AUTHOR - SCREENWRITER - HUMORIST - GRUMP
DAVID HINES
Double Feature #11: 'Dawn of the Dead'/'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2'
I'll end my October run of Halloween-themed double features with sequels to groundbreaking horror classics - that their directors struggled for years not to make.
In 1968, George A. Romero unleashed his gritty, grainy, gory zombie masterpiece Night of the Living Dead on an unsuspecting world. While there had been plenty of bloody, disgusting horror films splattering against drive-in and grindhouse screens for years, Night was the first of their breed to work as more than mere gross-out material. Shot in black and white (unlike, say, the garish gore-fests of lesser filmmakers such as Herschel Gordon Lewis), Night was just as interested in creating a feeling of true terror as it was in turning your stomach. The result was a film that transcended its genre to become the first hardcore American horror classic since 1960's Psycho.
Six years later Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would roar out of nowhere, causing much the same reaction as Romero's zombies. And like Night, Chain Saw's gut-punch was less the result of onscreen gore (it wasn't even as graphic as Romero's zombie film) and more the result of a filmmaker skilled at creating an atmosphere of dread where the terror comes from never, for a second, feeling safe. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre joined Night of the Living Dead as a bona fide horror landmark.
So, being the movie business, Romero and Hooper should have rushed to cash in on their success by making sequels to their breakthrough hits, right?
Not so fast.
I'm not interested in turning this into a discussion of the legendarily tortured financial histories of Night and Chain Saw. Suffice to say both suffered the fate of many independent films by becoming entangled in battles over money, distribution rights, and in the case of Night a heartbreaking 'clerical error' that saw the film fall into the public domain, robbing its creators of millions of dollars. With both movies becoming gigantic hits, the battles escalated with every dollar grossed. So jumping right in and making a sequel wasn't just a case of writing a script, raising the money and making it. Legalities had to be addressed, which took years.
But legalities aside, neither director was eager to revisit his breakthrough success. Romero continued to make independent films (There's Always Vanilla, Hungry Wives), struggling to overcome the stigma of being considered 'just' a horror director. Hooper had moved on to television (Salem's Lot) and both big-budget (Poltergeist) and small-budget (The Funhouse) horror, as well as science fiction (Lifeforce, Invaders from Mars). But while both enjoyed success, they also endured disappointment. Romero gained critical praise for The Crazies and (especially) Martin, but box office success eluded him. And while Hooper directed the massively successful Poltergeist, the victory was - and continues to be - tainted by rumors and whispers that his participation was minimal and the film was actually directed by writer/producer Steven Spielberg.
So it was that both directors found themselves at a point in their careers where cashing in their biggest chip became something of a necessity (it was even part of Hooper's three-picture deal with Canon Films that one of the films be a Chain Saw sequel). Romero went first with Dawn of the Dead (1978). Taking place shortly after the events of the first film, the zombie plague has progressed to the point where the living and the dead are equal in numbers. A small band of survivors escape from the urban environment of Pittsburgh in a stolen news helicopter and end up taking refuge in a giant indoor shopping mall. The rest of the action takes place in a consumer paradise as the survivors fight to make the mall their own, then fight to overcome comfortable middle-class complacency, and finally fight to the death to protect what they consider theirs. It's as much a comment on America in the 1970's as it is a horror film featuring an army of flesh-eating monsters. Just as in Night, it's plain Romero considers the living more monstrous than the dead.
Frustrated that audiences hadn't fully appreciated the dark comedy present in the original Chain Saw - and knowing he could never compete with the first film's lightning-in-a-bottle intensity - Hooper decided to make The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986) a brutal satire of the Yuppie culture of the 1980's. Recruiting screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson (Paris, Texas), the two men conspired to craft perhaps the bravest, ballsiest, most foolhardy sequel ever made. The surviving members of the original Chain Saw family (Leatherface and the Cook) are joined by their crazed... let's say 'brother'... a Vietnam vet who uses the dead Hitchhiker as a grotesque life-sized puppet. Having become successful caterers to a Dallas filled with obnoxious Yuppies in town for Texas/OU weekend, the Sawyers (they finally have a name) find themselves pursued by former Texas Ranger 'Lefty' Enright (Dennis Hopper), the uncle of Sally and Franklin Hardesty from the first film. As batshit crazy as the Sawyers, Enright recruits radio DJ "Stretch" Brock (Caroline Williams) as help - and unwitting bait - to end the cannibal family's reign of terror and bad barbecue.
