// Texas / Chain Saw / Atmospheres //

In the paragraphs that follow, preferably in John Larroquette's voice, please read / pronounce / hear the word "slash" whenever you see / read the punctuation that follows this colon: /

Rewind.

In the chaotic time of 2001 / 2005, I spat fire. I also rented and watched a lot of slasher films. In Houston, Texas, it was easy to find camaraderie for both.

Like many of us, I was an adjunct, then lecturer, constantly worrying about / working through debt / exploitation wages / the near future. Days stuck together in the heat, sometimes exploded with rage. Nights, I cooled off alone / with everyone I loved on the second-hand couch / on pillows on the hardwood floor of my Montrose apartment. VHS tapes rented from the kick-ass horror shelf at Cactus Music &Video played on my TV/VCR and helped me think.1 Exhaust, and the smell of it, brings me back.

I conceptualized / researched / wrote what would become "Blood for Oil," my article on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974), while finding myself in a loving / wild world of collective resistance to / public dissent from the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.2 I am talking about Houston anti-war activists / artists after September 11, 2001.3 With a Texan as President of the US / so much oil money in the White House / the declaration of a War on Terror / the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq / the billions of dollars in revenue afforded to corporations profiting from militarized death / shock and awe / the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison, how could I not attune myself simultaneously to the crisis of the world's oil war and the early-1970s oil crisis, paid for in blood, in Chain Saw? Several times in the early aughts, Connecticut-born George W., fully committed to his slasher star turn as the Texan US president in the New England Bush family's dynastic romance, posed for the camera with his chain saw at his Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.4 Both George and Leatherface raised their saws on my analog TV's small screen.

As Lauren Berlant argues, atmospheres of crisis affect our attunements. We suddenly pick up on what once alluded us, and we might also be unsure what to make of / how to handle our genres in the midst of ongoing instability.5 Similarly, Kathleen Stewart describes how we attune ourselves to heavy atmospheres of change, which come with a sharp odor: a "shift in the sensorium . . . the stink of some national transformation settling over [us] . . . the sheer weight of power coming down."6 It was in the midst of a weighty national transformation's shifty stink, one that settled over us in the years after 9/11, that I decided to describe Chain Saw as "a predictive analysis of the present political moment," starring an "upsettingly familiar," "goony," and "reticent and stuttering hitchhiker" — right in the very first paragraph.7 I was, of course, referring to Texas Chainsaw George / the Presidential Hitchhiker-in-Chief / his father and brother / the Bush regime. Please believe that I caution my students away from the lure of an analysis that claims films to be "predictive." It's too compressed of a way of thinking about culture / history / time that, if serious, needs at least a book's worth of unpacking. That said, I badly wanted 2004 and 1974 to bleed together, heavily.

To evoke the highest pitched screams of Sally Hardesty as you read what follows, I have properly rendered certain phrases in all-caps.

NO BLOOD FOR OIL / WE WILL NOT BE SILENT. In 2002/2003, a blistering critique of the Bush administration / U.S. foreign policy / U.S. military actions flared up all over Houston and connected us to millions just like us across the globe. Our aim was to stop a massacre. I joined with hundreds / thousands of other Houstonians — Houston Global Awareness Collective / Not in Out Name / Act Now to Stop War and End Racism / Houston Anarchist Black Cross / Black Bloc / Mama's Brigade / Houston Coalition for Justice Not War / Pax Christi / Voices Breaking Boundaries — to scream, not unlike Sally, until I scorched my vocal cords.

NO BLOOD FOR OIL. The seeming simplicity of the phrase betrays the complex economy and poetic synecdoche of its formulation. The "no" that begins the chant announced our refusal / dissent / negatory power. "Blood" — vital liquid beneath the skin, extracted / spilled through state-sanctioned violence — stands for people from the Republic of Iraq / from the United States who wish to live. "For," signifying exchange / trade / currency / traffic. "Oil" — vital stuff from beneath the earth's crust, extracted / spilled through capital investments in drilling / fracking — stands for corporate ownership of that which makes everyday people / everyday lives in the global North comfortable / complete / happy. Back in my apartment, watching Chain Saw, the hitchhiker sets a fire / slashes Franklin's forearm and draws blood / smears blood on the van heading for the Gulf Oil gas station. This slasher's plot, driven by the economy of blood for oil, rolls forward from there. You know the rest. WE WILL NOT BE SILENT.

