Editorials
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Turns 45: Looking Back at How the Horror Classic Was Initially Received
It takes years for a movie to earn its status as a classic, cult or otherwise. The Thing, for example, didn’t become a beloved favorite until years after it infamously tanked in theaters. Similarly, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre disgusted and appalled most critics and audiences upon release- though its catchy title and reputation meant a sturdy box office turnout. Nothing about the movie turned out the way the cast and crew thought it would, particularly the film’s reception. Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen wasn’t prepared for the way audiences would receive his performance and how that reception would change and grow in the decades since, nor was he prepared for how it would affect everything up to and including his love life.
After The Texas Chain Saw Massacre began its theatrical run on October 1, 1974, in Texas before spreading across the country, discourse over the film got heated. Johnny Carson lampooned the film in opening monologues of The Tonight Show, The London Times lambasted it among many other trades, multiple countries banned it outright, and some of the cast and crew removed it from their resume in hopes of landing future gigs. It was only when critic Rex Reed raved about the film, declaring it the scariest film he’d ever seen, that the ice began to thaw and the tides began to turn. In the 45 years since its initial release, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has shifted from reviled trash to a celebrated work of art. It’s a heralded classic now, but for years it wasn’t easy being Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen.
If you’ve read Hansen’s novel Chain Saw Confidential, a must read for fans of the movie, then you’re probably familiar with a story near the end where Hansen briefly recalls taking a first date to see his movie. She reacted to the invite warmly, excited about the possibility of dating a star, but the moment she saw Hansen’s Leatherface put his poor victim on a meat hook, well, the night ended with a door shut firmly in his face.
Hansen’s close friend Stephen Harrigan, a University of Texas graduate who went on to become staff writer and editor for Texas Monthly magazine, hilariously recounted his version of events that night for the magazine in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary. The article details how the double date went awry, while also noting that Hansen at least came away with his own fan club that night.
It was for the May 1985 issue of Texas Monthly that Hansen first told of that disastrous first date, in an article penned by Hansen himself. It might’ve been the first date derailed by his turn as Leatherface, but as he put it in the article- penned over a decade after that fateful date- it was hardly the last.
“And, as many others would in later years, she had confused me with the character I had played,” Hansen wrote. “So now when I meet a woman who wants to see the movie with me, I suggest she not see it. It’s just another horror movie, I tell her, the kind I would never go to myself, had I not been in it. I can’t stand horror movies, I say. They scare me. It usually works.”
Tobe Hooper’s seminal film changed horror as we know it, though it’s taken decades to get a relatively clear picture as to how. Even now, there are articles that still proclaim this classic to be one of the goriest ever made, when very little gore actually graces the screen. For Hansen, making the film was hell. So was getting paid on the project. Though he’d have redone it all again in a heartbeat. He wound up moving back to New England not long after, resuming the career that held his heart in the first place; writing. He learned a lot making the film, and grew to be proud of its legacy. Even if creating one of horror’s most iconic characters wound up derailing his love life for a spell after its release.
We often look back at the trajectories of classic films, but sometimes examining how iconic roles affected their actors is just as fascinating. We miss you, Gunnar.
And happy 45th, Leatherface.
The iconic line “If you build it, they will come” may have originally referred to a baseball field, but I’d argue that the record-breaking success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms is proof that the line could also refer to well-crafted movies about ideas that young cinemagoers actually care about.
Yet, despite being based on Parsons’ existing ARG/Webseries, the A24-produced film is more of a standalone tale exploring the personal implications of the titular rooms rather than a traditional examination of the hard sci-fi elements present in the source material.
This less lore-reliant approach was a genius move, as the resulting film ended up being equally accessible to both existing fans and newcomers alike. That’s not to say that Backrooms doesn’t engage with the existing mythology in new and interesting ways, however, as the film heavily expands on the Async Research Institute and the cryptobiology of the rooms themselves. With that in mind, I’m diving a little deeper into these connections in order to help fledgling Backrooms enthusiasts find their way around the yellow labyrinth.
