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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
16 Plays1 year ago
We talk about sympathetic takes of Leatherface, disability, meat-eating, and vegetarianism.
I was wrong! Hitchhiking is legal in 44 out of 50 states
Can You Still Hitchhike in the USA? - Drivin' & Vibin'
We refer to this episode of You Are Good throughout the episode:
You Are Good: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre w. Brad Bannon on Apple Podcasts
More links:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - Wikipedia
IS LEATHERFACE MENTALLY CHALLENGED?
A Brief History Of Disability In Horror - FANGORIA
Movie Facts: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Leatherface's Backstory Explained
Music used under Creative Commons License
Horror Monster Sound: Preparing For Battle (Vol 002)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Cultural Context of Texas Chainsaw Massacre
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunts You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. I'm Carley. And I'm Katie. We are discussing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974. It was the first time I saw it.
00:00:23
Speaker
I think, but I might have seen it before. It's hard to tell because it's like one of those infamous movies that like I've definitely heard a lot about. I started watching Leatherface and I think that's when I had talked to you and you were like, um, no, turn that off until you watch the original one. And so I did see like 15 minutes of Leatherface from 2018 before seeing this. And I like kind of just knew who Leatherface was.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that this is the type of movie that you can even through like cultural osmosis, like actually know as much about as it feels like you do. Like, I think it just like plays very differently than it feels like it's going. I don't know, especially with the blood, like the lack of blood.
Character Analysis: Franklin and Sally
00:01:06
Speaker
But before we even get into like all the details, like what was like, how did you like it? Like, how did you feel about it? Just like initial kind of reaction? Yeah, I liked it a lot. I thought it
00:01:16
Speaker
It held my attention the whole time. It was definitely one of those movies where I was like, don't go in there. What are you doing? Turn around. In an old-timey Hollywood accent? Yes. Just brought it out of me. I don't know. Yeah, there was just a lot of choices that I was like,
00:01:42
Speaker
Why are you doing that? And I actually didn't know that there was a disabled character in it. It was interesting because I listened to the You Are Good episode about Texas Chainsaw Massacre last night, like right after
00:01:56
Speaker
Actually, I think we had paused the movie because Pat was making me food, and so I started listening to the podcast before I had finished the movie, but it didn't spoil anything. Kaniyia. Yeah. But this is how I do media. But I only listened to the first five minutes, but I hadn't realized that Franklin and Sally were siblings.
00:02:19
Speaker
until I listened to that. It had said it like in the text in the beginning that scrolls through, but I just kind of missed that.
00:02:27
Speaker
And I just thought that they were all friends. Um, but I am like kind of a little more upset with Sally for not taking care of Franklin better, uh, knowing that she's his sister. Yeah. And, and in You Are Good, they were talking about how Franklin, how like they made Franklin like an annoying character. And I guess like the actor was acting annoying on set to try to like keep that, but
00:02:54
Speaker
I actually didn't find him that annoying. I guess he was complaining, but all of his complaints seemed like very fair to me. Yeah. I think that his complaints were fair. I think he just didn't get to say anything else.
00:03:07
Speaker
really and so it's like all he's doing is complaining but like also like he's kind of getting dragged a lot like i would probably be complaining too yeah i was really upset when they got to the house and they just left him outside i was like what the hell guys and then he had like a really hard time getting in yeah i was also thinking about just like
00:03:29
Speaker
how much worse that would have been back in the day without a smartphone.
Realism and Cultural Context in Film
00:03:34
Speaker
Not that it would be okay now to do that to someone, but it just seems like actual psychological torture to do that to somebody and they have nothing. He didn't even have a book. He was just there. Right. Yeah, I think one of the first scenes is they're stopping on the side of the road so he can go to the bathroom and they bring him. They have a ramp in their van. They take him
00:03:58
Speaker
down and then they bring him like over to the side of the road and give him like a can to pee in and then he like they must have not locked his chair and because he like slips off the side of the road and he and his chair like tumbled down that was i had never heard of that scene before i actually didn't know there was a disabled character in the movie until i started it um and that was like
00:04:23
Speaker
really shocking to me. And I thought that they actually did like a reasonably good portrayal of a disabled character for the time. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think they made him like a little insufferable, but
00:04:40
Speaker
They were all kind of a little insufferable. He was just the most explicitly insufferable. And I do think on some level, it was very real that he would just get left somewhere. That's not cool, but I do imagine that that probably would have been what people would have done in that moment. Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker
Um, and I like that we, we see like real moments of him struggling, not that I like seeing him struggle, but just that like, I've seen other representations where you aren't along for the journey of what the disabled person is going through. You're just like seeing the people who are watching them. And I thought that was good that we saw how inaccessible the world is and especially then, but so they pick up a hitchhiker.
00:05:29
Speaker
Is the hitchhiker before or after the gas station? Before, right? I honestly don't remember. I think before, but I don't remember. I wrote it down. I haven't looked at my notes at all yet. Yeah, so I've been trying to write notes scene by scene. So I had thought that this, I watched a lot of videos and there is conflicting feedback on if it
00:05:49
Speaker
is based on a true story or not. Some people seem to think it's loosely based on Ed Gein. I think it is to the extent that half of horror movies from before the 80s are loosely based on Ed Gein. You know what I mean? I think that was just one of the scariest
The 'True Story' Myth and Trespassing Theme Discussion
00:06:04
Speaker
things people could think of in that time.
00:06:07
Speaker
makes sense. Yeah, but I don't, I think it's like so far off that it's like to say it's like based on a true story seems like very much like a stretch. I don't know. Right. I was thinking that part of why people think it's based on a true story is just from the way it starts, where it has like the scrolling words, it feels kind of like a report and then it immediately goes to, they're like listening to the news of something. So I think it
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah. It feels more realistic. It's also weird for me watching it because I heard that this created the formula for slashers, basically. But I see the formula that I've seen in a bunch of other ones and it's hard for me to be like, oh yeah, this one came first because I hadn't seen it first.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because it follows the formula but like also feels really different than like the rest of the slasher movies do in a way. And I think part of that is because there is this like explicit like trespass element of like
00:07:04
Speaker
these people like the kids, teens, young adults, whatever, just like walk into this home. You know what I mean? Like I think that like does make it I was so offended. Yeah, that makes it feel fundamentally different to me because like everybody else is getting like hunted down.
00:07:20
Speaker
in places where they have no reason to like, think that something bad would happen to them. Whereas this is like, if you walk into somebody's house, you don't know who the fuck is in there. And like, you don't know what they're gonna think of you because if someone walks into my house, I'm assuming they're a threat. Like, you know, I don't know that I would do the same things that this family that the Sawyer family does. But I do think I would buy in my immediate reaction would be like, this is a threat. I'm in danger. I gotta get away or something. Right? Like, so the first person who goes into the house is Kurt.
00:07:50
Speaker
Right. Yes. I had a little bit of a hard time following their names, but I think I know all of them now, but it took me till the end. Oh, I could be right. I think. Yeah. Cause Jerry is the sister's boyfriend. Right. And she was like, Jerry, Jerry, when they're all going through sports, um, there were so many times where I was like, can you just not yell right now? Like you would probably be better for you if you weren't yelling. Um, but it's a movie. So.
