‘Chain Reactions’ Creatively Celebrates the Raw Power of ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ [Review]

Alexandre O. Phillipe’s ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ documentary filters the gonzo horror film’s impact through five creative careers.

“I can’t believe that Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a thing. I can’t believe it works. I can’t believe this film pulls off what it does. Magic.”

Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s impact is immeasurable. Not only is it a franchise that continues to endure after more than 50 years through film, comics, and video games, but Leatherface himself is so iconic that he’s found his way into Mortal Kombat and there are now special edition Leatherface Labubus. Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn’t just at the precipice of the horror genre; it is horror. At this point, Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s legacy is unquestionable and Tobe Hooper’s low-budget ’70s slasher redefined the genre. There are countless documentaries and essays on Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s impact and why it is fundamental. 

Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions takes a more creative approach to explore the totemic horror text’s cause and effect relationship with five diverse storytellers who have all been inspired by the formative horror film, albeit in contrasting ways. This is a solid format that could honestly be spun off into a Shudder TV show where each episode applies the same focus on other revered horror classics like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, or Alien. It’s a simplistic structure, albeit one that never struggles to prove its point. Philippe’s Chain Reactions truly helps the audience understand why Texas Chain Saw Massacre is not just a special movie, but an important piece of culture and a deconstruction of America. It’s an elaborate, enlightening, and passionate deep dive into one of horror’s most important and enduring films.

What Chain Reactions does particularly well is its ability to tap into the experience of fandom and how it’s the ultimate equalizer, even if you’re Stephen King, Takashi Miike, or one of North America’s top stand-up comedians. We’re all the same because the saw is family. Chain Reactions focuses on Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, film critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama as it explores each subject’s first experience with the movie and how it affected them – both then and now. It effectively feeds into Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s mythical status when you were growing up. Each of Chain Reactions’ talking heads don’t just discuss their love of the film and its influence on them, but they also ostensibly produce a video essay on unique areas of discussion. 

Oswalt, for instance, talks cinema verité and horror’s evolution and the clear throughline from Man Bites Bog to Texas Chain Saw Massacre, while he breaks down specific shots and their impact. Kusama examines Hooper’s past films, especially Eggshells, and how the debut feature was like a warm-up and test drive for what would be better crystalized in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. King turns to his love for Universal Monsters movies and the black-and-white sci-fi cinema of Ray Harryhausen as a valid analogue. There’s even frenzied discussions on Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as reference points for Leatherface. This all helps the audience realize the nuance and depth to this character who is so often reduced to a crude name and weapon.

King has much to say regarding how Texas Chain Saw is even a proto-Blair Witch Project in many respects. Both are low-budget films that obscure reality and the terror that they culminate in. These master storytellers all have plenty of material to cover without there being any overlap. The inclusion of a few more unexpected and eclectic talking heads, such as a musician or effects artist, could have been interesting. That being said, it’s hard to complain about the talent who are assembled here.

Alexandre O. Philippe utilizes a very effortless and natural – but also safe – presentation and editing style in Chain Reactions. The documentary shifts between Texas Chain Saw Massacre footage, the interview subjects, and visuals of their other reference points. It’s a successful structure that gets the job done and not dissimilar to how Lynch/Oz was put together (although Chain Reactions is slightly more successful). However, there are also some masterful edits, such as Stephen King talking about how Bambi was his first horror movie and Chain Reactions cutting from Bambi’s ominous, “Man was in the forest,” to Leatherface slashing his way through the woods. It’s genuinely perfect.

Leatherface is a character who is presented as a blunt tool of destruction – much like Texas Chain Saw Massacre itself – yet this raw piece of grindhouse meat becomes high art. This is a horror film that indulges in visceral sensations, yet it also speaks to the idea of reinforced patriarchy. The film features a subversive sadness and sympathy for this hollowed out, broken depiction of masculinity. Leatherface’s chainsaw is just another prop that’s meant to make him a man and give him a role. This feels inauthentic and insane to Leatherface, but this anxiety carries over to modern generations as they’re pushed into roles and jobs that don’t feel authentic to them either. It’s the ultimate commentary on broken promises of a lost future of America that now no longer exists.

Heller-Nicholas echoes Kusama’s thesis and argues that “America is a madness” and that this lunacy is fully in bloom. Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a bold cinematic statement on America. This becomes considerably more interesting when it’s interpreted by individuals like Heller-Nicholas and Miike, who had never been to the country, yet internalized Texas as this fetishized danger zone. Heller-Nicholas speaks vividly on how Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s yellow saturation is reminiscent of distinctly Australian cinema like Razorback, Wolf Creek, and Wake in Fright.

Texas Chain Saw isn’t Australian in the least, but its ability to cut deep and connect with an audience on a completely different continent – making them feel seen – is a testament to Tobe Hooper’s filmmaking and the rich reputation that’s followed the movie. Heller-Nicholas even connects Texas Chain Saw Massacre and its visceral heat to the Ash Wednesday fires that were plaguing Australia at the time, going so far as to say that the two are inexorably linked in her mind. The film hits in a unique way for her that’s equally valid and speaks to its power, where a film about Texas can also get to the bones of an Australian tragedy. 

Each documentary subject’s unique cultural context of Texas Chain Saw Massacre creates Mandela Effect-esque variations of the movie. One of the documentary’s most interesting segments involves Alexandra Heller-Nicholas talking about how the Australian VHS copy of the movie was made from a poor print, so it has an even more worn-down aesthetic that’s saturated in yellows and looks demonstrably different than the “real” thing. This gives the film an even more haunted and realistic look, which goes on to inform the opinion of Australian audiences everywhere. International audiences have seen the “same” movie, but they’re regionally unique renditions that are equally authentic in their own way.

It may seem benign, but these are conversations that are still being had today over 4K releases of movies from the ’90s and 2000s. The industry — and fandom — have reached a point where it wouldn’t be surprising if an Australian 4K release of Texas Chain Saw Massacre even included a “VHS Cut” that presents the other version for posterity sake. It’s all fascinating insight into how this movie can hit even harder based on where and how it’s being seen. It’s a text that’s evolved far beyond the movie itself. 

Miike outlines a similar experience in which Texas Chain Saw Massacre was an assault to the system at the time of its release. Japanese horror films like Kwaidan, Hausu, Ju-On, and more were based on logic, so something as anarchic as Texas Chain Saw Massacre destroyed cinematic sensibilities like a blade through flesh. There’s a brilliant moment in Chain Reactions where Miike humbly talks about never being able to make a movie like Texas Chain Saw, all while behind-the-scenes footage of Imprint features him frantically using a black Sharpie to color a dildo. Miike’s story about Texas Chain Saw Massacre becomes such a beautiful, wistful exercise in magical realism that has the wry resolution of one of his own movies. 

Chain Reactions is a love letter to Texas Chain Saw Massacre and its grander impact on horror and film. It’s also such a glowing celebration of the power of cinema and its ability to open minds and bring people to new worlds, as glib as that may seem. Texas Chain Saw Massacre has influenced monumental storytellers, but Chain Reactions is just as much of a reminder that any film can have this effect on someone when it’s seen under the right circumstances. It’s a treaty on how the world would be markedly different and less vibrant if cinema didn’t exist to provoke and inspire. Now more than ever, the saw is life.

Chain Reactions opens in NYC & LA on September 19 before expanding nationwide on September 26.