HALLIBURTON! HALLIBURTON! BROWN AND ROOT! / GO TO IRAQ AND LOOT, LOOT, LOOT!8 At the Halliburton Shareholder meeting in May 2004, outside the Four Seasons Hotel downtown, our dissent turned animal. In legal and well-publicized street festivals of resistance, Corporate Pigs at the Trough celebrated our Porkfest with Billionaire$ for Bu$h. On the streets, Halliburton became "Hallibacon," a hammy new brand / aesthetic blown out of / into proportion as a huge inflatable pink pig. In pig snouts and pig masks, oinking / snorting / delighting in the filth of billions of fake dollars, we surrounded the Four Seasons Hotel downtown. In a trough built for the occasion, pigs clutched / flung into the air / rolled around in huge fistfuls of paper Hallibacon cash bearing the image of Dick Chainsaw — Oh! I mean Dick Cheney.9 Banner drops / puppets / street theater / die-ins / fake blood / music / dance / arrests. In my memory, the piggishness of our performative critique dissolves into the terrifying moment in Chain Saw in which we hear Leatherface's pig sounds, oinking / grunting / snorting off-screen. Remember? Kirk enters the Sawyer house without permission. His plan is to offer his guitar as collateral for some of the gas fueling the generator out back. Squealing and snorting, Leatherface appears and bashes Jerry in the skull, twice. Leatherface hoists his corpse over the threshold and slides / slams the metal door shut. He's got what he wants. "YEEEE HAW!" / IS NOT FOREIGN POLICY.

1, 2, 3, 4 / WE DON'T WANT YOUR OIL WAR. In May 2005, we returned in big numbers for a second round of demonstrations, this time under the sign of a massive papier mâché Iraq War Cash Cow.10 More banner drops / puppets / street theater / music / dance / arrests. Dick Cheney holds buckets of milk money and pulls on the cow's udders. McGruff the Crime Dog shows up to investigate. HALLIBURTON MILKS TAXPAYERS / HALLIBURTON MAKES A KILLING. We loud / punk / rank activists lock arms, bang on buckets / pots and pans. Mounted police arrive and pull rank. Their horses shit in the street. The sun cooks it on the asphalt, raising a stink. Through a simple cut, we smell the cows in Chain Saw before we see them. Early in the film, a sequence on the highway that runs past a slaughterhouse follows a sequence in a cemetery, with its violated corpses rotting in the sun. The rank odor of living / doomed / massacred cows blows into the van through open windows. In three quickly cut shots, first Sally, then Kirk, wrinkle their noses and Pam, eyes wide, covers her nose in horror. Sally: "What's that??" Pam: "What smells??" Jerry: "What is that stench?" Kirk: "Roll up the window!" Only Franklin, drenched in sweat and in close-up, seems unfazed, explaining the source, but the reek of dead humans / dead cows feeds our nausea and anticipates more crisis to come. THAT'S BULLSHIT. GET OFF IT. / THE ENEMY IS PROFIT // DEMOCRACY AND LIBERATION / WILL NOT BE BOUGHT BY CORPORATIONS.

Investigators never found evidence of weapons of mass destruction.11 The invasion of Iraq lasted. The cost of human blood for oil makes the room spin.12 We awaken, tied and gagged at the table. What plate glass window will we leap through?

Fast forward.

Twenty years later, in the Department of English at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), where I once was an adjunct, then lecturer, I now hold tenure. As part of an upper-level undergraduate course, "Seminar in Film Studies: Cinematic Mood," my first-generation Texas public university students watch Chain Saw (usually for the first time) and a few other slashers from the classical period.13 Together, we study the film.14 Working with Robert Spadoni's theory of film atmosphere, and its subtle difference from film mood, I also encourage students to select the most specific language possible to evoke the film's atmosphere.15 We attune ourselves to Chain Saw's uniquely early-1970s / Texas / slasher atmosphere, one that flares up / stretches out / sags around / congeals into its massacre plot. We observe, sketch shots and scenes and share them, then collectively compose descriptive, atmospheric lists. They workshop drafts and complete final formal studies.

