ugly, it is about the best that could be done to revive this old piece. However this of course does not excuse the terrible MPEG artefacts, which in their absence would have made it a reasonable transfer, even if the source material was terrible.

"AARRRRGGH.. For The Love of God... ARRRRGH"

The audio on this disc is also less than impressive. Presented in 384Kb/s this soundtrack has actually been reworked and unlike the video has actually been transferred quite well. The dialogue is still a little rough, some scenes are beyond comprehension, but on the most part there are no real faults with this soundtrack that could have been improved any better than they have been.

There are no audio sync problems, and the musical score is hardly worth mentioning because there are only a couple of occasions when it is actually audible. Overall its been re-mastered quite well, with no major faults, but again like the video, don’t expect too much. This movie was filmed on the cheap side and there is little that can be done to fix that.

The extras on this disc make the ‘special limited edition’ label quite appropriate. The Audio Commentary with Tobe Hooper (Director), Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface himself), and Daniel Pearl (Cinematographer) is quite an interesting listen. This was the first time that most of these guys had gotten together since the filming of the movie and they all seem excited by seeing the film again together, and they really keep this audio commentary interesting to listen to, more interesting than the film itself.

The other main special feature is The Shocking Truth Featurette . Running for over 70 minutes, this feature length ‘featurette’ is more of a documentary about the film than anything else. Although I personally found it a little dull, those true fanatics of the movie will love all the interesting insights and interviews with the cast and crew. Considering the ordeal that actually went into making this film its good to see a full length featurette explaining all that was required to make this ‘classic’ what it is.

There are also Six Deleted Scenes and Three Alternative Scenes which are all well presented, even if some of them do lack audio. There are some behind the scenes Outtakes, a Photo Gallery, and Two short featurettes which appear to be leftovers from the major featurette rather than worthwhile additions. There is also a Booklet included that lists the chapters for both discs and contains a few details about the remastering effort that went into this transfer. All the features are presented in some appropriate, but rather ugly looking animated menus. Overall this a good selection of extras, and fans of this movie will be more than impressed.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a film worth checking out, especially if you are a horror addict, but please, don’t set your expectations too high, this is a really old film. The video transfer has had a lot of effort placed in to restoring the film, even if that effort has been wasted by all the MPEG artefacts that this film suffers from. The audio is better than expected and the extra features are enough to keep die-hard fans of this movie entertained for hours. If you’re a horror buff, and can handle a poor video transfer, then this film is well worth checking out.