00:08:19
Speaker
They have to do the inciting thing. Um, but, uh, with Kirk, he was like going up to the door and he's like, Hey, Hey, anybody home in there? They go there cause they're looking for gas and he hears a generator on. So he's like, Ooh, they must have something and they have a ton of cars. He starts looking in the house. It just kept making me think of like, this is how I ended up with my little dog who I found on the street. Cause.
00:08:46
Speaker
The dog led me back to his house and there was like music playing inside. So I was like, okay, somebody's probably home. I was like knocking on the door for a while and like calling and nobody came. And I was like, this is how people get murdered. I'm leaving.
00:09:00
Speaker
I'm editing and it really sounds like I kidnapped my dog, but I did not. I wrote a little note and left it on the car there. I didn't hear back for a week, but then the owner's daughter called me and her dad was struggling with some health issues at the time and wasn't really able to take care of the dog. So it worked out for both of us for me to keep him. And he was 12. I had him for two years.
00:09:26
Speaker
He was a very sweet, tiny little teacup boy. I thought he was a guinea pig when he was running in the grass. He was only three and a half pounds. Now back to whatever else I was saying. I wouldn't go inside a house. And that was like a pretty normal looking house. This house has like bones and shit on the walls, things hanging. But I guess maybe if you're in a farming area,
00:09:51
Speaker
that seems more normal. Well, and I think that's like a big kind of piece of what the movie is, right? Like it's about like some tension between like the urban and the rural and the kind of way that not only I mean, not only
00:10:06
Speaker
do these kids think that there are no rules when they like enter a rural area?
Urban vs. Rural Tension and Leatherface's Portrayal
00:10:10
Speaker
Because like you have to think there's no rules to just walk into someone's house. And you wouldn't do that in a city. Like you would, they would know not to do that in a city. So they're kind of putting the rules aside of just like basic decency and respect, right? And like just kind of feeling entitled, right? Like, isn't it like kind of an entitlement to walk into someone's house? Yeah, it's definitely entitlement. But I didn't, I'm not sure that
00:10:34
Speaker
that guy wouldn't have walked into somebody's house in the city either if it was a similar situation where they were like looking for something and the door was unlocked. But I think that they definitely felt very entitled, even when they were just like walking up their backyard, especially in Texas, I was like, you're about to get shot, like
00:10:54
Speaker
you're just gonna walk up into somebody's yard and they're gonna be there and be like, nope. But I do think it's interesting to look at Leatherface from the perspective of that he's just protecting his house because he didn't really go after them until Sally. But I know when I think her name's Pam, I thought her name was Beth at one point for some reason. Is there even a person named Beth?
00:11:19
Speaker
I was writing like Beth slash Pam. There's only like five people in my notes. Yeah. I don't know where I got that from. So Pam goes into the house. She falls into the feathers. And then we see this room where they have, this seems like the most Ed Gein inspired part where there's this whole room of art and furniture made out of body parts. Yeah.
00:11:37
Speaker
And oh yeah, I forgot to say actually the first time that I saw Leatherface, I thought that the mask and the hair looked a lot like Michael Myers' mask. And I was like, wait, is Michael Myers' mask inspired by Leatherface? I don't think so, not really. I don't know. But I think, well, he also has several faces. Yeah, he has a few. It was specifically the first one that I thought looked like that. Do you mean from this movie or from when you saw Leatherface?
00:12:07
Speaker
from this movie. Like when he gets Kirk. Yeah. Yeah. Like the plain one. Well, because it's like really pale, right? Like it doesn't have the makeup on it and stuff. So I think I kind of could understand what you're saying. I didn't really think about it, but like I'm picturing it in my head though. And it's just like a very pale face with like a tuft of hair. Right. Yeah.
00:12:29
Speaker
but going off of what you were saying about him protecting his house i do think that and i think this is also what makes it different from like other slasher movies is when you see any of the other slashers they're like standing there like posturing they're usually like standing really big and like breathing hard and like being very intense and when we see leatherface outside of while he's actively killing someone he just looks like flustered is all hell he's like just frantically trying to manage whatever the fuck is going on we like see him sitting down by the window and taking a fucking moment and like
00:12:59
Speaker
looking like he's about to have a breakdown, but then kind of regulating and kind of getting his shit together. Yeah, I like that scene a lot. Yeah, he just looks so like exasperated, like he's just like sitting there, like he like has his hands on his face in one minute and he's just like, what the fuck is going on here? Right, I think that was after Pam, I almost called her Beth again. But Pam like tries to leave the house and he
00:13:24
Speaker
snatches her, but I think she was already in the house. So he's still like, but that's when he goes to the window. He looks like, Oh man, I not so much like why did I just do but more like, Oh, that was tiring. It's like that was tiring. But also like what the fuck? Why are these people coming in? Like he just looks like, I don't know.
00:13:43
Speaker
Like he looks like, like overwhelmed almost. Like he looks like how I look when I've like been cleaning all day and I've just like spit. Like he looks the way I looked when the cabinet thing fell off my kitchen, my fridge door, and there was like sauce all over the ground and I like thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. He looks like that. Like, you know what I mean?
00:14:03
Speaker
He looks like my day is just going so wrong right now. Like, that's like the way that that scene reads to me. Yeah. We also see a close up of his teeth at that time. I mean, it's not like right on his teeth, but it's a close up of his face. And it seemed like they really wanted us to recognize the teeth. And they're pretty, I mean, they look like pretty obviously like fake teeth to me now, but they're like, he doesn't have as many teeth as one
00:14:31
Speaker
traditionally does, and they're in like a bunch of different arrangements. And I was watching videos about this and I saw that in Leatherface he gets shot in the face, which I assume is like part of his mask wearing.
00:14:50
Speaker
if we assume that that is what actually happened there, but I was wondering if that was part of his teeth stuff too. I think that it was like when they were making the movie that the teeth were just like associated with being poor and rural. Right.
00:15:07
Speaker
right? I think so too. And I think in the You Are Good episode about this, they were also talking about do we think Leatherface has ever left this like immediate vicinity. And I actually don't know if I've seen I haven't seen I'm trying to remember if I've seen Leatherface the movie or not. I feel like I have but I like don't really remember it. I haven't enjoyed most of the rest of the franchise.
00:15:26
Speaker
guys. So I don't know. But I do think that was an interesting question of does he even exist in the world? And like, would he have ever gone to a doctor or a dentist even if they could afford it? Like would he have gone or is he just kind of confined to the house in the way that like somebody who probably has like disabilities would maybe have been confined to their house, like back in the day, especially like somewhere where they probably didn't have access to any services. Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
The end actually surprised me a lot seeing it for the first time. I was not expecting it. And I thought that this was like a good way that they looped things around. And I mean, there's so much stuff about economic
Economic Themes and Family Dynamics
00:16:05
Speaker
differences, especially between rural and city stuff here too. Yeah. It's also like in areas like that specifically, and this is the situation for the Hitchhiker, like people are kind of being like made obsolete by like increased technology and farming.
00:16:23
Speaker
And that was what the situation with the Hitchhiker was, right? He says that he used to be the killer at the slaughterhouse, and he got put out of business basically by the air gun thing. It's hard to tell when did it start to be this way, but it seems like a lot of it has to do with the changing the meat industry and stuff, but it's not clear exactly what the timeline is for everything.
