ABout me & tcm

O HAY. I'm Melanie, also known as Kira, or just plain Mel. My love for the TCM series--and subsequently, horror movies in general--began when I saw the '74 original when I was about 13. I fell in love with it immediately. Everything about it just hit all the right notes: the atmosphere, the grainy documentary feel, the masked villain who you never saw too much of, etc. I've always been a sucker for awesome scenery, and TCM definitely had that; that was one of my most favorite things about the film. Especially the ending scene, which is why I used it as the focal point in the layout.

Despite Leatherface being my favorite horror villain, he still freaks the crap out of me. If I had a choice between meeting Jason, Michael, Pinhead, Freddy or Leatherface in a dark alley, hell, I definitely wouldn't want Leatherface. XD He's just so...menacing. Only in the original, though. The sequels and the remake turned him into almost an anti-hero or a misunderstood but lovable creature. And part 4 turned him into a drag queen. What the fuck. They might as well have called it "The Texas Chainsaw Picture Show" and had Leatherface sing "Sweet Transvestite." That would have made it a ten times better movie, and at least it would've been laughable for the right reasons. .___. But I digress.

He was actually kinda scary in the remake until he took off his mask, probably just to satisfy the viewerbase screaming "Show us the freaky part of your face!" in the theatres. And the prequel? Oh God, not scary at all. At least Leatherface wasn't. I just wanted to hug him, he was so darn helpless and such. Being bossed around by that creepy sheriff Hoyt. D: That guy was fucking scary. The family in the remake was kind of lame though. It just seemed like an average family with a deformed dude in a mask. Sure, that's kind of scary for the fact that "zomg, they seem so normal, so it could happen to anyone!" But I think the original was infinitely more effective because the family was so damn wacky. I mean, there's a kind-of-hot-but-kind-of-creepy hitchhiker who looks like half of his face is always staring directly into the sun, then there's the Cook, who's the most normal out of all of them despite having issues of his own, there's Leatherface, who needs no explanation, and then there's Grandpa, a DEAD GUY IN THE ATTIC. Seriously. You can't beat a family who keeps a dead guy in the attic and props him up at the dinner table every night in an attempt at normalcy.

I dunno, to me, horror slashers are infinitely scarier when you never see what's under the mask. It's the fear of the unknown at work. When you remove the unknown, suddenly he isn't all that scary anymore. It just sort of bothers me when movie writers throw in an unmasking into the movie just because. Some things should be left a mystery. That's why fanfiction was invented; to explain the mystery without going on record as canon. ;D

Until I found the best TCM website ever, I was suckered in like the rest of America on the tagline "What happened was true. Now the motion picture that's just as real." Though I was a bit disappointed to find there really wasn't a crazed killer running around with a chainsaw killing people in Texas, I was even more intrigued about the true inspiration behind the movie: Ed Gein. Ed Gein was a crazy fucker from Wisconsin who inspired famous movie characters like Leatherface, Norman Bates from Psycho, and Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. He had been obsessed with his mother, and when she died, he killed 2(?) women that looked like her, robbed graves and used the body parts for furniture and such. The chainsaw was added by TCM creator Tobe Hooper because he thought it would be a good way to get out of a crowd. XD But yes, even I was fooled into thinking it was a completely true story. I even thought there was a book. XD

Of course, the sequels will never match up to the original, though some of them are highly watchable. TCM2 definitely doesn't follow the vein of the original; it's more of a dark comedy than an actual horror movie. Leatherface is such a dork in this one; he falls in love with the main heroine Stretch. XD D'awww. So cute. TCM2 also introduces the wonder of Choptop! :D I love that fucker. That movie would be so boring if he wasn't in it. For some odd reason, he reminds me vaguely of Riff-Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

TCM3 is a mixed bag. Some people like it, some don't. I found it kind of "meh." It's been a while since I've watched it, so I'll have to give it another look and see if it's grown on me. The trailer was fucking hilarious though. Leatherface has a mullet and comes out of the lake with a chainsaw. Pure win. I'd love to see a Leatherface movie where he lives in the lake with his chainsaw. That would fucking rule. Still, I think the part with Leatherface playing with a Speak 'n Spell is the best part. That just sounds adorable, eh?

As for TCM4/TCM:TNG, what a shitfest. Ugh. I can't even...no. Kim Henkel even wrote the thing. How does someone who wrote the first one fuck up so badly on the fourth? The only reason this movie was even released is because its two stars (Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConoughey) became famous. And that was 3 years later. D:

As for the remake....eh. I kinda dislike it because it's an attempt to remake my favorite movie ever, but it's okay for what it is. But I will never forgive them for cutting Leatherface's arm off. D< And it didn't seem like it took place in the '70's, which was one of my favorite aspects of the first film.

The prequel. Ah, I love this movie. TCM:TB is pretty badass, though it's more about Hoyt than Leatherface, which makes me a sad panda. It seemed like they were trying to remake the remake since they kinda fucked up by leaving out the dinner scene. The remake just didn't seem like a remake, more like another sequel. But Leatherface is kind of sexy in this one. :3 That alone makes it watchable. At least for a weird fangirl like me. ^^

For other useless/non-TCM related information about me, go here.