The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: A Family Portrait Review (Film, 1988) #31DaysOfHorror
content warning: blood, gore, violence against women
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: A Family Portrait is a documentary exploring the production of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from the perspective of the Sawyer family actors. The actors playing Hitchhiker, Cook, Leatherface and Grandpa discuss everything from casting to the legacy of the film in interviews.
Writer/director Brad Shellady uses a simple structure to organize the film. Each actor is asked to discuss the same topic. So you’ll hear first John Dugan, then Jim Siedow, then Edwin Neal, then Gunnar Hansen discuss how they were cast, then developing their character, then challenges onset, onward and onward until the end. The only downside to this is redundancy. There are sections of the film where every actor is saying slight variations of the same thing. How many times can you hear “the set stunk of rotting food” before it loses its meaning?
It’s a small complaint. The insight provided into the production is great. Learning how certain effects were completed from the perspective of the actors is eye opening. The wooden boards in the film were actually hardwood boards that could leave a bruise during the fights. The food on the table was real and actually decaying—the food was kept on the plates for continuity and budget reasons. Costumes couldn’t be washed for the same reasons. The film shot in September in Texas, but temperatures still were jumping over 100 degrees throughout the entire production.
What’s strange in A Family Portrait is how the actors have consistent stories of how the film production went, but entirely different reactions. Edwin Neal admonishes himself first, then criticizes the entire production, for putting the cast and crew in danger. He was injured while filming and afraid to say anything at the time. Meanwhile, Jim Siedow acknowledges how hard the shoot was but laughs at the choices made. Gunnar Hansen and John Dugan fall somewhere in between.
This is a documentary reflecting on the past with all the knowledge the four actors have acquired since. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre released in 1974; A Family Portrait released in 1988. The documentary focuses on the original film, but does acknowledge the sequel in passing. Even critical discourse by that point influenced how the cast responded. They thought it was a strange, even silly film when they made it, and realized afterwards what Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel were trying to achieve in the film.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: A Family Portrait is a documentary for fans of the film or people studying it. Its appeal is an investigation into the film, and it goes into relative minutia for this style of documentary. You’ll get more out of it if you’ve at least watched the original film first.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: A Family Portrait is streaming for free on Vudu.
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