00:16:45
Speaker
I mean, the grandpa seems to have been a big part of starting their life going this way, where he was. I also thought it was really interesting I found out that the grandpa was played by an 18-year-old. They just did it. Isn't that funny? Yeah. They did a really good job. And when we first see the grandpa, we see him in a chair opposite the grandma when Sally first runs in and is like, help me, help me. And I assumed he was dead.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, he looks dead. Right. He looks very similar to the corpses that we see in the beginning that look kind of like lardy on their faces.
00:17:27
Speaker
I think one of my, the things that I appreciate the most about this movie, because we find out that there's been grave robbing, I feel like there were no loose ends. Like everything was covered, which that, I don't know, that even when things are unsettling, that makes me feel more resolved. You're like, Oh, okay. At the end of it, it was just very self contained.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's funny that we're doing this one right after we recorded Smile, because it's just so opposite of that. Like it's a short movie that makes perfect use of its time. Everything is very clean and like straightforward. I mean, it's not clean, but you know what I mean by that.
00:18:04
Speaker
it just does what it's trying to do and it does it right and it makes sure that like everything makes sense and lands together well and it's just it's almost it's like a nearly perfect movie i don't even know if gun to my head like what would i change to make this movie better like i don't know that there is anything
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, especially knowing their budget was like in today's money was around $800,000. It was $140,000 at the time. But that's not much. And like you were saying, there's not much blood. A lot of that was because they were budgeting for it. Right. Well, and that's a big contrast from Smile to when I was like when we were talking about how the one scene kind of went on too long and was like too graphic. I think what this movie does really well is recognize that like
00:18:48
Speaker
if we make this on screen, it's not going to work that well. But if we let people just picture it and like see how people are reacting, like the meat hook scene, right, you know, and you just see her face, you don't really see anything, right? You see her face as she gets like lowered onto this meat hook. And her like face acting and her scream
00:19:09
Speaker
is so good. It's so good. It makes you feel you have just like seen the most visceral, terrible thing and you didn't see anything really. Yeah, I was surprised when she was still alive in the freezer, but I think that that is more like how like they're saving her for meat. But
00:19:25
Speaker
So I want to go back to the Hitchhiker things. They pick up the Hitchhiker. One of the girls, I think it's Pam, is like talking. Hold on, I just need to lay out the characters because they're all still mixed up in my head. So there's Pam who loves astrology and is dating Kirk who seems just kind of like a drunk.
00:19:43
Speaker
And then there's Sally, who's Franklin's sister, and her nipples are hard the entire movie. And then there's Jerry, which was like the most sexualized thing about the movie.
00:19:57
Speaker
was Sally's nipples. They like, don't really. And I don't even and I don't I hesitate to call that sexualized because like, okay, like it's a nipple. I don't know the way that they were showing it felt very sexualized to me. I mean, they also were shooting somebody was like point the camera directly at Pam's butt.
00:20:16
Speaker
and her tiny shorts. There were, like, there was some sexualized stuff about their clothes, but the way it began, it seemed like it was going to evolve into being much more sexualized and, like, sexual violence stuff I was expecting, and there just wasn't any of that. Yeah, there's nothing sexy about what this family is doing. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing sexy about any of it. It's just, like, straight up, like, we need your bitch. Yeah. And they, uh, oh yeah, and then, so Sally's boyfriend, Jerry,
00:20:45
Speaker
and then Franklin. I've placed them all in the van now. I see them in my head. Yes, I can. And then, so they pick up this hitchhiker, which like, I feel like there was a lot more hitchhiking at that time, but then like people started actually getting murdered from hitchhikers and weird stuff like that. So then
00:21:09
Speaker
It became like, I don't know if it was illegal at that point, but hitchhiking is illegal in most states now, I think. No, it's not. I think maybe my mom told me that to keep me from hitchhiking, but it's legal in most states. There's only a few that it's not. But so they pick up this man. He's like,
00:21:27
Speaker
tall, lanky, he has like this weird fur purse thing with him that just looks like a bunch of animals like sewn together, kind of. That's like our first body parts thing. Well, I guess we see the corpses, but that's like, yeah. This is more artistic. I think the corpses were meant to be artistic too. They kind of say that, but people will turn anything into art, I guess.
00:21:56
Speaker
um if with limited resources and so it's like one of the first things i noticed was like he had a very large birthmark on his face it seemed like he and franklin kind of like immediately bonded at first and they were like sort of getting along and i thought that they had like a sweet connection at first and they start having like a really weird conversation though which i think franklin had brought up before the hitchhiker was even there where
00:22:24
Speaker
whether it's more humane to sledgehammer cows to death, which like I didn't know that that was a thing ever and it's like really horrifying and also makes sense. Yeah. And then now they're using like an air gun thing. And the hitchhiker, I don't know if we ever learn his name, but he ends up being the older brother of Leatherface and he invites them back to dinner, which is
00:22:54
Speaker
I don't know, it seems weird. He's like, they're talking about hedges, which I had never heard of before and sounds really gross. And he takes out from his little fur purse. He's like, oh yeah, I've got pictures of dead animals. Do you want to see them? We're talking about dead cows. It seems like he does want to have some kind of social connection and just doesn't know anything to talk about except for killing animals and showing how good his family was at it.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah. And something interesting that happens that I guess this would be like maybe, or I don't know, this might be, we might have to come back to this because this is like a big conversation. But while they're talking about all of this, like Sally at one point says, I like meat, let's change the subject. I wrote that line down too. Because some one person is talking about like, oh, meat is gross. And then she's like, I like meat. But she's like, I don't want to hear about
00:23:48
Speaker
like the visceral element of it. Right. I don't want to think about how it gets there. Right. And I think that that's like one of the kind of key things of the movie is like, be especially given like, right, they like this is a family that's like worked at the slaughterhouses forever, this specific hitchhiker, right, like lost his job because of the way things have changed. And it's like,
00:24:10
Speaker
the increasing like depersonalization of farming and like the meat industry. Because, you know, initially, and like this is going way back, obviously, a farm is like one guy and like maybe some like farm hands. And like he knows his animals on a personal level, he is doing all of the things himself, right? He's doing the slaughtering, but he's also doing the birth, the rearing of the animals, right? Like raising them taking care of like he's seeing it through from start to finish.
00:24:36
Speaker
And then obviously one thing changes at a time into this domino effect to factory farming where there's no personalization to it. And I think that lets everyone do what Sally does here and say, I don't want to think about this. I don't want to think about the fact that my meat is meat. I've definitely heard
00:24:59
Speaker
more than a handful of people say that watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre is part of what made them become vegetarians. Toby Hooper stopped eating meat while they were making this movie. I don't know if he, like, stopped with it, but while they were making the movie, he stopped eating meat. Yeah. Interesting. I didn't know that.
00:25:16
Speaker
And that's the director. Yeah. Um, I also didn't know that he, and like most of the people were involved in making the film were under 25. And I think they did a really good job. They did. They did an amazing job. I mean, they did an amazing job. Yeah. I forget what triggers the, what triggers the hitchhiker to like lash out and then they kick him out of the van. Um, cause they had been having like a pretty good time.
