Ivan Flores - THE BATTALION

Texas-sized terror

Chainsaw series captures horror fans' imaginations

By: Robert Saucedo

Posted: 10/6/06

Tim Harden saw "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" for the first time when he was 16.

"I saw it at a friend's house in San Antonio," he said. "My friend was a rich kid and had a VCR, a good sized TV and an awesome stereo system inside his garage. The house could have blown down and we wouldn't have known."

Harden and his friend watched the film in pitch-black darkness.

"I felt like I was being drug through the halls of insanity," said Harden, founder of Texas Chainsaw Tours. "Once Leatherface did his chainsaw dance, I had to get a breath of fresh air. My friend got physically sick and threw up."

Released in theatres in 1974, "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" has spawned a legacy of imitators and sequels, including "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," a prequel set for release Friday that explores the origins of the film's masked madman, Leatherface.

Leatherface is the epitome of horror, said Wayne Wende, a senior recreation, parks and tourism sciences major.

"He's big and strong and evil," he said. "He can basically do whatever he wants."

Although Wende always roots for Leatherface's victims, he acknowledges their slim chance of survival.

"It's the general idea that they can come out ahead - that they can still win," he said.

Whether or not people enjoy horror films depends, in large part, on why people go to the movies in the first place, Wende said.

"Some people go to deal with their reality and some people go to get out of their reality," he said. "Me, personally, I go to be shocked. If I'm shocked, I'm getting my money's worth. Being scared is always an adrenaline rush."

Lilli Gomez, a sophomore biology major and Wende's fiancé, is also a fan of horror.

"I'm waiting for that one movie that will take my breath away and haunt my dreams," she said. "I have yet to find it."

Gomez thinks the remake of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a better film, due to improved effects.

"You don't know what's going to happen next," she said. "The other thing that makes it scary is the fact that it's unsolved. In the movie, they have that real footage at the end."

As president of the Official Texas Chain Saw Massacre Fan Club, Harden is the appointed authority on all things chainsaw.

"It's a huge urban legend," Harden said. "I get e-mails every day from people saying that their dad was the prison guard for Leatherface or that their parents lived 10 minutes from where the murders took place. Ever since 1974, people thought they were watching a real chainsaw massacre. People tell me that their parents have newspaper clippings from when the murders happened. One guy even claimed he had seen a 'Cold Case Files' episode about the murders."

The fact that director Tobe Hooper shot his film in documentary style make the film's events very believable, Harden said.

"People make stuff up in their heads and then tell their children or siblings to get a reaction," he said. "When somebody tells a person that their family is wrong and that the movie is not real, it's hard to believe."

Operating out of Round Rock, Harden runs Texas Chainsaw Tours, a guided tour of the movies' filming locations.

"I would get e-mails from people all over the world asking if I would mind showing them the places where the film was shot," he said. "I would turn them down because to see a lot of the places would mean having to jump through barbwire fences and drive over 100 miles."

It took a request from a man from Australia to convince Harden that Texas Chainsaw Tours could be a profitable activity.

"He wanted to pay for a plane ticket and fly all the way to America just to see the places," Harden said. "He asked how much it would cost to get me to show him around, and I just threw out a dollar number. He wrote back asking if that was all."

As part of the tour, Harden takes customers to various filming locations, providing informal lectures.

"Sometimes there is 300 miles worth of travel with not much else to do," he said.

With increasing popularity of the films, it seems Leatherface isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

"I've got word that New Line is considering a mini-series," Harden said. "As new generations are exposed to the films, new fans are created."

It's the believability of the films that keeps the franchise fresh, Wende said.

"It's the fact that they're set in an old country town in Texas," he said. "Texas is a big state. It's easy to understand how little towns in this big state can be isolated and certain instances don't make it out of the area very easily."