Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Jayson Kennedy ★★★

  An hour of interview clips of Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface), Edwin Neal (Hitchhiker), Jim Siedow (Old Man), and John Dugan (Grandpa) covering their experiences making The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Beginning with how they got the gigs, any structure is lost to memories at random from the four. While insightful, the Sawyer kin recite anecdotes likely already known by diehards (or anyone versed in the IMDb trivia page).

  Family Portrait isn't without merit, made back when genre stars didn't have cameras cemented to their mugs for every disc release, or hounded for mega-docs requiring several evenings to sit through. Its real attraction are comments from the largely private Siedow who of course is the least featured. Suspiciously the film's on-screen victims aren't featured nor is anyone from behind the camera. Later documentaries, like Shocking Truth (2001), are more comprehensive. Watched via MTI Home Video's DVD.

• 

  Review by single white femalien

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB_otuQHs5I

  a lil midday treat for baby (im baby)!! i loved everyone fondly recalling the nauseating stench of rotting meat and sweat-soaked grimy bodies in the gnarly 115 degree texas heat. i still don't understand why anyone ever complains about cheaply produced talking head film documentaries lol extremely bizarre to me but whatever gotta let this one go, but for me listening to people talk about their work on a literally genre cementing classic film is an invaluable gift especially when you consider like half of the people involved are now gone. i mean john dugan i could probably throw down a pit for normal man stuff marilyn burns should've beat his fucken ass and no u were not a "cult hero in france", but gunnar hansen is always great 💕💕. he shares a story about taking a woman on an unsuccessful date to a screening of TCM lol.

• 

  Review by Jacob Knight ★★

  Remedial talking head document that lets the drooling monsters (or, at least, the actors who portrayed them) candidly hold court about how they same to TEXAS CHAIN SAW, how grueling the shoot was, and drop seemingly innocuous anecdotes that have more or less become well known lore over the last 40 or so years. They also make fun of Tobe Hooper. A lot (Edwin Neal's impersonation is especially funny). In '88, this was probably a VHS revelation for a generation of video store kids who were flattened by warped and faded Media Home Video tapes that transmitted Leatherface into basements and living rooms. Nowadays, this is a relic of another time: a glimpse into the bonus feature economy that'd dominate home video once VCRs are tossed aside in favor of DVD players.

• 

  Review by DaZhe ★★½

  ЧОС: Челлендж Октябрьских Страшилок
  3. Как создавался ужас

  Продолжаем праздновать 50-летие шедевра! Док на час, в формате "говорящие головы", с редкими перебивками сценами из фильма/парой бекстейджей. Все члены семейки рассказывают, о том как они попали во всё это дело, сколько было ручьёв пота, грязищи и говнища (например, Гуннар Хансен (Кожаное лицо) все три с лишним недели съемок был в одной и той же рубашке) и как повлияло на жизнь. Снято скучновато, но сами истории довольно интересные.

  Отдельно отмечу "серого кардинала" фильма - Эдвина Нила (Автостопщик). Мега душный чел, который, рассказывая истории, отыгрывает роли каждого персонажа (как голосом так и манерой поведения). Поначалу казалось забавным и даже делало интервью более увлекательным, но под конец конкретно так подзаебал.

• 

  Review by Timmy Tim ★★½

  The last documentary about the making of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre I watched, The Shocking Truth, was definitely better than this one in my opinion. I didn’t really like how slow this one was and it had a lot of the same information The Shocking Truth had, so it was sort of a tedious watch. Good thing this was only an hour, if it was any longer I probably wouldn’t have been able to get through it out of pure boredom. I did enjoy listening to Edwin Neal, who played the hitchhiker, though. I especially loved his hilarious impression of Tobe Hooper. Overall, this was fine, nothing that groundbreaking to be perfectly honest.

• 

  Review by Lauren!

  i really didn’t think i’d catch feelings for gunnar hansen while watching this yet here we are

• 

  Review by cowboy like me ★★★★½

  Tobe Hooper said fuck the law

• 

  Review by ᴅʀ.ʟᴇʀᴀ. ★★★

  ЧОС: челлендж октябрьских страшилок.
  оригинальный лист.
  
  3. как создавался ужас.
  интересный диалог, но безумно скучная подача, но серию фильмов и каст всей душой обожаю.
  но чтобы внести для ясности, это нельзя назвать документальным фильмом о трб.
  это большее склонённость серий интервью с семьёй, которая убила и пытала своих детей в фильме.
  также скреплены случайные отрывки из фильмов и пару удалённых сцен.
  многого они не предлагают, кроме короткого кадра, сосредоточено, на котором что только, что обсуждала интервьюируемый.

• 

  Review by Abbie ★½

  The phrase “this movie couldn’t be made today” gets thrown about a lot, and a lot of the time it’s not true. However, The Texas Chainsaw massacre is definitely one film I think couldn’t be made today. Not because the content of the film, but because of the absolutely dire filming conditions the cast and crew suffered through. Those awful conditions and insane temperatures make the film what it is. If that grime hadn’t had been real, and if the tensions between cast members hadn’t been strained as a result I don’t think that grittiness would’ve shown up on screen.

  Sadly, as a documentary this is painfully boring. There isn’t enough variety of people interviewed and those that are interviewed ramble on. It seemed far longer than an hour, and it was quite a downer at times. I’m going to check out the other documentary The Shocking Truth in the future as it seems to be put together better.

• 

  Review by DopeAssGhost ★★½

  THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: A FAMILY PORTRAIT (1988)
  "A documentary about the classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) film, including interviews with actors Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, John Dugan and Jim Seidow."

  Does anyone else remember seeing the VHS box art for this documentary in their local video rental store when they were younger? I remember seeing a VHS cover with Gunnar Hansen's Pretty Lady variant Leatherface, armed with a chainsaw, running forward in some woods. That image was so badass and I assumed in my naïive youth that this documentary on the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was actually another quasi-sequel in the cannibalistic franchise. But nope, it's just an hour long interview session with Gunnar Hansen (who…

• 

  Review by Adam L

  This is a really enjoyable talking heads documentary about the making of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, featuring the actors who played Leatherface, the Hitchhiker, the Cook, and Grandpa.

  Jim Siedow (the Cook) talks about beating Marilyn Burns for real while she was in that sack, so it would have been nice to hear from her too, even if she was just affirming "Yeah, it was a brutal shoot."

  I don't know where the whole "Tobe Hooper thought he was making a comedy" myth about this one came from. Hooper isn't one of the people interviewed, but based on what everyone's saying it doesn't sound like that's what anyone thought they were doing. They certainly didn't think they were making something that was still going to be talked about 50 years later, but they knew they were making a gruesome drive-in movie.

• 

  Review by annabel 🌱🧚🏼🦖 ★½

  Daily Horror Hunt March 2022 - 6. Watch a horror documentary.

  wish i’d picked something else, this is so boring :( there’s definitely better chain saw docs out there