Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was an improbable smash hit when released in 1974, and has spent the past 50 years building its influence and reputation to a significant degree. While its original run was met with split opinions – and no small amount of controversy – it is now regarded as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. It is also now considered a genuine classic: last year the USA’s National Film Registry selected for preservation.

Hooper died in 2017, and these days much of his film’s cast and crew are also sadly departed. To study the making and impact of the movie, documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has taken an inventive step. His feature-length documentary Chain Reactions pares down its appreciation of Chainsaw Massacre to five individual people: comic and performer Patton Oswalt, directors Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama, author Stephen King, and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Each of them in turn discuss the film’s appeal to them, its influence on their careers, and why they think it remains such a potent, vital work today.

There is always a risk with this sort of ‘talking heads’, clip-dominated documentary of resembling any number of DVD supplementary feature of the last 25 years, and it is a risk that Chain Reactions only partially avoids. Philippe to his credit does a marvellous job of interweaving interviews with film clips, not only from Hooper’s films but a whole range of obvious and less-obvious derivative or inspirational works. He also divides each commentator’s interview into their own chapters, which adds a somewhat formal but elegant structure to the film.

The key problem is that the film is simply too long: knowing the structure, one can find their attention wavering by the time Karyn Kusama appears to talk very intelligently about the film’s representations of masculinity – and honestly it does her something of a disservice. Re-arranging the order of the guests might have helped to an extent.

It also difficult to entirely justify Patton Oswalt’s presence in the film. One can easily understand the other four – the world’s most popular horror author, two talented directors, and a critic who has literally written the book on horror several times over – but when you’re seeking something to cut for length, Oswalt seems an obvious choice. He is a popular entertainer, and he is certainly entertaining here, but he palpably has less to say than his co-stars.

One element that does really work is the personal nature of it all. Miike and Heller-Nicholas in particular talk less about what Texas Chainsaw Massacre means to the world and genre, and more about what it means to them. As an Australian film critic myself – albeit nowhere near as accomplished – much of what Heller-Nicholas said resonated vividly with me.

It goes without saying that Chain Reactions is a very entertaining watch for fans of Hooper’s film, or for those interested in film genre and culture. At 103 minutes of monologues, however, it really does get a little tiring. It is a little too much of a good thing.

Chain Reactions is screening at the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival from 9 August. Click here for more information.