Respecting A True Classic//October 242nd, 2020

I have a confession to make, boils and ghouls.

Somehow, and I truly have no real explanation for this, up until last night, I had never gotten around to watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I know. How can I even call myself a horror fan, right? I truly don’t know how it escaped me for so long. I suppose I have to be in the right kind of mood for those slasher type films, and when the mood strikes, I tend to veer more toward the slashers I’ve had more exposure to throughout my life, such as Michael Myers (obviously!), Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees. Leatherface was just someone I never got to know that well over the course of time.

But honestly, after finally viewing the movie that made him a horror icon, I truly wish I hadn’t waited so long.

As much as I enjoy horror movies, I always find it very hard to call one “perfect”, at least by technical standards. No piece of media is without its flaws, and the horror genre, no matter how good the story is, usually tends to play to so many tropes and cliches that you catch yourself muttering “Here we go again...” at least once no matter how much you’re enjoying it.

But such is not the case with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This is truly the granddaddy of horror/slasher films. Many of the horror tropes we’ve come to know over the years were clearly born in this movie. The strange hitchhiker, the forewarning gas station attendant, kids entering a seemingly abandoned house despite things like bone wind chimes and chainsaw noises...There is just simply no doubt, even after seeing hundreds of horror movies before this, that this movie did it first and did it best.

There is also so much charm to be found in the simplicity of this movie. First of all, is there anything more unsettling than that dark, gritty feeling of a 1970s horror film? Absolutely nothing glamorous is to be found here. It’s all very simple and overall just very real. Honestly, when Leatherface makes his first onscreen kill (RIP Kirk), I was expecting something a bit more bloated and drawn-out, but was pleasantly surprised to see him just get right to the point. And the chase scenes, which I can’t deny tend to get tiresome for me in most slasher films after awhile, were just so realistically done in this, in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before in anything else. Leatherface doesn’t have any freaky way of always moving faster than he should, nor do his intended victims have the annoying habit of stumbling over everything in sight to slow them down. It’s all just incredibly realistic, and that makes it all the more unnerving. There is nothing added here to spice things up, and there doesn’t need to be. This is truly just an honest account of a killer and his victims. No magic, no polish, just a man and his chainsaw.

As much as I love, and usually tend to prefer, characters with a supernatural element to them, at their core, characters like Leatherface are a hundred times scarier because you get the sense that, somewhere out there, people like this could actually exist. It’s not a far stretch that there could be a mentally ill man out there somewhere, with a little bit of butcher knowledge and a chainsaw, just waiting for someone to stumble onto his property in the middle of nowhere. One of my favorite quotes of all time, and my stance on horror in general, really, is this one from Walter Jon Williams:

“I’m not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels. I’m afraid of what real human beings do to other real human beings.”

And while that quote can certainly apply to many things, I think it most certainly applies to Leatherface and his family, the first true icons of the slasher movie genre, and arguably, the most realistic.

Stay spooky, my friends. And expect lots more Leatherface in the future.

The Long Way Back//October 32nd, 2023

Every year I talk about November 1st...it's such a confusing day. It makes me feel so many emotions all at once. Mournful, depressed, angry...It's like a slap in the face shoving us into a new month, forcing us to forget what came just hours before. Last year, I did have somewhat of an epiphany regarding the month of November as a whole, and while I do my best to keep my own past words in mind, that doesn't make today any easier. Or easy to explain, for that matter. I suppose I should speak from my heart. Today I feel detached from reality, as if I don't really exist. Like there is no longer a place in the world for me. Just yesterday everything I loved made sense, and was loved and revered by everyone else as well. I felt like I fit. But now, today, I see those same things being quickly shoved away. Less than twenty-four hours after trick-or-treating time began, it's all being swept under the rug. The season culminated and the world is no longer a place I recog

The Spooky Community Has No Entrance Fee//October 288th, 2023

Something I’ve been seeing a lot this year around the Halloween community, possibly more than any other year, has been talk of consumerism, how much money spent on Halloween is too much, whether collecting is really that important or if it’s somehow required to truly be a part of the community, etc. I’m in no way trying to copy anyone else who’s already spoken on this subject, but I thought I would chime in and share my thoughts, as it is something I definitely think about. Now, I’ve always been relatively fortunate when it comes to how much money I have to spend on Halloween goodies. As a child, I often received money for my birthday, September 8th, at the height of the shopping season, at least as I knew it back then. No, it wasn’t enough to collect the way I do now, but it was enough to make me happy, and you also could get a lot more for a lot less back then. I didn’t necessarily stop to think about my “hauls”, but I knew even at a young age that there was nothing I’d rather be sp

Here’s Where The Story Ends//October 337th, 2020

Everyone has moments in their life when they feel like giving up. That feeling of “This is never going to happen, so why keep trying?” Sometimes it relates to a thing that would be trivial to anyone else, sometimes it’s about something more life-altering. But, we’ve all been there. I have moments of discouragement with this blog. Times I’ve told myself, “No one cares”, or “No one will read this”, etc., but I continue on, for the joy of it. And sometimes, something amazing happens. If you haven’t read my previous post, Have You Seen This Pumpkin? , I would strongly suggest doing so before continuing on with this story. The short version is, I saw a pumpkin in someone’s window when I was twelve years old, and have spent the last twenty-one years trying to find it for myself. When I published that post, I wasn’t expecting much of a response. I was really just hoping to hear someone say, “Yes, my family had this pumpkin when I was a kid!” Or “I once saw this in a neighbor’s window while

Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

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