FOLLOWING FILMS

  Today, we’re diving into a film that’s as much about cinema history as it is about the raw, unsettling power of horror. Fifty years after Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shocked the world and permanently altered the landscape of filmmaking, a new documentary is taking a hard, fascinating look at its legacy. It’s called Chain Reactions—winner of the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema and an official selection at festivals like Telluride, Sitges, and BFI London. The film brings together voices like Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama, weaving their personal impressions, memories, and even traumas into a dialogue about how one scrappy, no-budget horror film embedded itself into our collective nightmares—and never left. The documentary is written and directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, a filmmaker who has carved out his own space as the leading voice in what he calls “cinema essays.” From 78/52 to Memory:...

Half a century after Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre carved its way into horror history, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe returns with Chain Reactions, a documentary examining the seismic cultural impact of the 1974 classic. Winner of the 2024 Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema, Chain Reactions blends never-before-seen outtakes with fresh perspectives from five artists whose lives and careers were shaped by Hooper’s film: Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama. Through vivid memories, sensory impressions, and reflections on trauma, Philippe constructs a layered portrait of how a scrappy, low-budget horror film became a global touchstone. The documentary also pays tribute to the shifting ways audiences have experienced Texas Chain Saw—from grainy 16mm prints to battered VHS tapes to the sharpness of digital restoration—each format carrying its own haunting resonance. Critics have called the film “an exploration...