Fango spoke to Michael R. Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, who’s currently wrapping up work on a new documentary for the new DVD release of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, coming in September from Dark Sky Films. To hear Felsher tell it, this two-disc set oughta be the last word in CHAINSAW for the home. “There’ll be a new high-definition transfer from the 16mm camera original, and new 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio mixes along with the original mono,” Felsher tells us. “It’ll have the commentary from the original DVD and a new one with stars Marilyn Burns, Alan Danziger and Paul A. Partain and production designer Robert A. Burns—David Gregory recorded it just before Robert and Paul died. And of course, trailers, radio spots and much, much more.”
Most notably, the second disc will contain two feature-length documentaries: the never-before-U.S.-released TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE SHOCKING TRUTH “and one I’m working on, with new interviews,” Felsher reveals. “Since David has covered the whole making of the movie in SHOCKING TRUTH, my docu is going to be made up of several individual stories about the CHAINSAW experience, about different aspects of the film and its history. I got an all-new, in-depth talk with Ed Neal, who was a lot of fun, and Gunnar Hansen, as well as [cinematographer] Daniel Pearl, who talks about his experiences on both the original film and the remake. Then there’s a new tour of the CHAINSAW house that I did with Tim Harden of Texaschainsawmassacre.net. The house is empty now—it was a restaurant until about two weeks ago, and Tim and I had the run of the place. It was something else.
“Another segment,” he continues, “is about the man who did Grandpa’s makeup, who was a well-known plastic surgeon and photographer, whose pictures appeared in many issues of Penthouse! While I was in Austin, I also went out and shot a lot of footage of the graveyard and the gas station that’ll be used in the title sequence.” Stay tuned for more updates on this and other Dark Sky and Red Shirt projects.
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