Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

  Summary

  In Willaim’s text, “Chain Saw Massacres: The Apocalyptic Dimension”, he discusses the many ways that slasher films and the like have evolved into the apocalyptic horror-scapes like in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In his text, Willaims discusses how in horror films, due to the apocalyptic vision the films are moving from disclosing family contradictions to more of a  self-indulgent nihilism. In these movies, the apocalyptic influence is essential to showing how standards have changed and evolved since the beginning. Williams then goes on to talk about the Puritans and the Indians, and how their cultures are so different but tied together. The Puritans repressed their dark and passionate impulses, and they related those things to the Indians blood and myth rituals. Because of this likeness, the Puritans fear giving in to the Indians “free sexuality” and “envisaged cannibalistic” ways. There is also the fear of the Puritans being contaminated by the Indians.

   Analysis

In the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a group of teens are violently butchered by a family of cannibals who are left behind by the advancing technologies of the meat industry. The Sawyer family in this film could be likened to the Indians that Williams talks about in his text. In this comparison, they are the Indians who participate in cannibalism and odd blood and myth rituals that go against what normal society believes in. The Puritans in this scenario would be the teens, who are modern and follow cultural norms. The teens are at a multitude of risks, one of which being what Williams claims is, “the danger that this savior could become infected.” This is seen in the movie when the teens are stopping by the gas station and are given barbeque, which is actual bits of people that the Sawyer family has killed over the years. This eating of the barbequed people could be seen as the infecting of the savior, in this case relating the Puritan savior to the teens. The teens are unknowingly corrupted by them eating the human meat, which in this case is the beginning of the end. As the teens give into their passionate impulses, it marks them for death. When the two teens sneak off to go swimming, they run into the Sawyer’s home and are killed.

    The Sawyer family is a prime example of how the ideal American family has degraded over the years. Williams says that, “family values are now grotesque and senile.” This comparison fits the grandfather in the Sawyer household almost to a tee. The grandfather used to be the best cow killer in the slaughterhouse before the machines essentially took his job. He was a hard worker, and efficient, and dedicated to his job. When the machines took his job by being more efficient and humane for the animals, his position changed. He became something grotesque, a way to kill the animals that wasn’t seen as okay anymore. The grandfather became irrelevant and unwanted.

    One could say the excessive violence of killing so many animals everyday took its toll on the Sawyer family. Williams says in his text how, “evil lies within American society and that family.” This can be shown in how the teens are killed. One teen is placed on a meat hook like the cows they so often killed in the slaughterhouse, while the grandfather attempts to kill Sally the same way he killed all those cows when he was still working. The Sawyer family grew up and was raised around the slaughtering of living beings, even if those beings were cows at first. All the killing of animals lead to the killing people, to stay doing what then know when it felt to them that society was abandoning them.