First released in 1974 the Texas chainsaw massacre took America by storm amid a sea of controversy and calls for its ban. While it undoubtedly had a heavy influence on lots of films to follow it, how does is stand on its own merits today?
The film tells an uncomplicated story of a group of amusingly dressed young people getting stuck in the wrong part of backwater America and tormented by a chainsaw wielding behemoth and his cannibal family. While the central plot of the film is by today's standards generic, the moment to moment interaction between the characters is quite interesting. A superb early scene featuring a bizarre hitchhiker performing increasingly crazy acts while the characters watch on unsure of whether to stop him, before finally forcing him out when he attacks the wheelchair bound Franklin with a razor is a great introduction to the backwoods setting and foreshadows later scenes. The film isn't afraid to increase tension slowly, so while there is little that i would call scary in these scenes they really bring a sense of dread and unease to the film.
The film is a very brief 84 minutes so there isn't enough time for these characters to be established before they start getting killed. With the exception of Franklin whose memorable feature seems to be how he annoys the others, i cant name one characteristic of the others. Thankfully the villains are far more memorable. The animalistic, childlike leatherface is imposing and horrifying while remaining scarily close to human thanks to a later scene i wont spoil. The family of cannibals that take centre stage towards the films end and are all demented and twisted which makes watching them much more interesting that the 'heroes'
But is it scary? while the power of the films 'jump' moments has diminished over the years the films ability to unnerve still remains intact. Not showing any violence onscreen was a great decision as it means there are few dated gore effects and more is left to the viewers imagination. The films final half hour is very tense and while i would struggle to call the film anything more than slightly scary it remains nasty and sometimes horrifying.
The film may start slowly but the final half hour more than makes up for it with inventive scenarios, a superb performance from Marylin Burns as she tries to escape leatherface leading up to an ending that is completely amazing. Further credit must go to the films great cinematography which uses lots of alternate angles to make things even more unsettling, as well as the soundtrack which is low key and industrial.
Overall this remains a great horror film (although those looking for larger scares or violence should look elsewhere). While the main characters leave something to be desired the villains are great and its nice to see what appears to be a low-brow horror take its time to build up tension and present it's villains as more than just masked goons. I really recommend you watch this film, while age may have diminished its ability to terrify it remains a very entertaining film.
I recently finished metal gear solid (ps1, 1998) for the first time and decided to write about my time with the game. Widely considered a classic and the beginning of a highly successful series. I am going to assess it not for its influence or how good it was at release. Instead i am writing this for those interested in whether the game is entertaining for a first time player today.
First things first, i have no real problem with dated graphics. I believe that strong gameplay or interesting story can help me look past dated graphics. After the first hour or so i got used to the jerky graphics and they weren't really a problem. But anyone playing this game for the first time should be aware that visually it is very dated particularly in cutscenes during which the lack of mouth movement can be jarring.
In the game you take on the role of US agent Solid snake sent to a remote Alaskan island to stop a group of agents threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon. The games method of telling its spy vs rogue agents story is very flow-breaking. In metal gear solid the story is incredibly separate from the actual gameplay. Large parts of the game are spent watching codec conversations which play out with canned animations of faces in either corner of the screen. While the dialogue itself is wildly varied in quality (some conversations being genuinely interesting or funny while others seem corny and cliched) the codec as a whole can really hurt the games focus. While maybe having these conversations play in the background of quieter gameplay moments wasn't possible on the ps1 but in any case a five minute conversation between two somewhat animated talking heads doesn't really have a place in a game like this.
The actual cutscenes fare better, featuring variety and mostly being a reasonable length. The actual story itself provides some fun twists and turns along the way and features some much needed humour and many forth wall breaking moments like character's talking directly to you instead of snake. That said, it feels like the game thinks its story is better than it actually is and as the story gets bogged down in more exposition and moralising you can begin to wish it would just let you play.
The game is played from a top down angle (with the option to look and turn in first person but not move). But if you press up against a wall, snake (the players character) takes cover and the camera goes to a 3d view. This is a very useful mechanic and while moving in cover is difficult it does come in handy often.
