Chain Reactions (2024)

This documentary by Alexandre O. Philippe treats Tobe Hooper’s seminal – and burned not only into my mind – Texas Chainsaw Massacre through the lens of five different admirers, presented in consecutive interviews during which Philippe provides comparison and enhancement of ideas via visual commentary. It is actually pretty revelatory to see the very yellowed print of TCM notable film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas saw of it in its first Australian presentation in comparison to today’s much cleaner versions. This is then used as an excellent jumping off point into a fantastic discourse on the colour yellow in Australian horror (visually proven by the proper number of very yellow looking outback horror snippets). It is just as fascinating to hear Takshi Miike talk about the film’s personal impact on his work as a director, which is notedly different from what film school jargon spouting Karyn Kusama, coming from a very different time and place, finds in the very same scenes Miike talks about.

In fact, it is one of the most interesting aspects of Philippe’s documentary that the film often repeats scenes from Hooper’s film when a different person speaks about them, demonstrating very nicely indeed that everyone can see a very different film while watching the same one.

As the kind of viewer I am, I’m particularly happy how much emphasis Chain Reactions puts on exploring TCM through some very individual and personal lenses, finding insight less in academic analysis, as in the way Patton Oswalt, Miike, Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King and Kusama relate to the film as part of their lives and personal/emotional/intellectual development. There’s multitudes here, and while most viewers will find one or two approaches they won’t vibe with – I find Kusama’s approach that ignores any visceral impact this very visceral film has in favour of jargon-heavy academicisms pretty grating, for example – all of them are treated with equal respect and emphasis, and resonate with one another as well as with the film these five (plus one in form of the director) talk about so eloquently.