Texas Chainsaw Murders was once banned in Finland, now it is praised as a profound film

Set hippie-spirited urban youth travel to the Texas countryside. They encounter a family of cannibals living on a farm. Wearing a mask made of human skin, the murderer slaughters young people with a chainsaw and other tools.

That’s basically what appeared 50 years ago The Texas Chainsaw Murders -the plot of the movie. Film industry publication Variety recently listed the 100 best horror movies of all time. The Texas Chainsaw Murders was number one.

New York’s Museum of Modern Art, MoMa, presented a new restored version of the film for a week in honor of its anniversary. According to the museum’s introductory text, the film is one of the “most influential works” in the history of genre cinema.

The restored 4K version is also currently in theatrical distribution in Finland.

Chainsaw murders reputation has been mixed. It was banned in Finland for a long time.

CEO of Cinema Mondo Mika Siltala had a 25-month tussle with the authorities in the 1990s. In the end, Siltala won and got a performance license for the uncut version. About chainsaw murders became a symbol of the discussion about film censorship that took place in Finland in the mid-1990s.

The Texas Chainsaw Murders has had copycats and sequels. For example Halloween and Friday the 13th repeating the formula of a large faceless killer murdering young people with tools and kitchen utensils.

Chainsaw murders however, his importance is greater than his followers, both artistically and socially. In 1996, Siltala described the artistic values ​​of the film as being especially in the use of the camera and music.

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To the murderer, the townspeople are like a succulent gift from a world that displaced the workers.

Tobe Hooper (1943–2017) directed Chainsaw murders on a shoestring budget in his hometown of Austin, Texas.

Hooper’s background as a documentarian can be seen in the description. The pictures leave no room for distance. Although there is also satire in the film, the atmosphere is cramped and oppressive. Everything moves quickly and irresistibly. The spectator is escaping with the victims. Townspeople are like animals for slaughter at the mercy of someone who does not obey the rules of reason or emotion.

The color scale is a mixture of blazing daylight and dark bloodiness, in both of which it is impossible to find fixed points that bring security.

Hooper was inspired by a real serial killer Ed Geinistäwho dressed in outfits made from the skin of people he murdered.

On the other hand, Hooper has said that he wanted to make a modern version of Hannu and Kertu’s story. When in a fairy tale the children wander in the forest and end up in the witch’s cabin, Chainsaw murders city ​​dwellers stray into the countryside and end up in the redneck slaughterhouse.

of Texas chainsaw murders has been viewed as a social film. in The New Yorker Jackson Arn wrote last August that the film is above all a sociological story – “factory work perverts the working class, technology makes them redundant and unemployment makes them hungry”.

When the young townspeople arrive, they are like a succulent gift on a tray from a world that has displaced the workers.

The film has also been seen as a description of the fading of fuel and food in a collapsing world. In chainsaw murders radio news reports on major societal problems. In the beginning, the images of the sun’s eruptions frame the destinies of individuals.

The world around is going through a disaster and a cannibal family is doing what they can to survive in a collapsing world.

The Texas Chainsaw Murders is a picture of the failure of a certain deep plot of Americanness. It has been a key influence on the stereotype of the redneck serial killer, which has been repeated numerous times in entertainment.

Waiting in America’s backyard is a twisted checkered shirt-wearing madman, grinding chewing tobacco and slaughtering innocently stupid townspeople.

Closer by review Chainsaw murders too turns out to be surprisingly multi-hued. Hooper doesn’t just turn the cannibal family into monsters, but creates a cross between them and the townspeople. One key to this is a wheelchair.

The entire film begins in a special way with a scene where Franklin, a wheelchair-bound city dweller, rolls along the sidewalk with his chair. Franklin is part of the group, but awkward and a bit bullied.

The grandfather of the cannibal family is also in a wheelchair. Surprisingly, the cannibals take better care of him than the townspeople take care of Franklin.

On the other hand, the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface isn’t just a faceless murderer like, say, the original Halloween Michael Myers on.

Leatherface is clearly not mentally healthy, but possibly disabled. He is just trying to get food for his family and also cooks a family meal. The rest of the family orders him around. Leatherface is a kind of backpack.

Leatherface and Franklin are two of the most basic. They find no connection, of course. Leatherface, on the other hand, brutally kills Franklin. Compassion has no place in a world where there are only eaters and the eaten. Not even for rips.

But the juxtaposition between the two brings For the Texas chainsaw murders a tragic tone that many other murder horror films don’t have.

In the film’s iconic closing shot, Leatherface dances in the golden syrupy light of a Texas sunrise, holding the instrument of his freedom and power.

Chain saw.