Comparing Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Texas chainsaw massacre is a popular slasher film which was released in 1974, the film is a icon for the genre, the birth of the genre started with Hithcocks Psycho but was really devloped during this film, the film was based on true events which happened in america, since the oringial many sequals have been made to recapture the spirit of the film, the film which is being compared in this essay is the 2003 version of the film. The original and the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre have many similarities and differences which are shown through the iconography and the setting of the both films The similarities we see in both films is the same psycho killer which is “Leatherface” and the final girl, however other differences are shown like the the difference in some characters, and the difference in representation of the main female.

As said before the main similiarty between the texts is the setting, the setting for both films is in the same location, in a desert in texas. the film also starts in the same way with a group of teenagers who are traveling to certain places, in the older film they are traveling to see a grave but in the new version they have gone to collect marijuana, this shows the change in represention assisiated with teenagers, in the older film the link between teenagers and drugs may not have been as common as it is now, another point for this change could be to do with the fact that the drug culture has grown and horror movies have always beena genre that wants to show societys views, for example they may show them doing drugs so people are aware that bad things happen to people who do drugs, in this instance the characters end up dead, and the only character which does not die is the one which did not take the drugs.

Another rule that is shown in the film is to do with sex, the rule of most horror films is that if
the two teenagers to get intimate and have sex or mess around with each other are either to die first or will eventually get killed in the films, this rule is also shown in the texas chainsaw becuase the teenagers that do have sex are the ones that end up dead first, this is not just in the new version of the film, both of the films feature the same rule which shows it was a problem before iswell.

Although, there is one other similarity between both texts, which is the ending where we see Leather face appear and wields his chainsaw in the air, which conveys him wielding his phallic symbol in the air. We also see a member of the family helping out the final girl to escape the horrors she may experience. Although as well as similarities in both texts, there are some differences in the generics of both texts


Another difference was that at the end of the newer texas chainsaw the final girl kills a member of leatherfaces family and also the female character manages to injure leatherface, this shows the stronger roles in females as in the new film the female character is able to cuase damage to leather face in the old version the character was passive and was not able to hurt leatherface. this shows the uprising of womens positions in society becuase in the first film women were seen as weak and this was represented in the film in the newer film the character is shown to be stronger which reflects womens rise in power in society.

The ending of the films is also different in some aspects, at the end of the first film the character relies on someone else to give her a lift back to safety, in the new film the final girl makes her own way back home by steeling the police car and then driving away, even though it may seem like only a minar thing the way the film ends is important in terms of females rights. Because the female character made her own way home it shows the movements of females and that they have the ability to be independent by helping herself it reflects the way women are in today’s society, that they are able to help themselves and do not need anyone to help, in the first film the person who helped was also a male character which enforces the idea that women depended on men but with the new film showing the character on her it definitely states the new independence within females.