00:25:44
Speaker
And then I know he ends up cutting himself and cutting Franklin, but I thought that that was after something else happened. He takes a picture of Franklin, and then Franklin's like, oh, it didn't turn out very good. And he goes, it's a good picture. That's $2. You can pay me now. Oh, yeah. And Franklin's like, what? I didn't do that. I didn't agree to that deal, sir. And so he says no. And then obviously, and I think that's when he cuts
00:26:10
Speaker
when the Hitchhiker cuts Franklin. Okay, yeah. And Franklin seems to have lost his knife at this point also, because later he's looking for it. Or I think Sally got it back, but then she doesn't know where it is.
00:26:25
Speaker
Um, but the hitchhiker leaves and like smears blood on their van. And I, I kind of thought of that as like, um, marking, like they, that was when like, okay, like you guys are going to die now. Yeah. And Franklin is the only one who seems to think that that like matters.
00:26:41
Speaker
when they get out of the car he's the only one who's like like right that guy like that guy like marked our van like is this okay i also think it's really interesting like the i think i texted you when i was watching this and they like go to the gas station i mean like first of all gas station without gas is a little weird but i mean the they seem to just be struggling but like the guy's like oh yeah don't go there you should stay here
00:27:09
Speaker
And I was thinking at the time like, oh yeah, they should stay there. They'll be safe if they're there. But then like finding out at the end of the movie that like they wouldn't have even been safe if they stayed there. Well, and I think that that's why, that's why like, okay, obviously this is like a movie, but like that's why in a roundabout way I feel bad for Leatherface because like this I think is not Leatherface's job.
00:27:32
Speaker
Like, I think his job is like the butchering and the cooking and like the house stuff, you know? And I think it's everybody else's job to kill these people. And so I think like, that's why Leatherface looks so like exasperated and like so flustered and like panicked by the whole situation because he's like, this isn't my part.
00:27:50
Speaker
like these people are supposed to be taken care of at the gas station and then they bring them to me and I deal with them like I don't know I'm not sure but like that's kind of how I read it of like he stays at the house nobody else is at the house with him while this is happening because they're out in theory facilitating this plan
00:28:08
Speaker
Maybe. It's never really confirmed, you know what I mean? You never really find out how they expected it to go, but it seems like this is not how they expected it to go. I guess the space that he's in, that Leatherface is in, does look like a butchering area and maybe he doesn't get, but he definitely seems
00:28:28
Speaker
I had assumed that he was regularly taking part in killing, but maybe it's, I mean, I think this is like kind of the comparison with killing animals again too. Like if, like the butcher, maybe the animal's not dead yet, but they're unconscious and like, I think maybe that's what happens with the humans. Because the guy at the gas station is very much like,
00:28:49
Speaker
This isn't my job. I don't kill people. I, I just cook them and sell them. And like, that's, which I think is like a lot of people like who work at grocery stores where we're like, or like a deli, they're like, Oh, well, I'm not the one who's killing the animals. It's easier to like separate from that.
Moral Reflections on Meat Consumption and Alternatives
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, then if you are like actually personally involved in that part. Yeah, and I think like how we think of humans as being different from animals and being I think like for a long time in history humans thought of like other humans as having souls and animals as not having souls.
00:29:27
Speaker
or something like that. Well, and humans have not always considered all other humans to even be human. Right. That's also relevant, right? Like, yeah, for a long time, like, you know, white people would think of everybody else as like, not really being fully human. Yeah, as well. So there's always been this, like, desire for hierarchy that exists in a way that is gross. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I eat meat.
00:29:52
Speaker
Both my parents were vegetarians when I was born and little and then my dad became a pascatarian and my mom just started eating meat. And I have tried being a vegetarian and vegan at various points in my life, but I've had a really hard time doing it without becoming severely anemic. But I've always had like, I mean, I have like a lot of weird
00:30:16
Speaker
food stuff and texture stuff and I've always had like weird texture stuff with meat where like sometimes I'm just like no don't want that it feels too meaty and
00:30:29
Speaker
And I also went to a dairy farm on vacation for like most summers of my childhood. And I would feed the baby cows and they kept all of the female cows for dairy, but the male cows would usually go to somewhere to be turned into meat. And like every time I went there, I would be like, I can't eat a hamburger.
00:30:57
Speaker
I would develop really personal relationships with the cows, and I would think I don't want to eat that cow specifically, so I would not eat beef for however long afterwards, but it still felt disconnected to me between eating another cow and that cow.
00:31:21
Speaker
Now it's more, I don't know, a lot of it is texture stuff, but I also like don't want to eat animals, really. And I've kind of, I've been mostly not eating meat at home and then eating meat when I go out. But it is a weird thing and I think like the more that I find
00:31:42
Speaker
ways to replace meat and like I mean meat replacements now are like there's just so many more options than there were like in the 70s or even like when I was a kid. I know you've been like thinking about how you consume meat also. Yeah I um yeah so I also eat meat I
00:32:06
Speaker
Um, I have a lot of weird food things. I don't, I don't need to, whatever. I have a lot of weird food things. Um, but I have been thinking about, um, like my meat consumption for a long time when I was really young, like I think, I think I must have been like 12 or so. I tried to be vegetarian and my pediatrician was like, nope, like we're not doing this. You don't eat enough of anything for this to, I basically just want to eat bread, like, which doesn't,
00:32:34
Speaker
which is like not like that's not good for anybody so like that's you know whatever um and i was just like not able to like eat other things and so not that bread's not good but it needs to be part of this yeah you can't eat one you can't eat one food forever like as much as i would personally love to like you can't um and so i i stopped obviously being a vegetarian because that was like not going to be conducive to me living
00:33:01
Speaker
and growing as a child. But yeah, I'm wanting, and Katie and I have talked about this, I'm wanting to try some different meat replacements and different protein options and figure out
00:33:17
Speaker
to at least start trying to cut back. I think that this is something that's always, I think about a lot and I try not to have, as much as this hurts my heart and brain a little bit, I try not to ignore the fact that my meat is meat. I try to think about it a little bit while I'm eating, which I think is weird, and I think people think I'm weird for doing that when I bring this up, because obviously it doesn't feel that good, but I also don't think that it's fair for me to
00:33:47
Speaker
not think about it. I think that the way that our society kind of runs really emphasizes that separation. And I don't think that's healthy, even though cognitive dissonance doesn't always feel good. I think it's kind of important that I feel that a little bit. Also, because I would like to try to do my best to cut down at the very least, I would love to stop eating meat. I don't know if that's in the cards for me, but I do want to
00:34:15
Speaker
really reduce it. And so I'm just trying to be thinking about that. But I also, so this has been in my brain for a long time. And then several months ago, I read Tender is the Flesh, that book, which I think everybody should have to read. Like, frankly, I think everybody who eats meat should have to read that book. And I say that as someone who eats meat. And it kind of like flooded me a little bit.
00:34:38
Speaker
Um, about like this topic. And so I have been thinking about it. What is that book about? I mean, I could assume based on what you're talking about, but like, can you summarize it a little? Yeah. So that book is essentially about a world like seemingly not too far into the future where animals have been wiped out by some like infectious disease or whatever. And you can't, they can't like get meat from animals anymore. And so they start to like need to get meat from people.
00:35:08
Speaker
And so there are like factory farms full of human beings. And the main character is like an overseer at one of these like factory farms and is gifted as like kind of a bonus at work, a person. Oh my God. To like raise and eventually slaughter.
