reverendbeahm's Full Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
By no means am I a pornography connoisseur, but when I caught wind of this release from Heatwave Video, I knew a quest lie ahead. I am a big fan of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (TCM) films (sans NEXT GENERATION, which makes more sense in original form titled RETURN TO THE TCM) and was told TEXAS DILD0 MASQUERADE (TDM) is a shot-for-shot remake utilizing adult actors and actresses that actually comes quite close to the original. What I expected to be a long journey turned out to be a short trip, as my friend and I traveled to a local video outlet where he was successful in his search of adult titles within minutes (makes you think he knows the territory there, no?), running to me with the video in hand. Really, I didn’t believe this thing existed until I saw it in person, at which time I sighed and checked out (it was just too easy to find).
Upon inserting the tape in the VCR, this is what started scrolling across the screen with accompanying voice over (a’la John Laroquette at the start of TCM):
“The video you are about to view is the account of the sexual awakening that befell a group of youths; in particular, Cali Wilson and her invalid brother, Frank. It is all the more shocking in that they were young. But had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected to see, nor would they have asked to see as much of the perverted and demented anal sex they were to see that day. For them a blissful summer drive became a decent into a sexual purgatory. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most decadent perversions in the anals of sexual history, the Texas Dild0 Masquerade.”
Get the feel of where this is going?
As the credits roll we hear a shovel digging along with the camera flashes found in the original, but instead of skulls and meat, we are seeing flashes of blow up doll breasts and dildos. Then we hear a news story about a cemetery outside the town of Anus, Texas where “at least two dozen empty crypts were found stuffed with blow up dolls” and graves were desecrated with dozens of dildos and dolls in various states of sexual activity. We see this just as in TCM we saw the skeleton impaled on a gravestone in the “same” fashion. (note: at this point the fake news cast reports the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa being linked to the crimes for some reason which strikes me because I am originally from that area)
You knew it was coming, and who better to find playing Frank, the invalid fat guy (“Franklin” in TCM) in this film than the hedgehog” Ron Jeremy! He’s in a van complaining of the heat to his sister and friends. They stop at the cemetery where some locals are hanging around. Seems Cali Wilson (played by Tabitha Stevens) has her grandfather buried in said cemetery and wants to check if his grave has been vandalized in the manner described in the news report. We see Frank looking out the door of the van at an old drunk rolling on the ground laughing about how, “I’ve seen things..... nasty, filthy things.... things’ll make your dick stand up for days...” Another continuity point for the TCM to TDM conversion.
Back in the van, the group notices a foul smell. Groans and moans are heard and Frank points to the North, exclaiming, “That’s the old dild0 house! That’s where Grandpa used to sell his plastic!” Said smell is the product of the dild0 molding process, which Frank described in great detail. As in TCM when Franklin boasts his knowledge of the cow slaughtering process, this vanload gets sick of Frank’s story and one of the girls says, “That’s sick! Girls shouldn’t have to use dildos to get off!” Enter the Hitchhiker. The van pulls over and lets the guy who Frank says, “looks like a pervert,” in, after which this strange character (with the same facial “birthmark” the Hitchhiker in TCM sported on his cheek) starts a heated talk about the dild0 manufacturing process. Frank gets involved and talks of how his Uncle who works at a dild0 factory and asks the Hitchhiker if he has ever been in “that room where they use that gun to squirt the plastic into the mold to make the big dicks,” to which the stuttering Hitchhiker replies (in TCM fashion), “No no no! That gun’s no good!” The two argue over the benefits of the gun vs. “using your hands” to make the sex toys. The Hitchhiker hands Frank a dild0 he says he made and starts masturbating to the horror of all passengers. One of the girls says she likes it and proceeds to go down on the guy. Then, in a bizarre twist, Frank climbs down from his chair and starts banging the girl from behind. Ahhh... the wonders of porn! This scene culminates in the usual “genre” fashion with double penetration and the girl taking a couple loads on her face.
At this point the Hitchhiker takes a picture of Frank and tries to sell it to him, insisting on $20. When Frank refuses to give the dild0 back, the Hitchhiker starts slapping him all over with it and hits him in the head. They kick the Hitchhiker out of the van and continue on their way. This entire first segment is shot in the same style as the first van scene in TCM, with sweaty actors, a cramped van and lots of interesting perspective shots. It’s impossible not to be impressed by this film and the effort put forth by director Jim Powers. I am not sure if he has many of these films under his belt, but his attention to detail certainly lends the impression that this is more of a tribute to a film he loves (TCM), than a porno for porno’s sake. It might be that Powers wanted to pay tribute to TCM, but only could do it within means he was familiar with: pornography. Of course, all this could just be too detailed examination on my part and TDM might just be another in a long line of gimmick sex films. Who cares what the philosophy behind it is, TDM follows its model closely and with a wit not usually seen in these types of films.
