tobe hooper – Movies Up Close

We’re safely into the 2020s now, so I don’t think it’s jumping the gun to look back on the previous decade and contemplate its cinematic output. For example: what’s the best film of the 2010s? I personally suspect it’s The Tree of Life (2011), but I’m also partial to Moonlight (2016) and Under The Skin (2013), and there’s certainly no shortage of admirers for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) or Get Out (2017), among many others.

The worst film of the decade? That’s easy.

Tom Hooper’s 2019 adaptation of Cats is not only the biggest flop of the 2010s, but has a decent claim to being the biggest movie flop of all time. The pre-release hype for Cats was insane, and for good reason: the cast may well be the most exciting group of stars ever assembled for a single picture. A-listers in their primes like Idris Elba and Jennifer Hudson had signed on. Veritable acting legends like Judi Dench and Ian McKellan were committed. Hot comedians like Rebel Wilson and James Cordon promised to add levity. And even chart-topping musicians like Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift agreed to play significant roles.

With such abundance of diverse talents, what could go wrong? Oh, everything?

The word that best summarizes Cats is “disturbing.” Cats is not merely a disappointing film; it’s a film that misses its mark so badly that its ostensible aim—of providing a whimsical good time—is completely buried by the movie’s end. We not only don’t have a good time, but we seriously wonder whether the filmmakers truly wanted us to: whether they didn’t, in fact, intend for their creation to be eerie, unsettling, and grotesque.

These adjectives are primarily attributable to the film’s most egregious mistake: the decision to use motion capture animation to creepily meld the actors with cat bodies, turning them into…what, exactly? Not cats, since cats don’t walk on two legs or have ballerina cheekbones. But not humans, either, since humans don’t have furry bellies and don’t strut around totally naked.

When I saw this film, the nudity issue rattled me for the entire runtime. The handling of clothing in Cats is baffling: most of the cats don’t wear clothes at all, which makes sense, because they’re cats; but some of them, especially the major characters, do wear clothes—but then during a dance, they might dramatically take the clothes off, giving the alarming impression that they’re completely exposing themselves. And some of the actors’ dancing exacerbates the issue: Rebel Wilson, for example, brings her usual brand of physical comedy, throwing her weight around in striptease-type poses—but there’s a problem with this, because her character has no clothes on to enable the tease! There’s nothing to tease when there’s nothing to hide! There’s also nothing to tease when you’re a cat, or at least the teasing shouldn’t consist of the same poses, since cats don’t have the same features or sex characteristics as humans do. The dance sequences (Wilson’s in particular) viscerally repulsive for a reason: they make no visual sense.

In the stage version, actors wearing crazy makeup and wild costumes parade around, and, as in the movie adaptation, there are sexual overtones throughout. But sexual overtones are fine when we’re watching people in costumes, because the humanness allows us to still relate to what we’re seeing. Humans can still be sexy when they’re dressed as animals. But when the characters have been turned by a computer into actual animals, things suddenly become gross: there’s a crucial boundary that separates kinky fun from an episode of Planet Earth, and this movie crosses it. Or worse, sits on it.

The faces aren’t much more watchable than the bodies. At times, for instance, it’s clear that we’re no longer viewing motion capture animation but rather extremely sloppy CGI that has pasted the actors’ faces on to stunt doubles’ limber, catified bodies. Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), especially, often looks like a product of the same technology that created Annoying Orange. How was this allowed to stand through postproduction?

Another unforced CGI error is that the cats fluctuate wildly in size throughout the film in comparison to their backdrops. The number “Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat” is one of the better sequences in the film, but it’s marred by the apparent shrink ray that has suddenly brought the characters to approximately the size of mice. Speaking of mice, there are some in the film, but based on what we can see, they’re closer in size to bugs. They’re also played by children, and Wilson’s character implicitly threatens to…eat them if they don’t dance correctly. The child actors seem a little too genuinely scared of this possibility.

