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Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 vs Halloween 1978

posted 7 years ago by npiazza91
22 replies | jump to latest

Two films that often get hailed as starting the slasher craze, and they are both looked at as classics in their own right.

Which film do you like more?

Which did you find scarier?

Who's scarier Michael or Leatherface? (originals only)

Who is more evil?

Better final girl Sally or Laurie?

For me I actually prefer TCM only because it has that grind house kind of gritty feel to it. It can almost pass off as a documentary in some parts, and the deaths look pretty damn real. Halloween is a great film, but it's very slow for a big part of the movie, and suspense can only make a film good the first X amount of times you see it. The good thing about Halloween is that I notice new things every time I watch it...I could swear I see Myers standing somewhere I have never seen before. Now, I don't care much for Leatherface as a villain, I think his status as a slasher icon makes him seem like a better villain than he really is, but he's really just a lost soul, not very evil at all. Michael on the other hand, is pure evil. He sends shivers down my spine, and in my opinion is way scarier. The notion that he could be hiding anywhere in the shadows, expressionless, acting on nothing but the instinct to kill, is scary as hell. Leatherface is more like a rabid German Shepard...deadly of course, but not exactly evil. I think Laurie is a better final girl, but Sally is great as well. Marilyn Burns (RIP) is easily the hottest woman in both films. To sum it up, I think Halloween is the better made film, but TCM is much more enjoyable for me, and the fact that it feels 100 times more realistic than any found footage film without actually being found footage is pretty damn impressive.

[–] BarneyStinson1991 7 years ago

1. I love them both. I've always said that Halloween is my favorite horror film followed closely by TCM, but I think its more Halloween is 1a and TCM is 1b.

2. I find them both scary, but I always get more of a sense of dread when watching TCM.

3. I find Myers to be more scary than Leatherface. I wouldn't want to run into either one of them, but for me it's Myers.

4. Without a doubt Myers is more evil. I always viewed Leatherface as more of a puppet. He is just doing what he was taught. I think if you want to find the true evil in TCM you would have to look at the Old Man character. He was the one calling the shots and he seemed to be the most sane one of the group. Not that that's saying much.

5. They're both good, but I like Sally just a bit better. Marilyn Burns, for me, gave a better performance. She definitely went through a lot more during the filming and that final scene where the truck is speeding away and she's screaming and laughing at the same time was brilliant. She may have survived the ordeal, but it cost her her sanity.

Don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years.

[–] dave626 7 years ago

I liked Halloween better. TCM bored me and still does to an extent, whereas Halloween flows and keeps going. Leatherface to me is a bull in china shop just mowing down anything moving, while Michael is smarter, stealthier and likes to play with his victims. That's scarier to me.

More evil is subjective. Leatherface is more sadistic, twisted in his killing methods, while Michael is efficient, yet, as I said, toys with his victims. He locks the car from Annie, then unlocks it. Hides behind a door with Bob and covers himself in a sheet for Lynda.

Laurie is a much better final girl, as she was smarter and less "screamy" and "panicky" than Sally. Sally just was hysterical. Laurie actually fairly kept her wits about her.

Don't get me wrong, TCM is a classic and it's fans have every right to praise it, it just didn't work for me. The family scene was fairly disturbing, but to me most of the characters, even the victims, were annoying. Not sure if they were meant to be, written that way or played that way, but it just didn't click. I actually liked Laurie, Loomis, Brackett.

Just my opinion though.

"He came home." - Dr. Sam Loomis from the original HalloweeN

[–] cjh8504 7 years ago

Halloween. No contest.

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Robert Vaughn

[–] Leo_Rossi 7 years ago

Have you even seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

[–] cjh8504 7 years ago

Of course. What kind of question is that?

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Robert Vaughn

[–] Leo_Rossi 7 years ago

Just asking.

[–] OldFriendOfTheChristys 7 years ago

Which film do you like more?

Hard to say. I prefer Halloween on an artistic level but TCM on a visceral level. Both are fantastic but in completely different ways.

Which did you find scarier?

TCM, for its cinéma vérité quality.

Who's scarier Michael or Leatherface? (originals only)

Michael, because he's the embodiment of evil. To a certain extent I actually feel sorry for Leatherface. He's a killer, sure, but he's also severely mentally handicapped, someone who's always simply done "what he's told".

Who is more evil?

Michael. See above.

Better final girl Sally or Laurie?