To help students write even more conscientiously about a slasher, I invite them to experiment with the slash mark / forward slash / virgule / solidus to intensify its atmosphere. Much like how we teach the cinematic cut as a formal element that both joins and separates two shots in film, I teach how the slash mark, often shorthand for "and / or," both unites and divides as punctuation. And while nearly everyone would consider even just a few slash marks in any writing to be egregious, for this assignment, I encourage my students to indulge in / delight in / revel in its excessive use, much like the slasher genre itself slashes into / up / apart the bodies of its characters to maximize the pleasure of our horror. The slash mark, I advise, helps to materialize a slasher. More? More!! Slash / up / the / page. And what a riot when students read their drafts out loud during class, giving voice to their many slash marks! The slash marks add a performative quality to, and builds authorial confidence in, their work as critical and creative writers.16 As might be obvious by now, the reason this essay has so many slash marks is that my students insist it would be totally unfair if I wrote without them.

Given Spadoni's notion that atmosphere in film refers to its potentially endless "aesthetic totality," the evocation of it in words requires some imaginative thinking.17 Film atmospheres are hard to pinpoint: "vague, spread out, and ineffable."18 To help, Spadoni provides some handy metaphors for evoking a film's atmosphere. Uncannily, students find resonance with both the slasher genre in general and with the ordinary experience of living / breathing in the intense air of Houston: a viscous substance, a membrane, a coating, skin, the weather, "an air one can feel," an aroma, and breath.19 Coming into downtown Houston from homes near asphalt batch plants / chemical plants / petroleum refineries / power plants / congested freeways, UHD students carry with them not only their rescue inhalers / nasal sprays / eye drops, but also the impact / trauma of the Houston area's most terrifying Big Oil / climate change / weather / electrical grid failure disasters.20 This includes, in their early years, the BLSR Operating Ltd. Vapor Cloud Fire (2003) / the BP America Refinery Explosion (2005) / Hurricane Rita (2005) / Hurricane Ike (2008) / the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill (2010) and, more recently, the Tax Day Floods (2016) / Hurricane Harvey (2017) / Intercontinental Terminals Co.'s Tank Farm Fire (2019) / The Great Texas Freeze (2021), and now Hurricane Beryl (2024), to name just a few. Add to this the atmosphere of racist police violence and the impact of COVID-19 on Black and Brown communities in Houston — it's enough to leave one breathless.21

From their view in 2023/2024, students describe Chain Saw's 1970s slasher atmosphere as reeking / sweltering / frightening / rotten / dirty / claustrophobic / suffocating / gravitational / broiling / tortured / sweat soaked / foul / unbearable / hell on earth.22 The brutality of the film comes through, and their authorship is positively fresh / incisive / hilarious / beautiful / disturbing. Much like theorists of cinematic mood, Spadoni compellingly argues that film atmospheres include "every particle of the aesthetic work and also the surrounding intersubjective experience that binds perceivers to the work and perceivers to each other [. . . ] Draw the circle of an atmosphere's compass and it will encircle a film's viewers."23 The film atmosphere of Chain Saw, therefore, includes us as it pervades the theaters / apartments / bedrooms / classrooms in which we spend time with this film and the worlds to which we return after its final frame, carrying the experience / memory / feeling of Chain Saw with us.

WHO WILL SURVIVE AND WHAT WILL BE LEFT OF THEM?

Acknowledgement

My work on Chain Saw would not be possible without my friend, the artist and writer Laura Fletcher, whose quick quip about the gas station and its pumps as we watched late one night in the early-2000s inspired decades of research and scholarship. May she rest in peace.

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Chuck Jackson is Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD). His research on U.S. film, literature, institutions, and culture has been published in the journals Film Studies; Black Camera; Studies in Law, Politics, and Society; Pedagogy; Gothic Studies; camera obscura; The Faulkner Journal; Modern Fiction Studies; African American Review; and The Journal of Popular Film and Television. From 2014-2017, he codirected UHD's University-Jailhouse Literacy Project, an interdisciplinary book circle program for readers incarcerated in downtown Houston at Kegans State Jail (now Kegans Intermediate Sanction Facility) and UHD faculty. In 2024, he received a fellowship through the Awards for Faculty program from the National Endowment for the Humanities to complete research on the Jessie Maple Collection at the Black Film Center & Archive.

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