The Gutter’s own Carol Borden is attending this year’s Overlook Film Festival. Here’s her first thoughts on Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions (2024):

f you are expecting a documentary about the making of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973), Chain Reactions (USA, 2024) is not that film. Instead, genre film documentarian, Alexandre O. Philippe has put together a film seminar with actor / comedian / ubiquitous nerd lord Patton Oswalt, filmmaker Takashi Miike, film critic and historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author / actor / raconteur Stephen King, and filmmaker Karyn Kusama providing a kaleidoscope of perspectives on the same film.

There is some archival material in Chain Reactions, including some behind the scenes photographs and footage. There are clips from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other films discussed. The segments are set in a recreation of a creepy abandoned house and shot with some of Tobe Hooper’s favorite techniques. But otherwise, Chain Reactions is five people talking about a film. But I enjoyed it. I like thinking about art, especially different perspectives on art and different ways of looking at a given work. Chain Reactions gets some distance from a very visceral, immediate film that can be hard to think about in the moment or its aftermath and creates some space to think about it. And I’m still thinking about both Chain Reactions and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre now.

I received a review copy of Chain Reactions. It screens two more times at the Overlook Film Festival: 

Read more of Carol’s thoughts here.