00:35:25
Speaker
And I won't like get into the whole story in case like whatever, like spoilers and whatnot. But like, that's the premise of it. And it like plays out in ways that are all over the place emotionally and the ways that I think are feel real on some level, even though like the scenario was not exactly real. But it was it was a hard book to read. Yeah. It was a hard book. Yeah, it was a hard book to read.
00:35:47
Speaker
And because this is something that's always been floating around in my head, I felt like really flooded by it. And I was talking to somebody that I know who is vegan a little bit about the book, who has also read the book and just kind of like my reflections on it and stuff. But I think that should be like required reading because I just don't think we should be allowed to like pretend that meat isn't meat if we're going to eat it. And I think like that's part of the decision. It's like informed consent, right? Is like really thinking about like,
00:36:15
Speaker
Am I okay with this process? How can I divest from it in the ways that, like, feel doable to me? When I think of chickens, it's hard for me to think of, like, I don't think of a chicken the way that I think of my dog, but I would never eat dog. And I think, especially in the U.S., a lot of people who eat meat think that way about the way that different animals are different. And those people have obviously never seen a cow in person. I'm just gonna say that, like,
00:36:40
Speaker
You can't see a cow and not be amazed by how cute they are and how sweet they are. They're so precious. I just want to say that. Yeah, I mean cows are much more like dogs to me than chickens are. I know people who love their chickens, who have pet chickens that they're very affectionate with. I don't feel affection towards chickens, but I still don't want to
00:37:09
Speaker
I don't really want to be responsible for the death of any other living thing and I know that I currently am. I also feel like when I think about humans eating humans I think it's interesting that we we kind of talked about not on here but like just personally we've talked about the Andes Mountain crash and like those people who had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive and like the
00:37:38
Speaker
What's the show? I can't think of the name yellow jackets. Um, and I think like the yellow jacket situation is like a lot harsher, but, but I definitely feel differently about cannibalism to survive. And there's, yeah, there's just like something here with like, I mean, that's kind of the thing with animal meat consumption also is like when it's for survival, which a lot of times it is.
00:38:06
Speaker
But I definitely don't think that we should be factory farming and the way that animals have become industrialized is really sickening. Yeah, I'm undecided if I actually think it's wrong to eat meat or if I just think that it's wrong to eat meat in the system that we currently have. I honestly am not... I'm always trying to figure out where I land on that and I honestly don't know.
00:38:28
Speaker
Um, there is another movie that I've seen that like talks about this too, that talks about it. I mean, I don't think it's as good of a movie as this, but it's just more explicit, called The Farm, where it's like people kidnapped and taken onto a farm, and it's like exactly what you would expect. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that it's like a great movie, but I think it is a movie that like makes you go, huh, okay, like some stuff to turn over in the noggin there.
00:38:54
Speaker
I've always kind of felt like, and I know like when I became vegetarian before I was saying like, I feel like if I couldn't personally kill an animal, that I shouldn't eat meat. And I don't think I personally could kill an animal. But that also isn't the way that societies have run even like before factory farming, like there would usually be one person who is responsible for that part.
00:39:18
Speaker
That's something that they kind of do in Yellow Jackets too, where it's like one person's role to do that and the rest of the people are doing other things. But I don't know. I feel conflicted about it also, but I definitely do feel like I have some cognitive dissonance in my meat eating and that I would have trouble eating it if it was more confronting.
00:39:43
Speaker
But I do do the thing that you're talking about, like where as I'm eating it, I'll be thinking about that it's an animal, but my brain's still like, it can't fully accept it or think about it really. Um, but I, I love a lot of meat alternatives and like some of my favorite foods are those things I imagine it's like a lot more difficult to stop if that's, if it's not already easy for you.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I think one of my things and I have this issue because of not just with meats with meat substitutions, but anything where I'm trying to kind of diversify my food intake is that like I have met many times in life wasted a lot of money and wasted a lot of food trying to like something and like I can't eat it. Like if I don't like it, I literally cannot get my body to like get it down. Like I'll just be doing that thing where you're chewing and chewing and chewing and you can't swallow, which is even worse because I don't like the food that's in my mouth.
00:40:39
Speaker
I feel that way also. Yeah, so I need like, and we've talked about this actually, like I need the kind of support of some other people to put me in situations where I can like taste it.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely want to make you tofu in a bunch of different ways and see what you... I just don't believe that you could entirely not like tofu. I know that that's been your experience so far. I'm not saying I don't believe your experience, but I feel like there is a kind. I agree with you. The only hesitation I have is that the first time I saw something that was made with tofu that I thought I might like, I said to you and you were like, that looks terrible.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, I forget exactly what it was, but I was like, wait, what? I love tofu, and that is not what I would want to eat. Because I think that you want to eat tofu that tastes like tofu, and I want to eat tofu that tastes like it's not tofu.
00:41:34
Speaker
Like, that's kind of, I think, a fundamental difference because you like tofu. Like, I need it to be like, because even if I like tofu crumbled and seasoned to taste like meat, that's not really liking tofu. That's like being able to eat tofu, which is good enough. But like, you don't like, like, if you need it to taste not like tofu, you don't actually like tofu. You like tofu. Like, actually, it seems like. Yeah. Have you ever had a veggie burger that you liked? Like, if you like did it up all
00:42:02
Speaker
with the seasonings and stuff that you like? I did have a Beyond Burger once. I was very curious, and I took it upon myself to buy and make myself a Beyond Burger. It was fine. I don't need a lot of hamburgers. I think that if I ate hamburgers, I would fully switch to Beyond Burgers. I think I could do that. I mean, I'm sure I would still get something when I was out to eat at this point, because it's hard for me to find things I like sometimes when I'm going out. But yeah, something I want to try
00:42:33
Speaker
In the near future, maybe you can come over for dinner one day. I want to try to make my meat sauce with Beyond Meat and see how that turns out, because that seems like a way that wouldn't be as... That seems like it would feel more subtle because it's not the only thing going on, so I want to try that. Trader Joe's has a vegan bolognese that's actually really good. I make really good sauce. I really make good sauce.
00:43:00
Speaker
I'm making some tomorrow, actually. So I want to try to make it how I like it, but with Beyond Beef, or whatever brand. Beyond is just the one that I've tried. But I want to try to do that with a beef substitute. Yeah. So this is something that I've actually been thinking about is that I'm going to start doing is I'm going to make a list of
00:43:26
Speaker
dishes I would like to try that are either using a meat substitute or just like have protein in it that I would like and start kind of chipping away at that a little bit because I do want to at the very least eat less meat. I would love if like I could reach a point where it felt like actually doable for me to eat no meat. I don't know if that'll happen, but I
00:43:51
Speaker
I think it's kind of like whatever that line from the Talmud is, that's like, you don't have to complete the work, but you can't ignore the work either, or whatever it is. Like, it's like- Yeah, from pure chaos. Yeah, like that's kind of how I view it for myself, at least. I think that if people cannot eat meat, and I think it's a great choice to make, to not
00:44:14
Speaker
Right. And I think it makes a big difference still if people eat less meat. I know a lot of people are kind of black and white on this, and I've been trying to... It would be hard for me to totally eliminate meat, but I've eaten meat three times in the last couple weeks, and I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because that could make a big difference in the way that animals are treated if we don't need... If
00:44:39
Speaker
if we just needed less of them. And I know there are people who, like I said, have a hard line that you shouldn't eat meat no matter what. I don't know if I feel that way. I think it would make a big difference to me if it was a real farm and not a factory farm. I don't know. Like I said, I haven't landed somewhere firmly on that, but I think that would be amazing if we reduced meat enough to just have real farms.
