was released in an era when micro-budgeted indie films were neither
fashionable nor successful. Nobody, including those involved in
its production, thought it would go anywhere. And yet something
about this nightmarish 1974 horror flick, which cost about $140,000
to make and grossed more than $20 million, struck a nerve with critics
and audiences, with opinions ranging from lavish praise to splenetic
loathing.
Filming was a haphazard endeavor; the movie’s impetuous director,
Tobe Hooper, who was not yet 30, cobbled it together over six weeks
outside of Austin, Texas, with a cast and crew barely out of college.
Though the production had its share of conflicts, they paled in
comparison to the bloody battle that later ensued for a share of
the sleeper hit’s profits.
In spite of—or perhaps because of—these troubles, The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre has gone down as a milestone in cinematic
horror, its influence apparent in films as varied as the Friday
the 13th series, The Silence of the Lambs, and The
Blair Witch Project. Here, the cast and crew recall the making
of a movie that became a phenomenon.
|
Cast
of Characters
|
Ronald
Bozman
production manager |
Tobe
Hooper
cowriter, producer, director |
Marilyn
Burns
Sally |
Bob
Kuhn
investor |
Robert
A. Burns
art director (no relation to Marilyn) |
John
Larroquette
Narrator |
Allen
Danziger
Jerry |
Daniel
Pearl
director of photography |
Gunnar
Hansen
Leatherface |
Jim
Siedow
Old Man |
Kim
Henkel
cowriter |
William
Vail
Kirk |
Preparing the Meat
Tobe Hooper: I was in a department store around Christmas,
standing in the hardware department. There were so many people,
and I was so tired and frustrated, and my focus pulled to the rack
of chain saws. Immediately the idea occurred of how to get out of
this crowd. I called my writing partner, Kim Henkel, and we churned
the script out in two or three weeks.
Kim Henkel: The original concept was that there were supernatural
creatures at this house. I simply found it not frightening. The
only thing that’s really frightening is human beings. We borrowed
some of the basics from the Grimm Brothers, Hansel and Gretel
and things like that. And, of course, we borrowed from Ed Gein [the
’50s serial killer who also partly inspired Psycho].
We gathered [money] from all kinds of people—anybody with a buttonhole.
My little sister invested $1,000. The largest single investor was
a guy named Bill Parsley, who was a former Texas legislator. He
brought in Bob Kuhn, who was an attorney there in Austin, as [another]
investor.
Ronald Bozman: Most of the cast and crew were in their
20s.
Henkel: Most of them were aspiring actors who had done
productions in college. They were often quite busy pursuing other,
more interesting aspects of their lives.
Marilyn Burns: I was doing Sidney Lumet’s Lovin' Molly,
and Tobe and Kim came on the set and got a little plate of chicken.
Some guy came over and said, “Are you guys with the cast or the
crew?” And they said no. He made them give their chicken back. [That’s
how] they knew of me.
Hooper: Marilyn seemed spot-on, and I hired her.
Daniel Pearl: There was some talk that the principal backer
was influential in the casting of her.
Robert A. Burns: Marilyn Burns was apparently banging Bill
Parsley at the time.
Marilyn
Burns: Oh my goodness, no! Oh, God. No. He was a super-nice
person, a good friend. But I was a baby. That man was old!
Gunnar Hansen: I had been in some plays in college, and
I was living in Austin at the time, working as a carpenter, when
I ran into this friend of a friend who said these guys were in town
making a movie, and I would be perfect for the part of the killer.
He gave me the phone number of the casting director, who was actually
Bob Burns.
Hooper: Bob was bringing Gunnar to his office for me to
meet, and I could see them across the street. Gunnar had the part
before he even walked through the door.
Jim Siedow: At the time, [the project] was called Leatherface.
I read it, and I thought it was a good class-B drive-in movie.
Marilyn Burns: Our working title was Head Cheese;
then they were going to call it Scum of the Earth. I thought,
That’s going to hurt our chances. I still wanted to be in the movie,
but couldn’t we change the title? I was real happy when they came
up with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. You can’t beat that.
We could have had the lousiest movie in the world and everybody
would have watched it because of the title.
WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE
Pearl: We “borrowed” cameras from the University of Texas,
since the school was closed in the summertime. The film was shot
in a five-week period but spread over six weeks. We shot for a week,
and the producers weren’t happy with the way it was going. They
thought we should be more organized and blah-blah-blah. We shut
down for maybe a week and Tobe had to write a shot list and do storyboards,
which were more of a placebo than anything else, because he didn’t
live and die by them. [The producers] didn’t have any more filmmaking
experience than anybody else, but it was easy to fake being a boss.