From here the group hits the obligatory gas station and head out to the abandoned house where the gas runs out and Frank gets bored, rolling around in his chair aimlessly. While a girl and guy head off to find a swimming hole, frank discovers a pile of dildos, just as Franklin found bones and feathers in TCM. What the wandering couple finds is a trampoline instead of a swimming hole, which is next to a house where they hope to find gas. While the girl waits on the trampoline, the guy enters the house, walking past chickens in cages and ends up in a hallway leading to a red room. He hears some moans and enters the room, bending down to pick up something on the floor when Pussyface (re: Leatherface) suddenly appears, striking him on the head with a huge dild0 and slamming an aluminum door shut. This scene is played almost exactly as it happened in TCM, only instead of sporting a mask made of human flesh, this monster, “Pussyface” has a molded vagina on her face and has substituted Leather’s hammer with a sex toy for weapon. When the girl enters the house, she ends up wandering into a room filled with chickens in cages and dildos everywhere. She is persued by Pussyface who catches the fleeing woman, undresses her and then impales her on a dild0 into the vagina which is hanging on a meat hook. This is recognized as possibly the most disturbing scene in TCM, during which many viewers can almost feel the pain of being hung on a hook, but in TDM something makes it more disturbing. The line between violence and death is being crossed in increasingly strange ways and as Pussyface anally rapes this girl with a dild0 mounted on the blade of a chainsaw, I find myself wondering how Powers intended viewers to experience this film.
In case you were watching for the sexual aspect alone (how could you?), a girl pops up randomly out of a meat freezer and screws two of the guys from the van (the third presumed dead after being bludgeoned by Pussyface). This scene, thrown in seemingly randomly after what is, up until this point, the most disturbing scene in the video, seems drained of sexuality, despite standard porno features like double penetration, anal and a facial at the end. TCM was subtle in it’s gore, with very little blood shown, despite a reputation as a nasty gore masterpiece, and here TDM actually manages to out-gore the original. We see more body parts and flesh than is ever even hinted at in TCM, and in the close ups of vaginas and anuses, we are seeing inside a human body through orifices not normally open. Here they are gaping as inflicted by two brutally cold and callous men who seem less human than sexual robots. There is no emotion or regard for the person they are “impaling” and when body fluids are spilled, it is splattered on the face of their “victim”. This is standard behavior in many slasher horror films, where (mainly female) victims are sliced and diced without remorse, with the resulting blood splashing on their faces for dramatic effect. I’ve seen it a thousand times, but here THE SEX BECOMES THE VIOLENCE.
Night falls and Cali and Frank go searching for their friends when Frank is impaled by Pussyface’s “dildosaw” in the woods and Cali is chased to the gas station. Here she is comforted by a crazy guy who masturbates her with a dild0 and f*cks her. Her terror at the sight of her brother being “killed”, followed by a horrifying chase through the woods is calmed by sex – evidentially the cure-all for situations like this. She was making an effort to escape torture and pain at the hands of Pussyface but wound up being mechanically screwed by a madman. Lesser of two evils? This guy is a member of the “family” and taks her back to his house, which is the same where much of the action has occurred thus far.
If you remember TCM, you will recall the character of Grandpa, the blood-hungry corpse that used to be a killing machine at the slaughterhouse. Here we see Grandpa, but now he has Grandma with him and they are limber enough in their old state (actually very, very poor makeup) to get it on. This scene is just too wrong for words, as it presents the viewer with exactly what everyone NEVER wanted to see: old people screwing. This scene is short, presumably to spare the viewer too much long-term damage, and is followed by a re-creation of the famous “dinner scene” from TCM. Cali is tied to a chair at the dinner table where she is taunted by the crazy guy, the Hitchhiker, Grandpa and Pussyface. the family fights and we see close ups of the screaming girl’s eyes just as we saw the bloodshot peepers on actress Marilyn Chambers in the original. It is decided that Grandpa will anally brutalize Cali with a dild0, but, as in TCM with the hammer, Grandpa seems to have his aim off a little. She taunts the old man about his lack of sexual ability and runs from the house. This is where TDM leaves TCM completely, as a huge orgy ensues outside the home with about seven other girls, all armed with dildos galore. This is how the video comes to a close.
While the ending, if removed from this film and shown independently, would look like nothing unusual for porno, the bulk of what is found here is darker and more disturbing than I ever found TCM to be. The brutality of the sex, mixed with the carnage of abuse to victims takes this film from pornography into a sort of unnecessary void, rendered unclassifiable. This is not horror, nor is it sexy to arouse as regular adult fare. The TEXAS DILD0 MASQUERADE is mildly amusing for a gag, but would only serve as fantasy fodder for the sickest, most depraved in society. Director Powers must have known of a sector of the consumer market willing to purchase and get off on such a film, but where the hell are these people hiding?
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is without a doubt the granddaddy of all splatter films. Inspired by 1950s mass murderer Ed Gein Tobe Hooper's debut featu...More at Family Video
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