The 1974 movie of The Chainsaw Massacre is about a group of friends who are going to a family member’s old house. Along the way, they need gas and need to stay overnight in a small town. During the drive, they pick up a stranger who is not only weird but cuts the guy in the wheelchair.  After kicking him out they go to the old family house and slowly one by one starts to disappear and die by the hands of Leather Face. Eventually, one of the group members get away and survive but the look in her eyes show that she was traumatized.

I also watched the 2000 movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which is full of amazing choreographed sword fights. This movie is about Master Li giving up his sword because he was done with his previous sword fighting life. In the middle of all of this, the sword gets stolen multiple times and also returns a couple of times. The main character Jen wants to follow her master Jade but as she progresses in her art of sword fighting she longs for more. Jen ran away with a man who she fell in love with and was also arranged to marry a man she didn’t know. She lived a double life, one that her father made for her and one she created at night.

Chainsaw Massacre is a conventional film because when the movie came out it was portrayed as being based on true crimes.  When horror movies were not very popular or normal you get very curious about a movie based on a true story. A movie about a man who killed people and wore their skin as a mask is something anyone would want to see especially if it is based on a true crime that really happened.  Hooper had a budget of $140,000 and made a gross of around 30 million dollars.  With the budget given the movie was good for its time.

The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is an unconventional film because it isn’t a movie based on a novel or a true story. This movie was beautiful, full of nature scenes, and the actors were very deep in their characters. The way that the sword fighting scenes were choreographed was amazing. Crouching Dragon was made on a budget of 15 million and made a gross of more than 120 million dollars. They made the budget very useful to the effects of the movie. Although there were not many effects that were crazy, there were certain fighting scenes where it looks real.  I love that this movie is completely captioned because most people will stop watching a movie once they know it’s not in English. The only downfall of this movie is that my eyes did get tired of reading and I started to want to head to bed. This is not because the movie was bad because it was great, but my eyes get tired after reading for a long period of time.

I don’t think The Chainsaw Massacre engages in any type of issues but I do think The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon movie does. Hidden Dragon dabbles into the sexism.  In the middle of the movie when Li finds out it is Jen who is behind the mask he asks her to be trained by him. She makes some remarks about how they would not accept her for being a woman. Li tried to explain to her that they would make an exception but Jen did not accept as much as you can tell she wanted to. Jade also made a reference about sexism as well as letting Li know during their fight that Li’s master would sleep with the woman. Also towards the end of the movie when Li finds her poisoned by Jade she opens her shirt and says, “Is it me or the sword you want,” This stood out for me the most during this movie and I felt like I really made that connection which made me proud of myself.

Movie Critic Tasha Robinson said that this movie was not great at explaining the plot. She said the plot was squeezed in the first 10 min and if you didn’t pay attention you would miss it. I completely disagree after watching the movie because I re-watched the first 10 minutes about 3 times to see if it was squeezed in and it wasn’t. If you do pay close attention Li explains why he wants to give away the sword but that wasn’t the plot of the movie. The plot of the movie was Jen, she is a woman who wants to live freely and she can’t and she tried to live her true self. She wants to be a sword fighter and Li isn’t in her way, Jen is in her own way and at the end of the movie, she finally becomes selfless. Although at the end of the movie you can get confused with Jen asking Lo what his wish is but in order for that one to come true Lo would have needed to jump off. I believe Jen secretly with for Li to return.

The Chainsaw Massacre was a great movie but very dramatic. I was highly disappointed and I think it is because I enjoyed the 2003 movie because it was a lot scarier than the 1974 movie. I tried to not be biased but when you watch a more evolved and modern version it’s hard to appreciate it. The actors screaming were very done and scenes felt forced. Critics argued that this movie was terrible and I don’t think it was terrible but I do think they could’ve done a bit better. Not so many close up clips of Sally screaming while tied up to a chair in Leather Face’s home at the dinner table. The grandfather being helped to kill Sally was also very dramatic and not to my liking. I do overall like the movie as the beginning of a sequel but not as a first impression film.