As is to be expected from this kind of article, there are major spoilers ahead, so proceed at your own risk if you’ve yet to see the movie!
Who is Async Research Institute in the Backrooms Movie?
Backrooms. Courtesy of A24.
Of course, if we’re going to discuss the connections between the series and the film, a good place to start would be Async itself. The California-based Foundation plays a brief yet pivotal role in the film as outside observers that only really interfere with the main plot during the final act. While the Foundation is the main focus of the ARG, they’re mostly hinted at in the film.
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Clark runs into several Async-built “anomaly lures” during his exploration of the liminal space (mostly in the form of human-shaped cut-outs accompanied by audio recordings inspired by the 1977 Voyager Golden Record), as well as surveillance cameras and evidence that at least one of their agents has become trapped in the rooms – though we’ll get to this last detail later.
It’s only towards the end of the flick that Foundation agents finally show up in their iconic yellow protection suits and “rescue” Renate Reinsve’s Mary by pulling her back to “reality” through a familiar portal, though it’s heavily implied that they might not be all that concerned with her well-being.
After all, long-time fans are aware that Async has been researching the “Complex” (their official name for the Backrooms phenomenon) since at least the late 1980s, with their Threshold experiments being based on a Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System prototype developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1982. Unfortunately, their experiments have likely resulted in hidden portals appearing more frequently in the outside world, which consequently leads to more people accidentally “no-clipping through reality”. And that’s not even mentioning the occasional earthquake caused by unstable Thresholds!
Where the Backrooms Fits in the Original ARG Timeline
Kane Parsons’ “The Backrooms” horor short
Though the film takes place in 1990, the ARG’s timeline actually begins in 1996, with the original found footage upload and the ensuing research sparked by the video serving as sequels to the A24 production. Not only that, but film’s Still Life monsters (“misremembered” versions of real people who wandered into the rooms) appear to be precursors to the Lifeform from the series.
In the original videos, it’s speculated that the humanoid predator inhabiting the Complex is the result of a novel strain of hay bacillus forming a human-shaped colony, though the addition of the Still Life mythology may very well mean that the mutated hay bacillus itself is a Still Life reproduction of an existing bacteria that somehow fell into the Complex.
The film also offers us an interesting clue into the history of the Foundation when Mark Duplass’ Phil talks about how the company used to work with MRI machines. This seemingly innocuous origin for the secretive organization implies that the Complex itself might be the result of some advanced form of neural imaging – as if the Threshold is somehow opening a portal to the universe’s -or even God’s- subconscious mind.
Who is Naren Warne and Why is He Important to Backrooms Lore?
Async researches in “Backrooms” web series
One of the more direct connections between the film and the series happens to be Avan Jogia’s Naren Warne, an unfortunate Async Institute scientist who shows up in the movie’s found footage prologue. A now-deleted Discord post by Kane Parsons himself suggests that Warne was originally a part of the Missing Persons survey team that discovered a dead body taken over by “mold” (the aforementioned hay bacillus).
At some point during the expedition, Naren appears to have been separated from the rest of the team and wound up wandering alone in the Backrooms. The film opens with the desperate scientist’s VHS footage as he records his attempts to contact his superiors and is ultimately chased down by an unseen Lifeform.
While this prologue mostly serves to establish that the Backrooms contain more than empty hallways, it’s fun to see Parsons include a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the lo-fi source material even when working on such a high-profile production.
Naturally, there are other curious connections to be found here, such as a faithful recreation of the original photo that spawned the Backrooms creepypasta in the first place, as well as audio cues harkening back to the various TikTok musical trends that often accompany liminal horror content.
However, half the fun of engaging with lore-heavy material comes from discussing theories with fellow fans, so I’d like to invite readers to comment below with your own favorite additions to the lore/references to the ARG! Just be sure to watch out for suspicious-looking furniture salesmen – especially if they’re dressed up like a pirate.
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