Dietary Practices: Kosher, Veganism, and Personal Adaptations
00:45:05
Speaker
It'd be the main source again.
00:45:08
Speaker
I also have wanted to try to eat kosher at various times, and none of my family have really kept kosher, so it never was something I thought about growing up. But I feel like the way that animals are slaughtered is much more thoughtful, and the whole point of it is being thoughtful with your food, and especially meat consumption.
00:45:34
Speaker
that as a practice, but it's also something I've struggled to actually. Yeah. And it seems like one of the easiest ways to be vegan is to, one of the easiest ways to keep kosher is to be vegan, actually. Like from people that I know, like from Jewish vegans I know who have said like, I don't even really have to think that hard about keeping kosher because I'm a vegan. And so I'm not eating dairy and I'm not eating meat. So like, I, there's a lot less to parse through. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
00:46:02
Speaker
I already eat pretty limited dairy because I'm less than a dollar in, but I still have like, um, I was persuaded by a dietician to try to eat more dairy while taking lactose, uh, or lactate, but it makes it like twice as expensive every time I want to eat any dairy. So I just don't, and even with lactate, I could never do milk. My body just wouldn't let me, but, um, I do feel differently about
00:46:31
Speaker
dairy. I think it is the small farm versus large farm thing though. The dairy farm that I went to, all of the cows were treated very well and they got lots of time to play and not just be treated badly. One time I just fell asleep in a field with a cow. I was a kid and I was just laying on the cow and the cow was snuggling with me.
00:46:58
Speaker
I, but I've also found like, I don't know, I, my aunt who's vegetarian has like given me all these ideas of supplements and things and I think it might be that I need like the methylated or the not methylated version I don't remember what it is but like
00:47:12
Speaker
Even when I've taken a lot of supplements when I've been vegetarian, I seem to get anemic unless I eat red meat like once a month or every couple months. Yeah. Well, we don't always process things the same way if we get them from supplements, unfortunately. I mean, I think this speaks to one of my favorite things about the horror genre. I think this movie makes me think about this in a way that I really like. It feels challenging and it
00:47:41
Speaker
And I like that this is a topic that is being explored more, I think, in media now. I think we've gotten some more movies that make you think about the ethics of eating meat and
00:47:55
Speaker
Is it really different? Are animals really that different from people? I think that this is worth digging into. And I think it's an issue. The more that we have overpopulation, it's just so hard to feed people. And we're thinking more and more about how do we feed everyone.
00:48:14
Speaker
I realized from my notes after talking about this, especially when they pick up the hitchhiker at first, one of the people says, I think we just picked up Dracula. And I don't know what makes them think that, but it is interesting thinking of the human consumption that happens later. Yeah. Which is kind of funny because I often don't think of vampires as cannibals, which they, I guess, are. So I don't know why I think we don't think about it that way. Yeah.
00:48:41
Speaker
Even if they're not cannibals in the way that it's not exactly the same creature eating itself, it is still something eating humans. Well, it's predation. Right. Yeah. I also think it's interesting that he tries to sell him the photo and then after he doesn't want it, he blows it up. He takes out tinfoil and gunpowder and lights it.
00:49:05
Speaker
wraps it up and he's doing this like maniacal giggle. That actor was like so good at the creepy giggle, but I still at the time, I was like, this guy's a weirdo, but I didn't actually think he was super dangerous. He was like scary, but I was like, I was pretty surprised when he comes back up later and they're like, I think it's like when they're trying to run away or something. I don't know what's happening.
00:49:33
Speaker
But they, oh right, we see him later when everyone else has been killed. There's first, first we see Kirk.
00:49:44
Speaker
getting killed when he goes into the house and he's not supposed to, then Pam follows him. And then Jerry, like, by the time Jerry died, I was like, are you fucking serious guys? Because he like also he's looking for his friends. So I guess like, and I guess there's like some noises like Leatherface is making like pig squealing noises at first, and then he's like, doing like weird little giggles. And so I think he's like, thinking maybe it's Pam. And I think he sees one of their sweatshirts like on the balcony.
00:50:14
Speaker
Um, so he goes in also, but it just seemed like such a bad choice. And especially I'm glad at least that they didn't have the keys Sally and Franklin. Cause like Sally was like, Franklin was like, we should go into town and like get help. And Sally was like.
00:50:36
Speaker
No, we can't. We have to just go look for Jerry. And then they had kind of been convinced to go into town, but then they didn't have the keys. And I think it would have bothered me if they did have the keys and didn't go into town.
00:50:51
Speaker
Yeah, it becomes a little more believable of a decision when they didn't have the keys. Yeah. And then they're just like, this is another thing that I'm like, wow, if they had cell phones, this would be so much easier. One for calling, but also for having a flashlight. Like I just have a flashlight with me all of the time and it's something that I take for granted now. Totally. And like also the fact that they're like going through the woods and she's pushing his wheelchair.
Challenges of Mobility and Survival in Difficult Situations
00:51:18
Speaker
It's so fucking hard to move a manual wheelchair over dirt, especially with twigs and stuff. Yeah, I remember my cousin and I took my grandmother to Pride in San Diego several years ago. And this was before she had her knee replacement. And so we were pushing her in the wheelchair. And when we were on the pavement, it was not easy, but it was fine. But when we tried to go into any of the music areas,
00:51:47
Speaker
It was rough. It's hard. My strong muscular man pushes me. I can't.
00:51:58
Speaker
do it to myself, but I hate being at a manual wheelchair because I have to rely on other people to move me most of the time. And actually at Pride, um, like five years ago I was at Pride in my manual chair and I had the brakes on, but I still ended up getting pushed into the road. It's just like, I don't think they even had power chairs in the 70s. I'm not sure when they started happening, but it is like, it's a very different experience being in a manual chair versus a power chair.
00:52:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you have more, you have so much more autonomy if you're in a power chair and they can go over a different terrain, I think like a little more easily. For sure. But I did still get stuck when I first got my power chair. I wasn't used to using it. I went to the zoo and I got stuck in like a little mulch ditch that like the ones where they have like trees and stuff, like off the side of the, I was trying to get out of the way and I was like, well, I'm stuck now. But I still got out pretty easily.
00:52:54
Speaker
Um, oh yeah. And so when he smears the blood on the van, Franklin says, um, it looks like he was trying to write something. And, uh, one of the other guys says, Franklin, you're crazier than he was. Which that line just stuck out to me. It was like, okay. Um.
00:53:17
Speaker
And there's just like a lot of random, even like all the random little lines. I was like, this is, I just like, yeah, I just like this movie. They did a good job. So they like go in the house and it's like, I mean, it seems like nobody's been in this house in like 20 years. It's Sally and Franklin's grandparents' house that's down the road from Leatherface.
00:53:39
Speaker
but I mean it definitely seems like his grandparents don't live there and haven't for a while. I guess they know that they went to the town because they're at least their grandpa. I don't know about the grandma but the grandpa was buried in the cemetery where we hear in the first news story that there's been grave robberies so they're like going to make sure it's okay.
