Something's Wrong - Pam

"There are moments when we cannot believe that what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is."

A stifling hot day, a confined vehicle and a foreboding horoscope: this day was never going to be good.

Pam is finally fed up waiting for her boyfriend Kirk to reappear from what should be a source of refuge, ideally where an accommodating resident of the house will emerge providing the gas they need to carry on their journey and, god willing, a cold drink. Yet Kirk doesn't return and this leaves Pam with no choice but to enter the house, cautiously so to fetch him. He's been gone too long and up to now there appears to be no life in the area, despite an active generator and unlocked front door.

All the signs were there: that bizarre hitchhiker, reports on the radio of grave robbing and desecration, a gas station with no gas and what they'd hoped would be a refreshing pond to dip in, is now just a dried up old trench.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a first in many aspects. A low budget, amateur venture into filmmaking, creating lore from a falsehood that it was based on real events and encompassing elements of terror resulting in effortlessly constructed horror. Even its title is enough to fill you with dread from the offset. Just look at what it entails: the 'x' in Texas connoting negativity and the imagination runs wild thinking of what a chainsaw might accomplish, especially when followed by the term 'massacre'. Blood and guts surely, but the beauty of this film lies in its ability to be unsettling using inference over explicitness. Sure we see some fake blood (though mostly from the hitchhiker's self harming) and grisly set design (decor comprised of bones and human skin), but the power of the horror created in this film comes mainly from what is implied: from the image of the chainsaw, being aethestically lacking colour, with a large portion set in the dark of night and accompanying noise, be it motors, gutteral screams, or maniacal laughter.

Just as the group of five young, helpless friends can't escape this horrific situation, nor can they escape the Texas heat, or character Franklin's inccessant whining - and neither can the audience!

It is hell in everyway. Sure, final girl Sally does escape at the last moment, but not before being reduced to a traumatised version of herself, forever to be changed for the worse.

That Pam all along provided the prophecy of doom makes for an interesting observation. We know that Kirk is done for, but Pam is none the wiser. That she no doubt holds a sense of spirituality is not enough to save her. It is even possible, if she thought it probable that Kirk could hear her call his name all the way from the front yard, that maybe she herself did hear something unusual coming from inside when he was bashed in the head and seizured, to then be being dragged away behind a slammed iron door. Yet still, for all the warning signs, curiosity gets the better of her and she continues on inside to explore. Afterall, what could possibly be so wrong inside a house that from the outside looks prestine and the type of place surely a nice Texan family of ranchers likely inhabit?

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