Roger Ebert famously gave The Texas Chainsaw Massacre only two out of four
stars. Yet, he conceded the quality of the performances and productions values
might surprise viewers, “not, however, that you’d necessarily enjoy seeing it.”
Ebert was hardly alone. At the time, Tobe Hooper’s career-making film was
decidedly divisive amongst critics. Unfortunately, viewers really do not get a
sense of that diversity of opinion in Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chainsaw
Reactions, which has a special nationwide “Texas Chainsaw Day” screening
this Monday, along with the 1974 film it documents.
Fifty
years and change later, everyone involved with Philippe’s doc takes it as a
given that Hooper’s film is a classic. Again, he uses an approach like that of Lynch/Oz,
essentially presenting extended critical analysis from five experts/critics/fans,
while showing evocative clips from the film. Fortunately, these five waxers-poetic
repeat themselves far less than the cast of Lynch/Oz did. However, the lineup
of Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Australian film critic Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama will not appeal to all fans
equally, to put it diplomatically.
Still,
listening to Miike and King discuss anything horror related will be an
opportunity few fans would want to pass up. Miike’s perspective is particularly
notable, explaining Texas Chainsaw’s reception in Japan and tracing its
influence on some of his more extreme films, like Ichi the Killer. King
also has some worthy contributions, but he never mentions Hooper’s Salem’s
Lot, which remains one of the best King adaptations of all time.
Annoyingly,
many of the fab-ish five still reflect the same general perspective, especially
when trying to score polemical points with respects to the alleged rising level
of violence permeating American society. However, the film would have benefited
from the more nuanced analysis of Joseph Lanza writing in The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre: The Film that Terrified a Rattled Nation, which situates the film
within the context of late-1960s and early-1970s violence, definitely including
the New Left-adjacent Manson Family Murders, which go unmentioned in Reactions.
When the European Space Agency gets in trouble, NASA is there to rescue them.
Unfortunately, everyone was already dead on the ESA shuttle, except for the
space vampires in suspended animation. However, there is a survivor heading
home in the escape pod. Of course, he was the one American crew-member. Perhaps
that is why naked “Space Girl” (as fans refer to her) forged a telepathic connection
to Col. Tom Carlson, but that link works both ways in Tobe Hooper’s cult
classic Lifeforce, which screens again Tuesday as part of MoMA’s
retrospective of Hooper’s 1980s films.
You
would think screenwriter Dan O’Bannon (who also penned Alien and Dark
Star) would have made Carlson a “Major Tom” instead. However, he was
certainly on solid ground describing an unexpected encounter with a dangerous
race of space aliens. Ironically, the early scenes of the space vampire’s lair
on Halley’s comet have serious Prometheus and Covenant vibes.
Understandably, most of the Churchill’s crew assume the three good-looking
humanoids are dead—since they are not breathing. Yet, the comatose bodies still
exert a strange disruptive influence over the humans.
Things
will go very badly on the Churchill, but Carlson’s explanation must wait for a
later flashback. Frankly, by the time he reaches Earth Dr. Hans Fallada of the
ESA and Col. Colin Caine of the SAS have already figured out the aliens consume
people’s lifeforce. Like vampires, their victims also turn into
lifeforce-suckers, but they are not as powerful. Apparently, Space Girl ditched
her conspicuously naked body, having assumed control over a chin of hosts, but Carlson
can now detect her influence with even an incidental touch.
Admittedly,
it is hard to explain Lifeforce, even though it obviously layers science
fiction elements over the narrative bones of Dracula. However, Hooper’s
film is still an under-heralded genre gem. In some ways, it represents a
once-in-a-lifetime genre collaboration, including Hooper (the director of Texas
Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist), narrator John Larroquette (who
also supplied the voice-over intro to Texas Chainsaw), O’Bannon, special
effects artist John Dykstra (notable for Star Wars in 1977 and Spider-Man
in 2002), a grand symphonic score composed by Henry “Pink Panther”
Mancini, and it even features Patrick Stewart in a supporting role, as Dr.
Armstrong. Plus, it was produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, of Cannon
Films, who contracted Hooper to a three-picture deal.
Despite
some excesses, like Space Girl walking through the city of London without a stitch
of clothing, Lifeforce holds up nicely as a hybrid sf-horror production.
Arguably, many of the scenes aboard the Churchill have a look and texture that evoke
the vibes of earlier Dykstra films, such as Star Wars and Silent
Running, which is very cool.
Peter
Firth and Frank Finlay also develop intelligent, crisply professional chemistry
in the Peter Cushing-Christopher Lee tradition, as Caine and Fallada. They embody
smart, coolly competent characters, who admittedly have an awful lot on their
plates. As Col. Carlson, Steve Railsback has terrific freakouts and fully
commits to some over-the-top sex scenes, but if there had been a sequel, Firth’s
Col. Caine would have been the one to carry it.