00:54:03
Speaker
It's not totally clear to me how far this town is from where they live, but it seems like it's far enough that they don't want to drive back in the same day. But it seems like their plan was to go stay at that house that night, and there's no furniture. It's really run down. A lot of the windows are broken. I wondered if they had thought the house looked different than it did because they hadn't been there in a while.
00:54:31
Speaker
what's going on with that. But I think that also speaks to people going into the city and just kind of abandoning and forgetting.
00:54:39
Speaker
this rural life that maybe their family came from, which is interesting also because it's like the, like this is around the same timeline when we were talking about the original Stepford Wives where people were leaving the city, like white flight stuff. But I think there is a big difference between rural areas and suburban areas, and suburban areas were kind of birthed from more urban people wanting to be in like
00:55:06
Speaker
a semi-urban area. Right, right. I think it went from rural to urban to suburban.
00:55:17
Speaker
Oh yeah, and then, so when Kirk and Pam are like going to the watering hole, they're, they're kind of talking about how inaccessible the landscape is for Franklin, like how he could have gotten down there. Um, but Kirk says, I, we should just shoot him and put us out of our misery. And I had listened to that like three times cause I like wasn't sure who he was talking about, but I, I think he was talking about Franklin and that's like,
00:55:46
Speaker
I don't know, that's just terrific. And he says it is like a really throwaway line. Yeah, that's very aggressive. And then like pretty soon after that, they they never really find the watering hole. They I guess they hear the generator and that they get distracted and go up there.
00:56:03
Speaker
Um, and then they, they all die like so fast. It was like the movie was moving along at like a fine pace, but was like nothing big had really happened yet. And then like all of a sudden they're all dead. And then it's nighttime. Franklin is actually the only one who ends up getting killed by a chainsaw, I think. Yeah. Not a lot of chainsawing happens pre-mortem, it seems like.
00:56:33
Speaker
Yeah. And so then Sally runs away because she couldn't have done anything really. But I do feel really bad that Franklin says like, there's something in front of me or like something like that. And then they just can't see it until it's too late.
00:56:54
Speaker
Um, and then Sally runs. I was so impressed that she made it all the way back to the gas station. I was like, damn, she's a good runner. How did this happen? Um, and then she's not even safe there. And that hurt my heart. Yeah. But that guy is like the weirdest for some reason that guy bothers me the most, even though like he, he seems to have like the most moral compass, maybe not a moral compass, but like.
00:57:25
Speaker
He seems to know that what he's doing is wrong and like doesn't want to be involved in it to the same degree that his brothers are. I thought he was the dad at first, but I've heard that he's a brother. I don't know. It's kind of unfair. The family tree is kind of like weird and not consistent. Yeah. No. And I think it's also just like, it seems to me like he also just knows that he can pass for normal better than everybody else in the family can. And like somebody has to.
00:57:55
Speaker
Because somebody has to be like the public facing piece of the family I hate that like she was hyperventilating and saying called the cops and he's out there and stuff and the guy was like No, no, everything is fine. Just like
00:58:10
Speaker
he seems like he's like genuinely trying to console her at first and then he just like ties her up and she grabs a knife and he like knocks it out of her hand with a broom and then it's just kind of like hitting her with the broom repeatedly and takes her into the van or a car truck and that's when they run into the hitchhiking guy again and he says something like, I told you to stop that grave robbing, bringing it around to the beginning.
00:58:39
Speaker
What did you think about the dinner scene? Well, so first when they were at the gas station, they're like showing the meat barbecuing, which they had eaten earlier. And it wasn't clear to me, like it didn't look obviously human or anything. It just looked weird. And then at the dinner scene, it was like much more obvious that they were eating human meat, I think. And it was kind of surprising to me that they like,
00:59:09
Speaker
sad her at the table even though she's like tied up and stuff like that part did make me think like these people just like want other human connection and like they had been genuine with saying come to dinner but they still like don't know how to actually it's weird to me because like they they're like humanizing her before killing right which is really an interesting choice um the dinner scene yeah they spent
00:59:38
Speaker
I don't know. There's a documentary about the making of this movie called... Wait, what is it called? I had it pulled up. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a family portrait. And one of the things that they talk about in that and in a lot of media that discusses the making of this movie is that the dinner scene was filmed over 25 hours, 26 hours, over a whole day straight.
01:00:07
Speaker
And in the heat, and like they're all wearing old ass clothes, dirty clothes, with all this like shit around. Yeah, it was like over 100 degrees and they weren't allowed to change for like their, especially Leatherface was wearing the same shirt for four weeks. Running around with a real chainsaw. So like lugging around this happy ass thing waving it around like it just the smells and this like just the overwhelm and the grime of it all must have been
01:00:34
Speaker
a nightmare. Like truly just awful. He almost died from using the real chainsaw too because it like flew out of his hands. Yeah, kind of crazy. Kind of crazy to think that he was running around with the real chainsaw.
01:00:49
Speaker
But the sound is so good. Yeah, I have. So, okay. So one of the questions that I had that I don't know my answer to for sure is like, do you think that this family explicitly wants to eat people or do you think that it's like all the same to them? Like, do you think that it's just like, Oh, whatever we have today is like what we're having, or do you think they like want to eat people explicitly, like more than other meat?
01:01:16
Speaker
I think it's all the same to them in terms of eating it, but I think that they do seem to take specific joy in killing people and like they have art made out of people. They have some art that's animal bones, but there's much more of it that's people and like the grave robbing speaks to a specific interest in human death. Yeah, but the grave robbing seems like an anomaly that the rest of the family is like not down for.
01:01:45
Speaker
I guess, but I kind of thought that some of their art that is bones and stuff was from that and not just like thing. I think it's just that one guy who's like stop grave robbing and it seemed more like you're gonna bring attention to us than like I don't like this morally. That makes sense.
01:02:07
Speaker
Um, cause he was like, the cops are like looking into this. Um, and it was like on the, like every time we heard the radio, they were talking about the grave robins and like how they were trying to find out who did it. Yeah. That's a good point. When they have the grandpa, they're like, grandpa should kill her. He's great at killing. I was like, okay. So you guys are just like, not really aware of.
01:02:33
Speaker
what's happening here. They seem like, they're like, oh, for old time's sake, but they like don't even have her tied up at that point. They seem, that is one of the scenes that makes me think like, okay, they just like really take joy in this. And they're like, it's like,
01:02:51
Speaker
they want to give him this like nice thing and the thing that they think of is like killing her but she gets away because he's not physically capable of it anymore and they seem kind of unaware of that. They also like cut her finger in the beginning and um and he like suckles it the old man and that seems to like
01:03:16
Speaker
he wasn't really moving before that and that brings him back to life, which kind of also made me connect to the thing where they say Dracula. What did you think of that scene? The family dinner going into the trying to kill her?
01:03:33
Speaker
you just feel how uncomfortable that is. Like the actual discomfort that the actors must have been feeling while they were filming it. But I think it's so good. It's just the perfect end to the movie somehow of
01:03:50
Speaker
they're like building it's like it's almost like miniature world building right of just like what is like what is with this family right like it just gives you like another kind of like window into like window into whatever is going on um so i i really like it but i also i something else that i wanted to talk about from that scene is also just like
01:04:11
Speaker
leather vases like mom persona, like wife and mother persona, when he has his lady face on.
