Texas Chainsaw Massacre(TCM) and The Terminator(TM) are both films that exert great influences upon viewers, filmmakers, and the general society as a whole. After I viewed the TCM, the immediate feeling I developed was that human deviance can be astonishingly horrifying. And I thought the film was significant not only because it was based on a true story but also due to its ability to bring gore in massive amounts onto the big screen. Viewing TM provided me with somewhat the same impression—how is it possible, at that time, for high-tech, form-changing machinery be presented to the audience in such vividness? The two films share one thing in common, as far as I am concerned. They both created unprecedented spectacles that catered to the audiences’ internal desires that were driven by the times.

Similar to other characters in famous films before and after them, Leatherface and the Terminator both became cultural symbols. What is actually essential about making a film is making something memorable. TCM portrayed nothing but a serial killer wielding a chainsaw and TM a high-tech robot doing one stunt after another. These two characters gradually become something of an idol, something to be imitated or admired. Though not many can be expected to love Leatherface or what he did, people keep mini figurines of him in their houses because he was such as fearsome monster, and so was the Terminator. The “The implication was clear—see this film and you will become an evil, disturbed person and you’ll probably go mad as well” (Clarke). It is this danger of being influenced by these characters that generates the most thrill. And creating spectacles that conveniently match the audience’s appetite was the industry secret, or, the secret ingredient to any successful film. Just like Leon and Matilda, no one would fail to recognize the Terminator and Leatherface unless they were born yesterday.

Spectacles and technological achieves never ceased to appear, like waves of flood of civilization. The atomic bomb is certainly a spectacle to behold, despite its ability to annihilate an entire race. And so is the appearance of a virus like AIDS and the current COVID-19 pandemic. These spectacles are indeed highly detrimental and indeed inimical to human development. However, they do look “good” from the third-person perspective. Take a clip from TCM for example, a beautiful woman was lured into a house completely unaware of the danger lied within (“The Texas Chainsaw”). The camera was positioned upwards towards the lush hips and the seemingly topless body of the female victim. It is undoubtedly true that hardly anyone would be willing to see this happen to a woman in real life but somehow it is okay if it is on the screen and presumably fake. The same can be said for Terminator. Surely some would love to be the cool, bullet-proof metal monster, but “humanity, under ever-increasing pressure from technology, still seems to want a body that’s alive and kicking” (Sey 19). In other words, the screen merely served merely as the audience’s channel to vent their suppressed feelings.

An unarguably and indisputably truth about films is that they are based on the real life. TCM claims to be based on a real-life serial killer case while the terminator on the brainchild of some who believed that people would soon be surpassed and replaced by robots. The way Leatherface wielded his chainsaw in the air looks not really different from how AIDS ravages people’s mind and body. And the time traveling in TM could be, in fact, happening right in front of us and we are but one version of ourselves in one of the parallel universes. The trust that the victims placed in Leatherface’s house and their naïvety came from the real life as well. President Nixon won the trust of many and yet he betrayed his reputation and his promises. Films are constantly being created to reflect and magnify the reality, and spectacles, whether in the form of gore or technology, are the key.

There is another hidden principle of these highly acclaimed films—their accentuation and emphasis on humanity. Spectacles are good to behold but chances are that they do not actually appear in real life, nor would they appear as frequent. Human nature and humanity remaining robust hidden motifs, even in TCM, is concrete evidence that filmmakers not only wish to impress but also to educate.

Works Cited

Clarke, Donald. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Film Ireland, no. 69, 1999, pp. 42-43.5.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) ‘Meathook’.” Youtube, uploaded by kruegers, 13 March

2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gydxMh1L5ig&ab_channel=kruegers.

Sey, James. “The terminator syndrome: Science fíction, cinema and contemporary culture.”

Literator, vol. 13, no. 3, 1992, pp. 13-20.