Sadly Over-hyped

Just perfect...

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

About fifteen years after the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film came out, Brad Shellady filmed a simplistic documentary of actors accounts, looking back to their horror hit. Shellady could have spent some more resources interviewing the entire cast but purposely only wanted to talk to the family. This consisted of Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface, Jim Siedow as the Old Man, Edwin Neal as Hitchhiker and John Dugan as Grandpa. Shellady's filmmaking was unbearable trying to set a tough Texas tone set in random places. It's cool that the audience only hears the actors speak throughout but there is a disconnection and repetitiveness to some of the stories. Edwin Neal was the true bright spot of the documentary, having a Jim Carry type A personality, while Siedow was rather dull and Hansen seemed almost bitter about the role. It's a neat little documentary to search out, the doc has aged in a good way and something the fans would really love.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait is a documentary interviewing the `Family' of actors who played the cannibal clan in the classic 1974 film. Plainly presented by director Brad Shellady featuring interviews of Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, John Dugan and the late Jim Siedow we see them tell many fun and interesting tales of their experiences during the filming of and after the release of the influential film. Shot on video the documentary really lacks many things. They should have included more behind-the-scenes details from all the actors and crew but then I guess it wouldn't be a `family portrait'. Suspiria10 give it a C+.

The things the actors say are interesting, too bad Shellady didnt film them in any sort of interesting way. talking head, talking head, talking head... Ed Neal's shot is blurry, Seidow comes off like hes in a nursing home, and Dugans cat steals his scenes from him. Would have been nice to get comments from Henkel or someone else behind the scenes. a lot of stuff got repeated (OK! IT WAS HOT WHEN YOU FILMED THE DINNER SCENE!!!) but otherwise it was interesting. See if someone transcripted it, it'll beat watching it.

This is sort of a hard one to find now but well worth the trouble. Here are interviews with the actors that portrayed the maniacal family in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was amazed at how the disturbing character of the hitchiker is now a comedian! He's actually quite funny as he goes into detail about the rigors of filming. Gunnar also recounts scenes such as the dinner scene and how horrible it was to shoot. See it.