Bloody Perfect: Ride, Sally, Ride
Isaura Barbé-Brown brings us the first post in her new monthly column, Bloody Perfect.
Occasionally, amongst the many great and iconic scenes that horror films bring us, there is a scene so stunning, so sensational, so obscenely perfect, that it never leaves you. Welcome to Bloody Perfect; a column about the horror scenes that haunt me.*
*In a good way.
[Note: this article contains spoilers for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre]
As this is the very first Bloody Perfect column, I thought it only appropriate to write about my first foray into grown up horror…
As a child, I had of course seen films that scared me: Jurassic Park (1993), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), etc. But at the tender age of fourteen, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was the first time I saw a horror that was truly adult, a horror that made me viscerally aware that there were, in fact, things I was too young to see. Every shot is burned into my memory forever and ever, Amen. It was, in many ways, traumatising, but fast forward [redacted] years, and it has become my very favourite horror film of all time.
Siblings Sally (Marilyn Burns) and Franklin (Paul A. Partain), and their three friends, are on a road trip through Texas to their grandfather’s old house. They inexplicably pick up a creepy hitchhiker (Nubbins – Edwin Neal), eventually having to kick him out. They stop at a gas station and tell the strange owner (Drayton – Jim Siedow), in far too much detail, about their plans. They reach the abandoned house and are promptly picked off one by one by the terrifying, chainsaw wielding, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen). Sally is the only survivor.
From approximately fifty-two minutes into the eighty-three-minute film, Sally is relentlessly pursued, tortured, and tormented. She runs for her life and screams bloody murder while she does it. This woman jumps through not one, but TWO windowpanes in her attempts to escape. She truly goes through it.
The sounds of her shrieks and that bone-rattling chainsaw will forever ring in my ears and there are many memorable /scarring scenes in this film, (the half rotten Grandpa Sawyer being introduced for one – John Dugan)… but for me, the most sensational moment comes right at the end.
Sally has jumped through her second window, bone tired and barely able to hold herself up. Nubbins is slashing at her back as she runs, Leatherface joins the pursuit and it looks like it’s over for our girl. A lorry takes Nubbins out of the equation, but the driver is chased off by Leatherface. True salvation finally arrives in the form of a pick-up truck, and as Sally just manages to climb in and is being driven away from her nightmare, she doesn’t cry or whimper: she laughs.
Sally laughs a hysterical, maniacal laugh in defiance. She is exhausted and broken and all her friends are dead but, somehow, she has survived. She is tougher than she thought. She fought for her life until the very end. She made it against all odds. Her laugh is “Fuck you” to Leatherface and the chainsaw he rode in on.
Discussions about this film’s ending often focus on Leatherface’s haunting chainsaw dance. But for me, Sally sitting in the back of that pick-up – her vest top, white flares, and blonde hair doused in blood, her eyes wide and crazed as she cackles away – is one of the reasons I fell in love with horror. She is my first and favourite horror heroine. Marilyn Burns plays Sally with such humanity, such desperation, that it’s impossible not to be rooting for her. Despite her predicament seeming hopeless, you hope at every terrible turn that she makes it. As she laughs in the face of her tormentor, the viewer – having just witnessed some the most horrifying images committed to film – feels the unhinged relief she does. With every re-watch, I still feel that relief anew. Sally is the ultimate Final Girl and her laugh is the perfect end to a horror film, and possibly my favourite ending to any film ever.
Isaura Barbé-Brown is a Hackney born and based actress. She studied at AADA in New York and BADA in Oxford. She has written for The BFI, Black Ballad UK as well as The Final Girls/Bloody Women and been a guest on The Final Girls podcast and the Evolution of Horror podcast. She has done talks at the BFI for their Squad Goals event and during their Love season with the Bechdel Test Fest on race in romantic films. Isaura has also been on panels for BFI Future Film, The Watersprite Film Festival and The Norwich Film Festival. Her acting work covers theatre, film, tv and voiceover. She has also written for short film, TV and theatre as well as short stories and poetry. You can find Isaura on Twitter and Instagram.
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