Let’s take a step back and talk about Andrew Lloyd Weber’s original Broadway version of Cats, which, to be fair to Tom Hooper, doesn’t exactly lend itself to box office dynamism. For one, Weber’s plot is largely nonexistent, consisting only of a vague contest to determine which cat goes to some sort of cat heaven, allowing the characters to sing about themselves and each other for the duration of the play. But this has the potential to work onstage, because singing and dancing alone can thrill us when we’re up close to the performers in person. Movies can’t offer that type of thrill, making Cats an especially difficult experience to adapt for the cinema.

Hooper, though, was still riding high in 2019 following the success of his 2012 adaptation of Les Miserables, also previously a landmark stage musical. For that film, Hooper had been trusted with an ensemble cast of top talent, and he scored big: Les Miserables was a box office smash and critically acclaimed. It earned Hugh Jackman a Best Actor nomination and Anne Hathaway an Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress. On top of that, let’s not forget that back in 2010, Hooper managed to nab Colin Firth a Best Actor victory for The King’s Speech, as well as a (ridiculously undeserved) Best Picture win and Best Director win for himself.

To those who say that Academy Awards aren’t as important to actors as they used to be, I give you…Cats. Because it’s fairly clear that the general feeling was that if Hooper could get Hathaway—who in 2012 was most known for The Princess Diaries and playing a forgettable Catwoman—an Oscar, and if he could get Hugh Jackman of Wolverine fame a nomination, too, and if he could defeat The Social Network for Best Picture in 2010 (nice one, Academy), then, well, what couldn’t he do for his next batch of stars?

They all saw, of course, Hathaway’s Oscar acceptance speech for Les Miserables. Many casual viewers saw it, too, and didn’t like it: her suspiciously breathless, awestruck delivery helped spark a fairly widespread backlash against her that persists to this day. The clip forcibly reminds me, at least, of Eve Harrington, the titular character from the classic film All About Eve (1950) who engages in cutthroat behavior to achieve her ambition of acting stardom. Eve accepts an achievement award and is subsequently criticized by the other characters, who have learned to see through her façade of graciousness. But famously, the film ends with a young woman posing in the mirror with Eve’s award after the ceremony, apparently dreaming of attaining Eve’s success—and implying that she, like Eve, will do anything to reach it. So although the other characters do condemn Eve’s phoniness and masquerading, many remain enamored by her studied affectation.

How prescient. As All About Eve portrays, the allure of acting glory can be irresistible to some. And for them, it didn’t matter that Cats’ source material didn’t have a plot or that the visual concept for the film clearly hadn’t been thought through: if Mia Thermopolis could be on that stage gushing oh-so-humble thank you’s, then, dammit, they could, too! The talent swarmed in. And Universal Pictures, eagerly awaiting the surefire windfall—after all, the Broadway Cats’ fan base was far larger than Les Miserables’ had been—readily paid up for the big names.

Well, Universal lost a reported $114 million. Impressive. But the cast members were hit, too: each one of them will live with the mistake forever. I’ve noticed that critics and casual fans alike when discussing this movie have a habit of trying to rescue their favorite star from its wreckage: “Well, Taylor Swift was pretty good, at least!” “James Cordon was kind of funny!” “Idris Elba tried the best he could!” Admirable tries, but no. The “best they could” would have been to avoid this film and go do something with lesser fanfare that would have been worthy of their various gifts. But they got greedy, and now this clip and this clip and this clip and this clip are at everyone’s fingertips indefinitely. I can’t help but notice that Taylor Swift, for one, hasn’t been quite as ubiquitous since her contribution to Cats—the aura of infallibility has been wiped away.

I think Jennifer Hudson, though, in the coveted role of Grizabella the Glamour Cat, fares worst of all. In an alternate universe where Cats was good and won awards, Hudson would have been first in line; after all, she gets the chance to lend her considerable vocal abilities to “Memory,” which is the climax of the story and one of the greatest numbers in Broadway history.

