If you follow our show at all, you know I’m a huge, huge fan of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Get me on the right day and I’ll tell you it’s the best horror film ever made. We did a special episode all about it earlier this year. I’ve seen several documentaries and read many interviews and on and on. So it’s kinda surprising that I didn’t get around to Gunnar Hansen’s 2013 book, “Chain Saw Confidential: How We Made the World’s Most Notorious Horror Movie” until the last few days, but here we are.

It probably goes without saying, but the book is incredible. I listened to it as a seven-hour audio book, but it comes in at 240 pages, and is easily digested. And sure, I’ve heard a lot of these same stories before, but there was plenty of new stuff for me as well; and to hear it all in Hansen’s voice, both figuratively and literally, was a real treat for a big fan. He has a lot of unique insight and perspective that brought new light to a lot of things for me, even after so many years of fandom, so many viewings.

It’s Hansen’s story, but he spends plenty of time sharing the thoughts and reminiscings of his fellow cast and crew, and plenty of other folks as well. The tone, at times, is very journalistic. But periodically, Hansen opens up about his own experience with the production, and how it impacted his life in many ways, not all of them good. As it turns out, sometimes the way you play a convincing monster is to occasionally get a little too close to being a monster for real; and sometimes the way you make a convincingly terrifying film is to take some folks out into the hinterlands and borderline torture them for several weeks. And if you’re any kind of good person, it takes a toll.

Where the book really shines, it’s crown jewel, is the final chapter – “A Grisly Work of Art”. For twenty-three and a half transcendent minutes, Hansen speaks with calm and measured power as he breaks down layers upon layers of subtext and depth and the pure art of storytelling as a joint effort between intent and instinct. It IS a very intelligent film. It IS every bit as good at what it does than any movie has ever been. It IS NOT mindless, juvenile exploitation. It DOES have a lot to say about a lot of things. Here are all the things you couldn’t see because, ironically, it was all just too horrifying for you. The chapter is, ultimately, a validation and vindication of the horror genre at large. And in the middle of it all, it seems Hansen has finally made his peace with Leatherface.

Gunnar Hansen passed away just two years after publishing this book. Thanks for all the scares, LF.