The first moment you realize Romero isn't messing around - a zombie takes a horribly realistic bite out of his wife. And it only gets rougher from here. I remember thinking, "If the first 15 minutes of the film are this intense, what the hell is the REST of it gonna be like?"
The boys are back in town. The Hitchhiker is now a grotesque puppet operated by his metal-plate headed brother, the Cook is now a profitable restauranteur, and Leatherface is feeling the first pangs of puppy love. But don't be fooled by the goofy comedy - they still think you're what's for dinner.
That both films decided to focus as much on social satire as horror is telling - neither Romero nor Hooper were interested in simply making carbon copies of their signature hits. They had something to say. That they both essentially attacked shallow American middle-class consumer culture is hardly surprising. In the late 70's the country was in the midst of what Thomas Wolfe called the 'Me Decade.' A time when a corrupt government had given way to an ineffectual one, cocaine had become the drug of choice, disco music was polluting the airwaves and people seemed to only care about their own fleeting happiness. By setting Dawn in a shopping mall - a sterile monument to consumerism - Romero was able to show how shallow our desires are in the face of the zombie uprising, as well as how unfulfilling they are once we've achieved them at the cost of the entire world. In fact, it's one character's refusal to give up their comfort and possessions to a gang of marauding bikers that proves to be their downfall.
When Hooper made Chainsaw 2 we were five years into the Reagan administration. The 'Me Decade' had morphed into the 'Greed is Good' decade. Conservative values ruled the land, 'Trickle-Down Economics' favored the wealthy, Iran-Contra made Watergate look like amateur hour, and people actually thought wearing a sweater by wrapping its arms around your neck looked good. Dark times, indeed. Hooper and screenwriter Carson envisioned the film as an attack on shallow conservative values - the first scene in the screenplay is a montage of pastel polo shirts, sweaters and slacks (not people) being chainsawed. Though much of this material didn't make the final cut (Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, heads of Canon Films, didn't understand the material and ordered it removed), enough still remains to make for effective satire. The first two victims are obnoxious Yuppie assholes we're happy to see die, and the Sawyers themselves have become entrepreneurs. Instead of hawking barbecue out of a filthy, rural gas station they now sell award-winning chili from a shiny catering truck. And when Bible-thumping 'Lefty' Enright confronts them claiming to be "The Lord of the Harvest," the Cook asks, "What's that? Some new health food bunch?" He's more concerned with a threat to his business than the threat posed by the chainsaw-wielding madman right in front of him. Unable to recognize the threat right in front of your nose - sounds like the 80's to me.
While Dawn of the Dead revitalized Romero's career, Chainsaw 2 didn't have the same effect for Hooper. Dawn was hailed as a groundbreaking film from the start (ignoring those critics unable to see past the blood and viscera), and it remains at or near the top of most lists of great horror movies. Romero established himself as a director interested in making films that reflect the struggles within our society - particularly class struggles. While his early fear of being typecast as a horror director has become reality, Dawn demonstrated his ability to use the genre as a blank slate on which to make any statement he wishes to address. While he's gone on to make many excellent films, Dawn of the Dead is his masterpiece.
Chainsaw 2 received mixed-to-negative reviews, many viewers alienated by the broad humor and satirical tone. Expecting the unrelenting intensity of the original film, the portrayal of the Sawyers as a (massively) disfunctional family of small business owners and Leatherface as a bumbling, blushing 'teenager in love' was seen as a betrayal of all that made the first Chain Saw so powerful. I think Chainsaw 2 succeeds because it doesn't try to parrot the original - a film so unique to its time, place and brutal experience of actual filming that it is an unrepeatable phenomenon (as the terrible sequels and reboots made since have proven). But in the midst of the outrageous jokes and over-the-top performances, Chainsaw 2 delivers genuine frights and suspense. The opening sequence (on what Hooper has called "the longest bridge in Texas") is bravura filmmaking, and the scene in the radio station after hours where Stretch first meets Chop-Top and Leatherface is hypnotic and tense. Chainsaw 2 doesn't deliver the same experience as the original because it's not trying to. It's its own film, and a very good one.
Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 both succeed in mixing social satire with horror, giving them a depth and intelligence that most scare flicks don't have. That they also work as pure fright films is testament to the skill of their filmmakers. Having waited so long to return to the films that began their careers, Romero and Hooper were able to expertly balance what they wanted to say as directors with what was expected of them. Both films are unforgettable.
DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)
Directed by: George A. Romero
Written by: George A. Romero
Starring: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, Tom Savini, hundreds of zombies and the Monroeville Mall
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2 (1986)
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
Written by: L.M. Kit Carson
Starring: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson, Lou Perryman, Ken Evert