Vampires with Chainsaws

            When thinking about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the first few words that usually come to my mind are blood, bodies, and gore. I was very surprised to be thinking mostly about vampires by the end of the film, a much more romanticized image than that of the mutant cannibal family. This train of thought was prompted by Franklin’s line about “a whole family of Draculas”. Because of my idea of the vampire, this line stood in stark contrast to the dirty, gritty backcountry of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is doubtlessly because of the world that Dracula himself comes from and inhabits: he leaves his castle in the wild forests of Old World Romania for the sophisticated, modern, and urban New World England. Even though (in the context of Dracula) Transylvania is a land of the past, it seems much more glamorous than the stark, open spaces we see in TCM.

            Dracula is a creature of the Old World, moving to London in an attempt to become more modernized and part of the New World. The family in TCM provides an interesting parallel with Dracula; while Dracula is seemingly able to adapt to the ways of his New World, the family stays stuck in their Old World. Perhaps they’re not able to meet the demands of their New World, or they prefer the way things used to be and have always been. Either way, they become self-reliant to an extreme, foregoing money and capital in favor of providing and consuming on their own.

            Like the family, however, Dracula ultimately fails to assimilate into his New World. Though he seems to be able to make changes to fit in, he is bound to his Old World rules and restrictions (sleeping during the day and in a coffin, needing dirt from his homeland). He returns to his native Transylvania/Old World and is killed. While Dracula tries to thrive and dies, the family refuses to change and lives…for now.

            The main difference between Dracula and the TCM family is not immortality though—it is money and the power that currency provides. Dracula is wealthy and fits in well with the upper class. His money makes it easier for him to try to transition to the New World. The TCM family lacks money though, and this is why they’re forced to remain in their Old World. Part of the horror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre arises from the family’s poverty. Their lack of wealth and inability to assimilate into the New World raises concerns within the viewer about the extent of self-reliance they themselves would be willing to assume were they in a similar position. In the context of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, perhaps the Old Gothic revolves around the issues and anxieties that arise with being wealthy, while the New Gothic is about being poor.

            My only complaint about this class is that there aren’t more weeks in the semester. The history of horror movies has always been of interest to me, and I appreciate that we started so early with cinema by watching the Edison-Porter shorts; I’ve never studied/read about those with consideration of the history of horror cinema. I also like that we didn’t watch more recent movies and stopped in the 1980s instead. It might be interesting to watch a film or two from the 1990s, but, again, time crunch. I think the format of the class—brief intro, movie time, discussion—also worked well.