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Post by Leatherface on Jan 1, 2010 15:20:30 GMT -5
he's a cool guy IMO so i'll cut him a break but anyhow i am a HUGE TCM fan and ironically the film was supposed to be called headcheese but i forgot why they didn't call it that lol
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Post by GL on Jan 1, 2010 15:43:20 GMT -5
Well, I do like a lot of stuff (much more so than you would expect) I just don't really care a lot for the originators since, beyond their reputation, they don't have anything of real value I look for in movies.
TCM, for me, suffers from that. I knew nothing of the film when I first saw it, only that it was 'the bloodiest film of all time' and I was new to horror (I guess only Jaws would be before this one) so I didn't know anything about the genre. I spent my youth almost strictly on Action Films and giant monster movies, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else (which was provided by the crap that was shown in schools, those two were the only things I watched on my own time) and in coming from the school where, if you don't have a car chase, fist-fight or something blowing up ten-times bigger than it would in real life every ten minutes, then it's boring, and aside from the chase through the woods, I didn't like it at all. There was no action, the blood was not even there so I didn't get a thrill from a bloodhound perspective, and the general cheapness was visible even though I've since forgiven the film for that due to more recent endeavors where the total cost of production would be dwarfed by a letter shipped across the country in the mail.
And it was because of that so-called violence in it that I decided to watch it to begin with. I had gone through an innocent enough phase right around that time with seeing incredibly violent action films (in rapid succession, there was Robocop, Predator, Starship Troopers, Species and Black Mask, among others but those being the best) so I felt like I could handle a supposed gorefest of the nature this one promised. It failed, and I felt disappointed about it, and if it weren't for Bride of Chucky keeping me interested enough in the genre to explore such fare as Friday the 13th, Phantasm and The Howling, I wouldn't be here because I didn't like TCM that much.
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Post by abraxas on Jan 1, 2010 16:37:57 GMT -5
I love me a good giant monster movie too, I was always a Godzilla junkie, they use to show Godzilla movies every Saturday when I was young and Id sit there all day watching them, plus a lot of old Kung Fu films.
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Post by GL on Jan 1, 2010 16:40:47 GMT -5
Rodan was actually the very first movie I ever watched, and the first Godzilla one was Godzilla vs The Thing about a week later, so I don't think you can be introduced into cinema any better than I was as a child growing up.
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Post by Leatherface on Jan 1, 2010 17:34:49 GMT -5
I understand your reasons GL and i don't look at horror like that i like the psychology behind it and TCM to me is highly surreal. i mean there could be a very narrow possiblity that out there somewhere there are people like Leatherface and his cannibalistic family. TCM relied much more on the psychological fear than gore. Much like how Halloween relies on suspense more than blood. TCM suffers from having the wrong name. There is a massacre just not a chain-saw massacre. A name like Headcheese or Leatherface ( which were 2 of the original names) probably wouldve done it justice. I think the reason why i like it so much is because it's just disturbing all around, How the hitchiker was laughing while cutting himself and how the family seemed to enjoy watching sally suffer. And finally the most bizarre secene of all is the ending Chain-saw "Dance". But i hope this explains why i love the film so much
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Post by CT on Jan 1, 2010 19:34:51 GMT -5
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Post by Leatherface on Jan 1, 2010 19:46:15 GMT -5
thanks CT
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Post by GL on Jan 4, 2010 10:28:01 GMT -5
All fine points, LF, but the thing for me is that, I watched the film hoping to see whether or not I could stomach a film which contained a lot of graphic violence and gore, since at the time I didn't know whether I could handle it or not, being so new to the genre. As I came into these films, as a whole, from an Action Movie standpoint, psychological doesn't work at all on me. Those films bore me to death (with a few exceptions) so this one following in on those trends and not satisfying me on an action-style level is what hurts it for me, and that's even taking into account the revists I've done to try to justify that as I don't like to watch films in that manner. It's a film which just doesn't work for me.
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Post by Jen on Jan 4, 2010 12:49:05 GMT -5
Other than Evil Dead 2, this is my favorite horror film. Because its the film that scared me the most. The first time, I couldn't watch it all the way to the end. Couldn't watch it through to the end until I was sixteen. I found it very disturbing, and I STILL find it disturbing.
And while it might not be a gorefest.....its a violent and brutal film, in my opinion. The hammer to the head death still strikes me as realistic, and I think its one of the best death scenes of all time, its not overly dramatic and not drawn out, it doesn't have to be. The abruptness and the twitching of the victim's body is all that is needed to make that scene very effective. Its the realistic look yet nightmarish and surreal feel of the film that gives it its reputation. The dinner scene to this day still makes me uncomfortable. Its bizarre, mean......but really kind of funny......its moments like that that make this film a classic. Its unsettling in a way few films can accomplish now or even try to accomplish now.
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Post by abraxas on Jan 4, 2010 14:20:59 GMT -5
The thing that got to me after not seeing it for many years was her constant screaming in the dinner scene, it really unnerved me.
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Post by FireStar on Jan 4, 2010 22:40:35 GMT -5
The one thing that got to me was that alot of its horror moments take place during the day, so you have these very dark and demented acts going on with sunlight streaming in the windows or shining brightly overhead. I always find the contrast between the light and the dark occurring at the same time very uncomfortable.
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HNT
Grizzled HMaM Vet
Horror in General & Everything Else Moderator[/i]
Kiss my tuchis
Posts: 6,296
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Post by HNT on Jan 5, 2010 10:42:52 GMT -5
It is a very well done film. I think that the scariest thing about it is that these kids turn to all of the logical places looking for help, and instead of finding it, everywhere they look turns into more trouble for them. It had the pretenses of being standard middle American stuff, but it had turned on itself and turned rotten. That is a scary thought. You don't wind up acting like a bunch of stupid horror film victims. You do everything right and in the logical way, but there is nothing logical about an entire society turned on its head. That is a scary concept
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Post by Leatherface on Jan 9, 2010 12:24:55 GMT -5
was anyone else annoyed by franklin's constant bitching?
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HNT
Grizzled HMaM Vet
Horror in General & Everything Else Moderator[/i]
Kiss my tuchis
Posts: 6,296
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Post by HNT on Jan 10, 2010 16:42:04 GMT -5
I know a lot of people were but I actually felt bad for him. He was going to check on his grandma's body and his sister and her friends were too busy partying to care. Of was clear from the beginnning that he didn't fit in with the rest of the group and that they were kinda picking on him the whole time. Yeah he sucked, but one of the really interesting things about this movie isbhow east it is to sympathize with a lot of the characters. Even leatherface
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Post by Jen on Jan 11, 2010 4:07:53 GMT -5
I used find Franklin very annoying, and still do a little, but I have noticed that the last few times I watched it that, like HNT, I mostly just feel pretty bad for the guy.
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