But Hudson comes up incredibly flat. In the stage version of Cats, Grizabella has dignity and grandeur, trying and failing multiple times to rejoin the tribe that ostracized her, until she summons the courage (aided by the young cat Jemima) to sing “Memory,” summarizing her lonely experience. But in the movie version, inexplicably, Grizabella repeatedly slinks away from the Jellicles and has to be dragged into the contest by Victoria (Francesca Hayward), who then prods her to sing her famous melody. In accordance with this new approach to the character, Hudson’s acting performance is mopey, meek, and helpless; and her performance of “Memory” reflects none of the resilience and grit that make the song so famous.

For instance, the stage play’s signature moment is a faltering Grizabella mustering the strength to pick herself off the ground and belt out the final verse (wow!), but Hooper maddeningly decides instead to have Victoria physically help Grizabella off the ground, such that the lyrics of the ensuing verse—“TOUCH ME!”—no longer make any sense. Um, she just touched you, Grizabella. Calm down.

So yes, it’s Hooper who’s ultimately responsible for Hudson’s awful performance. But the performance is what it is, and it’s still awful. You don’t get to take the credit for the successes while blaming the director for the failures.

Hooper won’t get off scot-free, though. He may have been behind the camera and thus hidden from the public outcry, but Hollywood is a small world. When studio executives, sore from their huge monetary loss, and noteworthy actors, fearful of being caught up in the next pop cultural trainwreck , inevitably turn down his next big idea, I imagine he might feel a little bit like Grizabella the Glamour Cat: yearning for better days of popularity and adoration, shut out of the party he once energized.

I wonder if he’ll realize then that being unwanted doesn’t make snot come out of your nose.

—Jim Andersen

For related criticism, see my analysis of the flawed Slumdog Millionaire.

Originally published October 2021

It’s almost Halloween, which means ‘tis the season for “slasher” flicks, the movies about insane killers murdering dumb, attractive teenagers.

The slasher formula is actually a little more complicated than that but still has some instantly recognizable tropes:

A group of teens or young adults who typically wander into an eerie, remote area
A killer, usually masked but not always, who kills off the kids in succession, often using a knife or other brutal means
A “final girl” who outlasts the others and may ultimately overcome the killer
A pattern in which the characters who have sex are typically murdered shortly afterward; by extension, the final girl is often a virgin

So which films fit the bill? In my view, these are the staples:

Friday the 13^th (1980)
Halloween (1978)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Later hits like Child’s Play (1988) and Scream (1996) would use slasher elements, too, but with modern twists or alterations. And each of the four films I listed spawned several sequels, all with the same basic premise.

The big question, then: which slasher film is king? To me, there’s no contest:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the best slasher movie ever made, and not only that; it’s one of the most terrifying movies of all time, a true American masterpiece. I didn’t bother to see it until recently, because I had inferred by its title that it would be a simple, mindless gore-fest not worth the time. If you’re of similar thinking right now, you’re wrong, and you need to watch this incredibly dark, disturbing movie, which actually isn’t gory at all.

You’ll notice that TCSM, directed by Tobe Hooper, is chronologically the earliest of the four movies I listed; it can therefore be said that it “invented” the slasher genre. It may not be surprising, then, that it’s superior to the others: the original is usually the best. Of course, prior landmarks like Psycho (1960) influenced TCSM heavily, so it’s not as if TCSM’s aesthetics appeared out of thin air. But it crystallized the concept, in particular, of a relentless, masked killer picking off teenagers, and apparently, it did so memorably enough that endless franchises and box office revenues were to follow in its wake.

