Courtesy of Dark Sky Films
The moment a film leaves the hands of its maker, its life begins to fragment. It leaks, it sprouts new limbs, it grows in unexpected directions. The way each of us sees a favorite film gives it a new life, a new presence, until eventually there are millions of little second lives for that film out in the world.
Chain Reactions, the new documentary from Alexandre O. Philippe (Doc of the Dead, Lynch/Oz), is about those second lives. Through the stories of five filmmakers, critics, and horror masters, Philippe charts the constantly evolving afterlife of one of the most important horror films ever made, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and delivers an essential new documentary for every horror cinephile.
As with Lynch/Oz (an essential for David Lynch fans), Philippe divides his film into five chapters, each devoted to the point-of-view of one of his five stars: comedian and film fanatic Patton Oswalt, author and horror scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, The Invitation filmmaker Karyn Kusama, and legendary horror novelist Stephen King. Within each chapter, Philippe allows his interviewees to guide the perspective as they discuss the first time they saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, what it did to them, and why the film still sticks with them decades later.
That is, in itself, more than fascinating enough to get you to watch the film, but the new Blu-ray set released this month from Dark Sky Selects adds yet another dimension to the experience. The new limited edition mediabook includes Chain Reactions itself, as well as commentary and a new essay by Philippe, but it also includes eight distinct versions of Texas Chain Saw, preserved in the condition in which they were uncovered as part of the research for the documentary.
Courtesy of Dark Sky Films
You can watch Heller-Nicholas discuss the washed-out, yellowy VHS version of the film she first viewed, and then you can see that version on a separate disc in the set. You can hear Kusama talk about screening Tobe Hooper’s film on actual celluloid for the first time, and then watch an appropriately ragged “Grindhouse” 16 millimeter print. You can even watch a deeply strange Super 8 millimeter version of Texas Chain Saw in which the entire narrative is cut down to a brisk 22 minutes, or even a strange Slovakian BetaMax edition where the entire film is simply narrated by a dispassionate, even creepy voice speaking Slovak.
If you’re an analog/vintage media obsessive, these eight versions of Texas Chain Saw will draw you in to this Blu-ray set simply because, on their own, they’re fascinating curios from a time when everything wasn’t a click away. But they’re also important to the larger experience that is Chain Reactions, because Philippe’s film is, above all else, a study in seeing, and how our experience of a film shifts based on the context in which we first experience it. Heller-Nicholas, for example, discusses at length how the yellowed VHS copy she saw reminded her of Australian genre films, and the way the dominant golden hues made her see and feel the heat of a Texas summer just as she saw and felt the heat of an Aussie summer. Oswalt, who also first saw the film on a battered VHS, emphasizes the power of the Sun and the apparent loneliness of Leatherface, while Kusama – who would make a great full-time film analyst if she ever decided to stop directing – contextualizes the film through all of horror cinema history going back to Nosferatu.
Chain Reactions is a film of remarkable depth and often stunning insight, even if you’re someone like me who’s seen Texas Chain Saw many times, but its greatest insight lies in its ability to make film a personal experience. Very often these kinds of documentaries run the risk of simply explaining everything about a film, providing some definitive answer for the audience, then rolling credits in an attempt to place some kind of lid on our interpretations. Chain Reactions is about exactly what the title implies. Our reactions to a film as visceral and deranged as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are the thing that has powered the film’s dominance in the horror space for more than five decades, and so Philippe leaves space in his film for your reaction, and for mine.
If you want to simply go and rent Chain Reactions on VOD right now and watch for yourself, you’re going to get a great documentary experience. If you pair the documentary with the new Blu-ray set, though, you’re going to get something even more rewarding. This is a hand-picked cultural archive featuring some of the finest voices in the horror space, and it will change the way you view one of the most famous horror films of all time. Plus, it fits in a stocking, so if you need a gift for the horror-obsessive in your life, it’s right there waiting.
The Chain Reactions Blu-ray Mediabook is available now from Dark Sky Selects.
Summary
This is a hand-picked cultural archive featuring some of the finest voices in the horror space, and it will change the way you view one of the most famous horror films of all time.
Categorized: Movie Reviews
