Case Study 4: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Micro Features

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre makes very effective use of micro features.

Firstly the use of lighting in the police report is very effective as it is black and white footage there is a lot of creepy low key lighting used typical of horror films particularly once inside the house where the some of the murders where committed.

After the police report the song “Sweet Home Alabama” by “Lynyrd Skynyrd” is used to balance the equilibrium again, another reason it may have been used is to identify the country the film is based in. It is also used as diegetic sound to make it seem like the teens are relaxed and enjoying themselves.

The group of friends are also casually dressed, their clothing offers them little protection and adds to their vulnerability.

One effective camera movement within the opening is when the camera zooms out through the head of the girl that had shot her self it adds a sense of gore to the film and give the feeling of the statement “let the games begin.”

Macro Features

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a horror movie of the slasher genre, it focuses around a psychotic killer who prays on a innocent group of teenagers killing them one by one.

The opening of the film is set on a dusty rural road in Texas, this adds a sense of isolation to the group of teenagers cutting them off from any help from the outside world making them feel weak and powerless.

Most of the horror iconography in the opening is contained within the black and white footage at the start of the film to set up the plot, good examples of iconography in this segment are the skeletal torso pulled out of the river, bags of teeth on a autopsy desk and the films defining prop a chainsaw, the chainsaw is used for a number of reasons firstly the intimidation factor the revving of the chainsaw will cause tension and fear within the character and the viewer and is also a very brutal and over the top way of killing someone adding to the psychotic element of the antagonist.

This film also follows Tordov’s narrative structure after the police file the movie starts of in a sense of equilibrium with a group of teens enjoying them selves riding down the road until they almost run over a girl they pick her up and whilst in the car she becomes very Erratic until she pull a gun out and shoots herself. This unbalances the equilibrium for more to come until its restored.