Fantastic Fest Reviews: The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee & Chain Reactions

The 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest is here ComicBook is once again covering this celebration of niche and genre cinema from around the world. We have two more reviews from the event, both documentaries about iconic pieces of the film industry: actor Christopher Lee and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee

A titan of cinema like Christopher Lee cannot be contained by a mundane talking heads documentary, and the filmmakers of The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee know that. Though the film does include interviews with friends, family, and collaborators that offer a compelling and well-rounded understanding of the man himself, that’s only half of what it’s doing. Anchoring the entire film is Peter Serafenwicz, who puts on his best possible impression of Lee to narrate his entire life. His performance starts off a touch shaky, but after a time he embodies so many qualities of Lee’s own voice that you do forget you’re not hearing the man himself. Serafenwicz’s voice is accompanied by none other than a small marionette puppet of Christopher Lee in addition to artistic renditions of other key moments in his life. There’s a tremendous amount of style put into these that keep this one both engaging and informative.

Though it clocks in at just 90 minutes, there’s a tremendous amount of ground covered, ranging from Lee’s early childhood to his service in World War II and naturally his decades of acting (Hammer, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc), but also elements of his career like his heavy metal albums. Even viewers that enter The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee knowing him from only a handful of roles will come away from this with a complete picture of who Christopher Lee was and how he continues to define elements of entertainment after his death.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Chain Reactions

Director Alexandre O. Philippe is back with another film-focused documentary, this time examining Tobe Hooper’s classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Phillipe’s style has evolved over the years from having talking heads dissect the production of the movies (or sometimes just single scenes) to now having them break down the place that these movies have in their own subconscious, and by extension, its place in culture. 

Like his previous film Lynch/Oz, this half-doc/half-essay brings in five notable voices to break down the film. Included this time are comedian Patton Oswalt, Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike, Australian film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, horror icon Stephen King, and director Karyn Kusama. Each bring a personal flair to their interpretation and examinations of Chain Saw, zeroing in on different aspects of it that have personally impacted them. Miike, for example, who is notable for his films like Audition and Ichi the Killer, shares an anecdote about how he arrived for a showing of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, which was sold out. So rather than leave, he saw something else: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Upon extensive reflection, he notes that without having seen that movie, he may not even be a filmmaker today. The five voices that Phillipe selected for the film all bring their own path to and from Chain Saw, which cement not only its special place in film but in how the entire artform is capable of being dissected.

Chain Reactions isn’t just a talking head doc, though, as it is framed around new still photography that evokes Daniel Pearl’s original cinematography from Chain Saw. This, coupled with actual footage, plus B-Roll, outtakes, and more from the production of the movie offer us actual images of the movie itself that we’ve never seen. As longtime viewers of Chain Saw, we get to see moments in time that are totally new but evoke what we know, giving this movie major visual prowess over your typical retrospective feature. What makes Chain Reactions so compelling is not only that it solidifies how a film this iconic remains that way, but how, even decades later, we’re still finding unique burrows within it to explore. 

Rating: 5 out of 5