Gender Roles and Horror Elements in Daylight
01:04:20
Speaker
And he is kind of the one who is, like he seems to be taking... And he's wearing an apron. He's wearing an apron, yeah. He like is put into this role of seeming to be the one to like maintain everything.
01:04:33
Speaker
in the house and like he's like the only quote unquote like woman in the family which i just think is so interesting and it's like interesting that he has his like different faces for different occasions and his different positions like he has his butcher face and then he has his like mom face
01:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's a third face too. I don't know when it comes up, but I know that I saw a picture of all three of them. Yeah, I just think that's so, it's just interesting and it's like interesting how the one has like the makeup on it and stuff. Like it's like very explicitly like a woman's, like a woman face. It's hard for me to look at that by itself without thinking of things that I know from Leatherface, like the movie Leatherface.
01:05:14
Speaker
Um, but I think he does have, he had like a very tortured relationship with his own mom and is probably trying to recreate something there. But, but it is kind of like weird to me also that I guess that's just like maybe the only thing he knows, but that he's like, okay, now I'm doing the, the woman's work got to put on my woman face. And like who taught him to do that?
01:05:41
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like was that something that like he came about on his own or was that something that was like instructed to him? How does he feel in his different faces? Like I just have so many questions I would like to ask him if I could get an interview with Leatherface. It was also really interesting seeing him like chasing her and she's like wearing cowboy boots. It was like, I don't know, there was like a lot of country western elements, but I think I
01:06:11
Speaker
I guess there's the farm animal, farm animal slaughter element. I do kind of associate with cowboy boots, but I don't think of like, I don't know, maybe it's part of like dissecting the fun southern gentleman things. Very Texas.
01:06:29
Speaker
I don't think I found it that scary though. The scariest scene were the scariest, even though the other three died and Sally seems to have lived at the end, I think Sally had the scariest experience. And I feel the worst for Sally, even though she
01:06:52
Speaker
seemingly made it out of their life. I mean, you know me, I always feel worse for people who live than people who die. I just think that speaks to my own.
01:07:01
Speaker
mental state and like my own kind of like stuff. No, you know what I mean? Like that speaks to my own thing of like, I would never want to live through something like that. Like make me the person who dies the fastest. But yeah, but no, I would agree with that. But I think I feel very lucky because I did get to see this in a movie theater. And it is a whole other thing to see this movie in a movie theater because I think that
01:07:28
Speaker
this movie is not like scary in like the traditional sense it is just an absolute onslaught of like stuff and like input and like gross stuff and loud stuff and just a lot of stuff you know what i mean and it was just so overwhelming in like the best way to see it in a movie theater like the sound is so good and like loud and like like jarring and it's just
01:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, if you ever get a chance to see it in the theater, go. Because it is definitely something to see.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, there seems to be, I think probably actually some of Leatherface wanting to put on his female face. I think especially in the dinner scene is maybe trying to make her more comfortable, but it seems like there's very little love between these three people. Like they are working, and I guess the grandpa do forth, but all of these men, they seem like they're
01:08:30
Speaker
bound together in the way that they've kind of agreed to help keep each other alive as family, but they don't feel like affectionate or, I mean, they're demeaning to each other a lot, except for that they all seem to kind of respect the grandpa. Yeah, it seems definitely more about family loyalty than family love. Yeah.
01:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, during the scene where Sally first gets to the gas station and he's like tiring her up, I think like from so many other things I was seeing, I was just assuming that it was going to be sexual assault-y or like kind of sexually devious in an unpleasant way. And it wasn't at all. I think that they
01:09:18
Speaker
are all kind of missing a mother figure and it sort of seemed like they were just going to keep her when she was at the dinner. It wasn't like totally clear that they were going to try to kill her. And then I was surprised. I think anytime that it's daytime and vile things are happening, it kind of surprises me even though like of course it could happen at any time of day. It reminds me of how
01:09:47
Speaker
I remember my mom, when I was a teenager, she would always be like, you can hang out with boys however much you want during the day, but not once it's dark. And I was like, do you think that I can only do bad things at night?
01:10:03
Speaker
But not that it's bad, but things that she didn't want me to do. But I do kind of feel that way in horror movies, where it's a major contrast from what I'm expecting anytime it's daytime. And it also sort of adds this other sinister layer. And I think also,
01:10:29
Speaker
It does seem like Leatherface doesn't really know what he's doing is wrong. He's just been taught to do it because I would think like most people, like if you're a serial killer and you're like chasing somebody, if like once the truck shows up or somebody, you would probably either like hide or try to act normal. And like, he's just still chasing them with the chainsaw. Well, I think going back to what you were saying about like the like daylight,
01:10:58
Speaker
stuff happening in the daylight. I think that it kind of makes everything so much more effective to me because it's like there's no safety. You can't seek the light and feel safe from it because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's two in the morning or two in the afternoon. These people will kill you and eat your body. You know what I mean? It just doesn't matter. And I think that is a scary thing to think about because I think a lot of horror movies
01:11:25
Speaker
it feels a bit like you just have to survive the night and then you can figure it out. And like, that's just not true. Yeah. And the actress who plays Sally said that she like wasn't even acting at the end because she was just like, so hot and so tired and was just relieved to be at the end when they're driving away. She was just like, Yes, I believe it. I believe it. I think this was probably absolutely like a grueling experience. Yeah.
01:11:53
Speaker
but I'm grateful that they have that grueling experience because I just think this is a great movie. I really
Production Challenges and Film Impact
01:11:58
Speaker
do. I just like, it's just like flawlessly executed probably because they were mildly torturing all of the actors, which I don't love. Yeah, I feel bad that most of the actors made very little money off of this and yet like almost every horror fan I've talked to has said that this is one of their favorite movies.
01:12:21
Speaker
Yeah. I had seen, I saw, I think I talked about this in the Feel the Fear episode.
01:12:26
Speaker
where I saw whatever Texas Chainsaw franchise movie came out in 2007, whatever came out around there. I saw that one, but I was not even watching most of it, but it was terrifying and it seemed, I don't know, I'd have to rewatch it, but it didn't seem like it had as much meat behind it. Wow, that's a funny word.
01:12:53
Speaker
That's a pun. I didn't mean it like that. Pun not intended. But pun very much appreciated. It didn't have like as much substance and was like, it was just like killing and chasing for the sake of those things and like not as much symbolism. Yeah, I think that's like is the challenge with like remaking or like adapting like or like re
01:13:21
Speaker
playing around with old movies and stuff because you are like plucking it right from its context where it may have made sense. And like, you need to know how to either tap back into that time period or make it fit with like the time period of the moment. And I feel like a lot of things are like, well, this movie was super effective. So let's remake it. It's like, well, it was super effective because it was like situated well. Yeah.
01:13:46
Speaker
I do think I'm probably going to watch Leatherface now and from what I watched it seemed good and it seems like they blended it pretty seamlessly with what we know from the original film. I would watch that documentary also. I think you would find it interesting.
01:14:09
Speaker
All right, thanks for listening to us talk about Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a little sidetrack into vegetarianism. You can find us on Instagram at whathauntsupod, and we are totally open to hearing any thoughts that you guys had about this conversation or about this movie or for any recommendations for what we should talk about next. Thanks for listening. Bye.