Realist Horror Story

This week I chose to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I chose this film for two reasons. First, It’s a film that Freeland discusses in her essay as a specific reference to the subgenre of realist horror. Furthermore, there has been much debate both in class and in our readings about what defines a picture as a “horror” film. Even in light of this obscurity in definition, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is widely regarded by critics and fans to not only as a horror film but also one of the highest rated and most original of its Day.

                  That originality stems from the way the movie is shot on the one hand and the way the plot is constructed on the other. As Freeland argues, the way that information is presented to us is one of the things that separate realist horror apart from the conventional formula of horror films. Instead of following a story based around a central monster, like Freddy cougar or the Hellraiser, the movie follows an unsuspecting troupe of teenagers, and the only hint at a plot we receive comes at the beginning of the film when the opening informs us about the death of a group of missing teens in the Texas area.

                  The other plot mechanism that is unique to realist horror is that of employing news broadcasts to give back story to the plot, like in Dawn of the Dead, to for shadow, in the case of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or to give extraneous but interesting footnote type information an example of which comes in Shawn of the Dead.  While the newscast plot direction mechanism functions in different ways in the film, it has the pronounced affect of making the events not only feel real, but relaying information to the viewer without having to break scene or adjust the central plot to feed the viewer information.

                  The second key difference in the subgenre of realist horror that Freeland provides is the move away from a central story surrounding a monster, as outlined by Carroll, and towards a more abstract notion of spectacle. This focus on spectacle is one of the reasons that realist horror films such as, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, and Evil Dead made such an impression when they came onto the horror film scene. While there had been gruesome scenes in Horror films before, there had never been such a spectacle placed on these events.  This marked difference is noticeable when you look at the difference between the chase scenes in traditional horror films like Psycho or The Shining. In these films complex camera angels, lighting and the most complex and gut wrenching scores in the film emphasize the chase scenes for the audience and highlighted their importance. This makes sense, as in the traditional horror film this scene was the climax that built tension all the way up until the big reveal of the monster or the central action in the film of killing or maiming.

                  If we contrast this with scenes in realist horror films that are given the same directional emphasis we see a marked difference. The first big chase scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where the first two teens that stumble upon the house attempt to flee from leather face, is plagued with uninteresting camera angles no soundtrack at all, and horrible movement orchestration. In one way it seems completely sensible that the no bells and whistles style of horror would make sense in the realist horror genre, but we quickly see that that is not the case, but instead these directing techniques are used elsewhere not to emphasize the obvious spectacle of horror such as being chased by a chainsaw wielding maniac, but instead to plunge the viewer deeper into the psychological horror of the incomprehensible and unknown.

                  This becomes apparent when we watch the scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre where one of the kids stumbles into a room full of human bones, chicken feathers, leather furniture, and the gruesome scene of murderous tools. In this scene time slows down as the viewer takes the perspective of the character while her eyes slowly move around the room both entranced in the madness of what she is seeing and her inability to understand it. The clucking of the chicken is strategically placed in the background between shots of her observation and shots of her face racked in terror mouth agape on the verge of releasing a blood-curdling scream. Then after this lengthy scene leather face simply comes in and hangs her on a meat hook.

This example, where a torturous room is given more attention than a characters death, is exactly the type of difference that Freeland notes between an emphasis on plot and an emphasis on spectacle.  It is for this reason, this inducing of horror through a focus on the unimaginably terrifying that I think Freeland’s notion of what makes a horror film is more accurate than Carroll’s. Because, even when there is no monster, films that can frighten you to your wits end are the most chilling of all.