A Southern-Fried Evening With The Filmmakers Of Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Upon watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), two things are clear: there is a deliberate attempt to harness the wild tone of the original, and this young group of city slickers are in for an even more intense ride than any of their predecessors.
I had the pleasure of sitting with the film’s director, David Blue Garcia, about his approach to tone and how he envisioned the classic franchise for a new generation. As well, I spoke to actors Sarah Yarkin (Melody) and Nell Hudson (Ruth) about their experiences filming yet another set of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history.
First up, David Blue Garcia:
RC: You’ve previously discussed the value of having levity in films that deal with dark subject matter. How were you able to play with tone in a horror setting?
DAVID: I looked at Fede’s Evil Dead and it has such a wicked tone to it. It’s such an amazing film and so horrific. Really tears into the characters and gets under your skin. The first Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the same way but, when I rewatched it, something that I didn’t remember was how darkly funny it is.
There’s a lot of humor sprinkled throughout the film, which is something people forget because it’s such a shocking movie. That’s why I wanted to bring some levity to this film. You know, the characters are all friends and they’re coming from the big city. They have a whole history, so they’re funny and joking around at the beginning. Something I also wanted to add as a palette cleanser right before the bus massacre was the whole cell phone bit. The “try anything and you're canceled bro” guy. It’s played for a bit of humor but I think it fits into the world that Tobe Hooper created back in ‘74 and then again in his sequel. I think we got a really cool tone in this film that’s both brutal but then darkly funny when it needs to be.
Truly, when fans get a look at the film, they will recognize the neon splatter that characterizes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. A word to the wise, Blue Garcia’s take does not hold back on the gleeful destruction of the human body by any means. But committing these grotesqueries to film is one thing. Acting them out is another.
To illuminate the process of being chased by a behemoth with a running chainsaw, Yarkin and Hudson had this to say:
RC JARA: Sarah, you've been in a couple of films already, but Nell, it looks like this might be your first horror film. As performers, how do either of you get in a horror headspace and what do you do to decompress?
NELL: Do you know what’s crazy? I think because horror is such a commercially successful genre, certainly as a fan of horror and as an audience member, I never quite took seriously how much actors in horror films go through. It occurred to me on set after a very violent scene. If you’re doing a horror movie, the attitude is “yeah cool, we’re doing a horror!” If you’d done the same thing in a different genre, say, a drama, people would be very serious on set.
There’s something about the horror genre where it’s just like “oh, this is the nature of the game.” You just do it, you go with it so it’s up to the actor to pace and monitor yourself. Like you said, it was my first horror film, so I had a lot of massages filming in Bulgaria because my body was literally so tense, I was full of knots all up my back from the shooting process. So I have a lot of respect for people who do horror films because it’s quite taxing.
SARAH: That’s a really good point, Nell. Doing a drama and everyone’s like “are you okay?” In this everyone’s like, “that looked sick!” and you're covered in blood and crying your eyes out like “is it okay? Cool. Moving on?” I read the script and was like “these stunts are gonna be sick. I’m gonna get so disgusting. I can’t wait, what an adventure!” Then you’re doing it and you’re getting into that headspace day after day for continuity. You know a half page scene of you hiding is three days of shooting in real life. You’re covered in blood and you keep getting more blood on you and now you’re crying. So three months of that was very hard for me both emotionally and physically. I learned a lot from it.
I had done some horror comedies before, which were totally different because my shooting experience was comedy scenes essentially. This was a totally new experience for me. I learned so much about what not to do and how to take better care of myself in between days of shooting and in between takes so that I'm not burning myself out. But I have so much respect for actors in this genre. These aren’t normal circumstances that we’re acting in. When are you being chased by a serial killer in a mask holding a chainsaw? So getting into that headspace every day and convincing yourself, your body starts to think maybe you’re dying. You’re crying every day and my body’s like “okay I guess we’re crying again, she’s not doing good.”
The craft of a slasher film often goes unnoticed. However, you see all the guts and glory in this thing as described by the talent above. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise has seen its share of divisive reception among fans through the years, but this one certainly puts its money where its nasty mouth is.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is available to stream on Netflix starting February 18 at 12:01 PST. For more goodies, check out www.netflix.com/TexasChainsawMassacre