The second best film of the four I listed is Halloween, a great film in its own right due to excellent craftsmanship, solid acting, and a classic score. But the key difference between Halloween and TCSM is that TCSM seems to suggest a broad, expansive horror just beneath the surface of normal American life, while Halloween treats its bloodshed as only an aberration. Michael Myers is so wildly demonic that he scares even a seasoned forensic psychologist and is repeatedly compared to the Boogeyman. TCSM‘s Leatherface, on the other hand, seems only to have a developmental disability and a sadistic family. Who do you think you’re more likely to run into?

Many have noticed that the film appears to contain a statement of sorts about animal cruelty: Leatherface and the Sawyer family treat their victims as mere animals ready for butchering. This pushes us to reconsider these practices. I’d add that this conceit is also inherently frightening in that it allows Hooper to question how much higher, evolutionarily, we really are than the animals we eat. After all, before Leatherface arrives, the gang of teens is mostly preoccupied with sex and isn’t very kind to a member of their group in a wheelchair, at one point carelessly allowing him to fall on his face while he tries to urinate. Is Leatherface on to something by treating us like mere beasts?

Now that’s a scary thought.

The issue of resenting sex is an interesting one in TCSM, especially since its many knockoffs, especially Friday the 13th, would center it so obviously. What’s notable about TCSM’s treatment of the topic is that the first person to express jealousy or resentment isn’t one of the villains but rather Franklin, the wheelchair-bound boy who can’t partake in the shenanigans of the others.

This jealousy is only echoed later by the Sawyers, all of whom are male and defer to a barely-alive patriarch, and who clearly enjoy watching women suffer, judging by their treatment of Sally at dinner. The Sawyers’ boorish jeering recalls Franklin’s show of sarcastic anger with his peers when they leave him downstairs at the old house. And Leatherface, like Franklin, appears to have a disability. Is the fact that we can’t see the killer’s real face a subliminal way of linking him with Franklin?

Again, these sorts of ideas create more terror than a simple Boogeyman does.

But I think the key insight into the film’s themes involves industry and capitalism. The hitchhiker early in the film reports that technological advances have led to job losses in the slaughterhouse, meaning, like Norman Bates, whose interstate moved away, the Sawyer family has been cut off from American prosperity, stranded in a dilapidated rural wasteland—the water hole metaphorically dried up. We may not think much about what happens to people like this, but Hooper, like Hitchcock before him, has thought about it, and he’s concluded, like his predecessor: very possibly, madness.

The Sawyers are very clearly a nightmarish rendition of the average American family. They show us our own folksy customs mangled by poverty and isolation. For example, the dad—if he is the dad; it’s never confirmed—chatters amiably to a bound Sally in the car while also laughing maniacally and beating her with a stick. The hitchhiker acts out and talks back like a typical deadbeat son—while simultaneously torturing Sally at the dinner table. To complete the nuclear family, Leatherface is made to dress up as a housewife.

The point seems to be that our traditions and culture, which we take such comfort in, are entirely corruptible given the wrong circumstances. And TCSM subtly suggests that depraved crimes are occurring all over: we hear stories over the radio of nasty deeds, not all of which could have been committed by the Sawyers. And why wouldn’t there be similar families? The Sawyers can’t be the only ones cut off from prosperity due to technological changes.

TCSM ends in spectacular fashion, with Sally riding away on the back of a pickup truck and Leatherface raging (dancing?) with his chainsaw as the sun rises. This final image grants him the aesthetic grandeur that he deserves. The symbolism of the rising sun is open to interpretation, but I view it, circa 1974 following Vietnam and Watergate, as a warning from Hooper that there’s a new day in America, and the Leatherfaces of the country, out for blood and swinging savagely, are going to be a part of it. Watching the scene in our current era of politics only heightens the resonance.

So don’t let the campiness and predictability of the slasher genre that formed years after the release of this film lead you to dismiss it. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a rightful classic with a disturbing, uncomfortable view of the American way, and there’s no better time to watch it than this fall season. Happy Halloween!

–Jim Andersen

For more analyses, check out my look at the visuals of Avatar.