Does cannibalism lead to inbreeding, or does inbreeding lead to cannibalism? Oh well, as long as it’s all in good fun…
Nathan Shumate is the proprietor of Cold Fusion Video Reviews and the publisher of Cold Fusion Media.
Keeping it in the family.
Nathan Shumate is the proprietor of Cold Fusion Video Reviews and the publisher of Cold Fusion Media.
#1 by Chad on June 17th, 2009
Although I am a little annoyed at how…thorough some directors are with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre “homages”, I’m usually interested in movies like this, since I definitely grew up in a very rural area and associated nearly every day with people who would definitely qualify as “hillbilles.” I know the “violent, eccentric hillbillies” premise is used so often largely because it’s creatively convenient (it’s a very elementary set-up that can still fuel a whole script, sets are cheap especially if you know someone who has farmland or wooded property, it’s fun for the screenwriter(s) to just go wild with their characterizations of the “hillbillies”, etc.), but there’s this pervasive and genuine fear of rural terrain that films like this always seem to tap into. It’s pretty fascinating – and good grist for someone in cultural or film studies who needs a MA/PhD thesis!
#2 by Chad on June 17th, 2009
Oops, sorry.
#3 by MatthewF on June 18th, 2009
Well most of us a city-folk (or at least suburban) now and we fear the ‘other’, which is country-folk, isolated and inbred and more in touch with the ‘old ways’. Just as a lot of country-folk believe that it’s impossible to visit a city without being mugged or knifed. I guess they just don’t make as many movies.
#4 by Thomas on June 19th, 2009
I kind if wish cannibals in movies weren’t always filthy, grotty degenerates. I think this is why I liked Rabid so much – the man stew actually looked appetising.
#5 by MatthewF on June 19th, 2009
I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning the other day and I can officiallly announce that the whole hillbilly killer genre has been not only killed, but buried and then had it’s grave danced upon.
#6 by El Santo on June 19th, 2009
“I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning the other day and I can officiallly announce that the whole hillbilly killer genre has been not only killed, but buried and then had it’s grave danced upon.”
That movie and its predecessor are such a sad case. I really don’t think they’re that bad in and of themselves, but there was absolutely no point at all in making either one of them. Meanwhile, to carry your metaphor one step further, I’m of the opinion that House of 1000 Corpses was the subgenre’s burial service.
#7 by KeithA on June 19th, 2009
My sister has some good stories about working for the Dept of Fish and Wildlife on the Kentucky-West Virgina border, where the stereotypes about deranged white power hillbillies are often more accurate than we more liberal and less hungry for the blood of others countryfolk want to admit.
But the truth is that we rarely form cannibal clans, so busy are we calling down the wrath of Pumpkinhead upon those who have wronged us.
#8 by Nathan Shumate on June 19th, 2009
What’s funny is that cannibal rednecks always want to eat cityfolk. I mean, ew! I’d as soon eat a New York pigeon! I’d rather have something free-range.