Extra Credit - True Stories and Dumb Teens

The 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre was probably my least favorite movie growing up. Any time a movie says it’s based on a true story I have to do a mile of digging to see exactly what they mean by that. The fact the horror movies love to use this line is a real bother. The true story aspect always seems to make everything a little more real and a lot scarier. Who is to say that people didn’t actually get massacred by a guy wearing a human flesh mask and wielding a chainsaw? Well that would be history. What about this horror movies makes this scenario so plausible though? Why do we believe as a society in general that a groups of teens can be so easily killed by a single masked man, or an old forest dwelling woman, or a mask wearing mother? Teens are just nature’s scapegoat.

            Slasher flicks are obsessed with killing of droves of young people. To the point where it is actually considered comedy by most. Take the movie Tucker and Dale vs Evil where a couple of country bumpkins are confused for serial killers by teens in the woods, and the country boys are confused as to why the teens keep killing themselves. It is a hilarious motion picture and definitely not the first or the last horror movie spoof out there. When these movies were first coming out the motion picture audience probably had no way to discern if the teens were bad or good at getting killed they were probably just as scared as the rest of us are the first time we see a horror film. After we grow accustomed to seeing these types of films we become more accustomed to the plot devices that have been used in horror films forever.

            The issue then lies when we watch decades of horror films and then go back to the originals and laugh at them because of their predictability and goofiness. That used to be cutting edge horror man. Those older films created the person walking up the stairs to check it out. Or the nosy trespassing teenagers who wander into houses only to be slaughtered like docile little cows. We can call these things out and giggle about them. Then we can make spoof movies where all these old suspense ploys can really be diced apart with a knife.

            Back to the original thought on true stories, is that really something that makes films scarier? It is possible that a real life Chainsaw massacre may have happened but does it bother us more if someone is making a movie based on the true story which just means something we all know, that there is evil out there. Or is it that knowing people could come up with these scary movies all in their own heads and then walk around with the rest of us. Just plotting.