The point that I'm trying to make is that this film's visual style is probably what got it most of its controversy. Though, if I'm being fair, the film still had its own grime when compared to many horror movies of that same era. Even Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, which I greatly enjoyed, didn't capture that. And this movie, which cost something like $80,000 to make, is still the best example of that. I don't mean that to make the film look cheap, but it inspires creativity in using different styles of cinematography to get the utter filth of this world across. And, in my opinion, to capture that original tone and dirtiness of the Sawyer household and surrounding area, you need a need a smaller budget. The thing about this is that, while subsequent movies, particularly after the remake in 2003, may have had bigger budgets, their griminess clearly had a touch of Hollywood shine. Other films in the same franchise have tried to capture this same tone and they have just failed miserably. #Texas chain saw massacre graves movieI do think the reason that is a result of the fact that the movie is so dirty, grimy and gritty. The point I'm trying to make is that, still, to this day, the violence in this movie is still brutal and visceral. Or Pam being hung up on the meathook, you just see her hanging from the hook, you don't seen the entry point or anything of the sort. While a lot of the violence is certainly left to the imagination, like when Leatherface cuts up Franklin with the chainsaw, you only see the attack from behind Franklin's wheelchair. This movie, on the other hand, doesn't really do that. I feel that's why the deaths themselves ended up being so disappointed, they spend a long time building up that tension only to give us relatively weak deaths. If there's anything that Halloween does better than this movie is building up the tension and dread of what Michael Myers is actually gonna do when he decides to strike. Even better now that I'm looking back on it. With that said, this movie holds up so damn well, honestly. And, again, this is coming from someone that has already seen this film at least once. I was worried that a movie released almost half a decade earlier would suffer from the same issues. There's no real heft or weight to the deaths in that movie and that really held it back to me. My main issue with Halloween was that its deaths were tame and didn't really feel, within its own context and world, that the characters were really dying, it felt more like actors play fighting with Nick Castle (who played masked MIchael Myers in the movie), before pretending to be dead. Going into this movie once again, however, I was worried that the issues that plagued Halloween that made it so it didn't stand the test of time as other classic horror movies would also plague this movie. (Edit: Turns out that I haven't reviewed this movie on this site, so here we go). So, technically, this review will only be for Letterboxd, as I already reviewed the movie for Rotten Tomatoes. I've already actually seen this movie once before, there was a special edition DVD released some years ago that I bought. Or at least existed in the form that it did in 1978. It is not preposterous to say that without this movie, Halloween might not have existed. The big, hulking faceless figure started here, the use of power tools also started here. Of course, in the intervening years since its release and now, obviously, the movie has been reappraised as one of the best slasher movies ever made and for being one of the most influential horror movies of all time. Regardless, the film was banned in several countries and pulled out of some theaters as a result of complaints, both as a result of its violent content. I wonder what the original cut of the movie actually looked like, if the violence was actually toned down in this version. Obviously, that didn't go as planned as the movie still got an R rating. Hooper even edited down the movie so, hopefully, he could secure a PG rating from the MPAA. Tobe Hooper struggled to find a distributor due to the film's violent content. I think a big reason to that would have to be this film's controversy when it originally came out. That's something that's interesting to think about in retrospect, like why did it take four years in between this movie's release and for the slasher genre to become popularized. This one started it, but it was Halloween, in 1978, that legitimately popularized it. And here we go, with the movie that legitimately started it all for the slasher genre, at least in the U.S.
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