Laurie, mainly because she was given more to do. Sally was more believable though.

[–] 7 years ago

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[–] cjh8504 7 years ago

A guy wearing a face made of skin, is pretty disgusting, however.

RIP Gene Wilder. One of the funniest people of all time. RIP Robert Vaughn

[–] 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jimpemmas (23) 2 years ago

The 2nd and 3rd best slasher ever after Psycho. Which one is 2nd and which is 3rd I really can't decide.

[–] Anotherday (6878) 2 years ago

I like Halloween more. It's scarier due to the ending. You see a guy get stabbed in the neck, eye, and shot six times. He gets back up. That's pretty freaky.

Leatherface is a scarier of the two, though that's due to his family hierarchy.

Michael is more Evil due to the fact that Leatherface doesn't make all of his own decisions.

I think Laurie is the better final girl. Even in the face of danger, she makes sure Tommy and Lindsey are safe. That deserves admiration in my book.

Bonus: TCM is closer to reality. Especially the opening scene with the corpse sculpture.

[–] Seperatrix (1089) 2 years ago

I like them both. Posting these questions on the Halloween board will undoubtedly lead to more votes for Halloween. Which is fine, but if I have to decide between the two it would be TCM.

Which film do you like more? After all these years I'd say TCM. Though Halloween might be the easier film to watch (Donald Pleasance, music score, etc) as TCM feel more raw (not in a bad way).

Which did you find scarier? I found TCM the only film I've ever seen that totally immersed me in a moment. The scene where the girl is in the house and tripped, fell on the floor, and stared in horror at the assortment of reassembled animal skeletons, feathers, animal hides, etc. Sitting in an air conditioned theater I felt like I was in the stifling heat of a Texas farmhouse along with the character.

Who's scarier Michael or Leatherface? (originals only). Is anything scarier than being chased by a crazy with a loud chainsaw? Especially if you peek over your shoulder and see he's wearing the skin mask of a corpse?

Who is more evil? Probably Myers. The Leatherface character was probably abused as a child and raised by freaks. What he did was evil, but he may have been a product of environment and genetics while Myers seems to be portrayed as someone who was simply evil incarnate.

Better final girl Sally or Laurie? I'd go with Sally. The odds were slim for her escape but she made the most of what opportunity she had. I find Laurie's behavior particularly stupid at the end of the film.

[–] SandyR (7347) 2 years ago

Black Christmas is the original slasher. The actual slasher craze was the result of Friday the 13th's immediate box office success.

[–] hurricane (1908) 2 years ago

I like TCM more, but that's just personal preference.

Both movies are quite different. Halloween is a bit slow paced, and is deliberately trying to be suspenseful. TCM is the opposite, it's quite action packed and in-your-face. You wouldn't really call it slow-going. I find TCM more disturbing because of it. That dinner table scene, man. Nearly fifty years old, and that scene is still as disturbing as anything I've seen in a movie. The grainy, almost amateur way this is filmed actually helps that.

One thing I like about the original TCM is that you don't know the names of the villains. You just know them as The Chef, The Hitchhiker, Leatherface. The unknown makes them more sinister. The sequels kind of ruined that.

Comparing final girls is interesting. Being that we're only talking about the original movies, and disregarding the sequels, I find Laurie Stroud not very fleshed out. Obviously, she she was in more movies than just the first one, but we're ignoring those. In the first movie, she just went about her day to day life, saw Michael in the distance, got a bit scared, repeated that a few times. Then when Michael turned up, she ran away and hid a bit until Loomis turned up to save her. She did protect the children somewhat, but final girls became a lot more bad-ass than that over the years. Now, I get with Sally, all that she did was run away and scream until she was rescued too. But that at least really sold the threat. Again, final girls felt more bad-ass in the 1980s than here. But I felt more sympathetic to Sally based on the fact that Marilyn Burns really did the fear and overreaction well. Laurie didn't seem to do much at all, really. Again, that was more to do with the way they were trying to set the tone of the movie. It wouldn't fit with the tone of Halloween for Laurie to be running around and screaming like a lunatic. But I just felt more tense for Sally, and wanted her to escape more. I believed she was more in danger.

[–] trevorh321 (5495) 2 years ago

Which film do you like more? Halloween

Which did you find scarier? TCM

Who's scarier Michael or Leatherface? (originals only) TCM

Who is more evil? TCM

Better final girl Sally or Laurie? Laurie