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Tuesday 13th July 2004 - 8:47pm

The DVD Chainsaw Massacre

DVD players. They’re a complicated machine. How they actually work is totally beyond me. But I do understand one basic thing. The simplest principle of the DVD player – the first thing they need to do to make a DVD work –

- they have to spin.

So, of what use is the rest of the technical gadgetry in the DVD player if the mechanism that makes it spin not work? Shouldn’t the spinner be made a little more sturdy?

At least, that’s the opinion I came to when my DVD player started acting up, making the movie pause by itself continually – to the point where my ninety minute movie took SIX AND A HALF HOURS to watch. Now, I guess it would have been easier to give up and not waste all that time – but I hired the movie from Video Ezy and wanted to get my money’s worth. The fact that it was Tuesday and the DVD only cost me one dollar is completely irrelevant.

Now, the constant pausing and unpausing wouldn’t have been so annoying if I was watching some light drama or comedy where it’s mostly just talking – all the mid-sentence pauses would just make it seem like I was watching a move length version of Party of Five or Ally McBeal…

…however, when you’re trying to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s infinitely more annoying.

I mean, a pause in normal dialogue is irritating enough, but when the focus of the film is a large rusty chainsaw, it quickly becomes THE MOST ANNOYING SOUND IN THE WORLD. It just sounds like whatsisname with the big skin-mask has got bad flatulence; in which case the movie would have to be called The Texas Chainsaw Assacre.

And it’s not just the noise. Every time something exciting happened, like the killer sawing maniacally through a door or a car window, that’s when the DVD would freeze – and it would always be just a split second after the noise started. It wasn’t quite enough to get scared, but it was just enough to think “Oh look, there’s the killer.” By the time the DVD player kicked in again and the rest of the action happened, it was about as frightening as watching Bert cross over to Moira on GMA.

After a little while, the DVD became even worse, and started making a loud whirring sound as it struggled to keep the movie going. Fortunately, the whirring sound blended in nicely with the chainsaw sound, and it actually made the movie easier to watch.

Unfortunately, the whirring sound continued long after I’d stopped watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and started watching Intolerable Cruelty. It’s hard to appreciate the subtle humour of a romantic comedy when you keep expecting Catherine Zeta Jones to leap into shot brandishing a chainsaw and wearing George Clooney’s face as a mask!

Although I’m not saying that wouldn’t have made the movie better.

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