The document compares the horror movies Texas Chainsaw and Halloween. Both movies are based on true stories and feature problematic male leads who are mentally ill. The movies include graphic violence such as murder scenes. They also feature elements of family love and sympathy among some characters. A key similarity is that there is at least one survivor among the victims in each movie.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: Lee Ern Hui
STUDENT ID NO: 0319703
FILMS SELECTED:Texas Chainsaw & Halloween
WORD COUNT:945
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1:COMPARE – CONTRASTESSAY
LECTURER:CASSANDRAWIJESURIA
SUBMISSION DATE:5TH
DECEMBER2014

2. The two horror movies that I am going to compare are the movies entitled, Texas
Chainsaw and Halloween. Texas Chainsaw is about a group of 5 teenagers were on their
way to a concert but a woman eventually got into their van and suicide with a pistol. The
group decided to drive up to a rural area to call the police up where they came to a large
plantation house where an old man with no legs, sitting on the wheel chair, welcomed
them with a scary expression. The old man helps the main character of this movie,
“Leatherface Man” to trick the teenager to his trap. The “Leatherface Man” dug out their
eyes, nose, and skin to sew a new face for himself. He became like this because he wants
to revenge for not able to be normal as other people.
In the movie Halloween, Michael Myers murdered a school bully when he was at
ten. He eventually murdered his elder sister, his mother’s abusive boyfriend and his
sister’s boyfriend. They used to tease him and bully him a lot in the house and made him
revenged in any time he could. His mother committed suicide because she can no longer
handle the situation. He continued making his mask for the next fifteenyears and did not
speak to anyone. Soon, he escaped from the jail and started to murder the villages and the
people there one by one and hunt for his younger sister. The main character in these two
movies, “Leatherface Man” and Michael Myers were diagnosed that they were mentally
ill.
There are some similarities between these two movies. For example, both of the
movies are based on true story. Texas Chainsaw is based on true story where the
policemen succeed to recorda video footage about their journey into the house. Two
officers surveyed the house and they went into the basement, ventured deeper and found
fingernail scratch marks, much human blood and humans’ hair all around. Hence, this
incident and rumors had inspired our director of the movie, Marcus Nispel, to produce
this movie. Both of the stories are about problematic boys. Besides, they grew in a

3. gigantic size and they have special ability such as having faster speed than normal human,
higher resistance to pain than normal human and having ability to lift up heavy things
more than human. Thus, they acted like monster and they were likely mentally ill.
Moreover, both of these movies consist of the most important element in a horror
movie which is violence. For example, the “Leatherface Man” murdered the teenagers by
cutting of their legs, digging out their eyeballs and even applying salt on the wound to
make them suffer. He also bottled up the internal organs in jars and left it on the table and
it has unpleasant smell and stinks. He also cut off their hands and legs and separated them
to find suitable skin for him. In Halloween, Michael Myers used a knife to kill his mom’s
boyfriend and sister. He also used a baseball stick to kill his sister’s boyfriend mercilessly.
These movies also have scenes of sexual content and it is not suitable for children. That is
one of the reasons why it was only allowed to 18 years old and above people to watch it
in the cinema. Besides, love among family members also exist in both of the movies. For
example, In Texas Chainsaw, the mom and dad of the “Leatherface Man” helped him and
support him in every trap that he set because they love him, even though it is in a wrong
way while in the movie Halloween , Michael Myers didn’t kill his younger sister because
he loved her and his mom doted on him .
The other similarity of these movies is there was sympathy and empathy attitude
instilled in this movie. For example, the “Leatherface Man” was stopped by his nephew
when he was going to kill the teenagers while in the movie Halloween , there was a
doctor helping Michael Myers out when he claimed that he had no memory of killing his
mother. Besides, Michael Myers showed sympathy to human. For example, he did not
kill his younger sister when he murdered his elder sister and he also did not kill his
younger sister when he met her few years later. Sense of hatred can also be seen in both
movies. “Leatherface Man” murdered people with no mercy and he felt he should do that

4. to revenge of him being abnormal human. He felt hatred where he was not able to be
normal as others while for Michael Myers, he was being mistreated by his family when
he grew up. They teased and bullied him and so he became revengeful ever since then
and started to kill every members of his family except his younger sister as he felt that his
younger sister had not done anything wrong.
Furthermore, both these movies have in common is that there are survivor among
the victims. For example, the victims of the “Leatherface Man” are a random teenager
group that travelled to the rural area after a tragic incident happened in their car.
Fortunately, a girl managed to escape as she cut the man’s hand with a butcher knife and
escaped when he was in pain. In the movie “Halloween”, even though the victims of the
main character involved his own family members, the youngest child in the family which
is Michael Myers’ younger sister survived. In conclusion, I’ve chosen these two popular
horror movies as my choice to show the comparison of similarities that I can spot
between these movies.

5. References
1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film) - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. 2014. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film) - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas_Chainsaw_Massacre_%282003_fil
m%29. [Accessed 02 December 2014].
2. Halloween (2007 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Halloween
(2007 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_%282007_film%29. [Accessed 02
December 2014].