The gameplay itself can be split into two categories, stealth sections and boss fights / 'cinematic' moments.
The stealth is a relatively simple affair consisting of avoiding the line of sight of enemies shown on the radar in the top right corner of the screen. While you have weapons and you can kill enemies with clunky hand to hand combat or a grapple and choke system i could never get to work properly, if you are detected by an enemy ( for instance when you shoot him and he doesn't die, or try to grapple them and end up throwing them on the floor) the radar disappears and a countdown is put in its place. In essence you have to evade the enemy for a certain amount of time before they return to their normal pattern. When cornered sometimes you have no option but to fight your way out which is when a large problem appears. If you decide to shoot your way out of a situation the game summons endless guards to fight you. There may only be two guards in a room but if you try to fight your way out of a tough spot you are faced with an endless supply of guards. This is a lazy way of increasing difficulty although the stealth sections are easy enough (especially once you unlock a cardboard box to hide in) that they never get too annoying.
For me the area where the game became frustrating was the boss fights. The games boss fights are certainly varied but their design feels artificially difficult at times. To give an example, the third boss fight in the game, the brilliant / terribly named cyborg ninja is impossible to harm with weapons. Instead you must fight him hand to hand as is stated in the cutscene preceding the fight. But when you almost empty his health he changes so that punching him results in an explosion sapping most of your health. After whittling down his health with the clunky hand to hand combat as the game demanded, it suddenly changes without telling you which led to my immediate death and having to replay the long, dull fight again.
Another example of an very poorly designed moment in the game is an section in which you are forced to fight multiple (endlessly respawning) soldiers while you climb a seemingly endless staircase. The shooting in this game is weak (it isn't designed as a shooting game) and being forced to fight multiple enemies who take several bullets to kill and yet knock you on the floor if they hit you once leads to a massively annoying section. Unlike other annoying parts of the game which feature good ideas implemented poorly, this is a terrible idea (an repetitive action section in a stealth game) which seems designed to frustrate. The fact that i only beat the section by spamming stun grenades (and this is the solution online guides also suggest) is to me further proof that much of metal gear solid is frustrating and unfair.
The boss fights as a whole were a mixed bag. A fight against telepathic psycho mantis was brilliant and original, and the ending battle was exiting, varied and personal. You could almost split the boss fights and 'set piece' moments down the middle in terms of quality. For instance a scene where you abseil down a tower while avoiding a helicopter was intense and well designed but a late game turret sequence falls flat due to the problematic aiming.
After all of this did i enjoy my time with metal gear solid? , and would i recommend it to others?. The game itself has a lot of good ideas and a few very good moments ( the forth wall breaking fight against psycho mantis, detecting lasers by smoking near them) but there were too many frustrating moments for me to wholeheartedly recommend it. I initially bought it due to the impending release of the HD collection (containing metal gear solid 2, 3 and spin off peace walker) intending to play the series chronologically. After playing through and meeting interesting characters and seeing some really promising gameplay design i plan to continue with the rest of the series. If you are looking to play the metal gear solid series, then while the first is clearly dated i would wholeheartedly recommend you play it. If however, you are only looking to play a stealth/action game there are many better games now. For me the quirky story moments and inventive design made it worth playing (as well as the promise of improved sequels) , but i would warn new players to not go in expecting the classic this game is remembered as.
My name is oliver and i live near Brighton in England. I am a big film and game fan so i thought i'd make a blog about my interests, but one people hopefully may find useful.
For my blog i will be revisiting 'classic' (Or at least very popular) films and games (and maybe books and music) and seeing how i view them from a modern perspective. I haven't defined what age these classics will be, as i think that there are many instances of average films coming along at the right time and being hailed as a classic throughout the years. I will try and stick to pre millenial games and films that are 40+ years old (although I'm interested to see how some 80's classics are today) I will be assessing these works for the common audience, who is not interested in how pioneering a work was or how relevant it was but in how entertaining it remains.
If you have any suggestions on what to cover please comment or send me a message
