- Coming up on "Austin InSight," Election Day is almost here.

We'll break down the major races.

- [Danielle] And happy Halloween.

We're taking you to the Body Farm, a unique research facility exploring what the dead can teach us about the living.

- [Laura] Plus, it's been 50 years since horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" premiered.

Hear some behind-the-scenes stories and its impact on Texas film.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally & James Gavin, and also by Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in Central Texas.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (light music) - Hi there, and thank you so much for joining us for the very first edition of "Austin InSight," our brand-new half-hour news and feature program, and we're so happy to have you here for this very exciting night.

I'm your host, Danielle Banda.

- Yes, we are so thrilled to have you on this incredible journey with us.

I'm your host, Laura Laughead, and we like to think we have a little something for everyone on our brand-new show.

We're gonna cover the issues that impact Central Texas in an in-depth way you won't see on any other local newscast, but we're also gonna introduce you to the most interesting people, places, and events in our area.

- We are thrilled to have you along for us for the very beginning of this incredible journey.

- Our first story tonight is what everyone's talking about, naturally, the upcoming election.

- That's right, so far, we're seeing record turnout of early voters, but that's not surprising with a ballot that includes the presidential election, the race for Senate seat in Texas, and here in Austin races for mayor plus five city council seats.

- More than 5 1/2 million votes have already been cast here in Texas, including more than half a million early votes in Travis, Williamson, and Hays Counties.

Early voting ends tomorrow, and Election Day is, of course, next Tuesday, November the 5th.

- We'll go ahead and start off with the US Senate race between Republican incumbent Senator Ted Cruz, seeking his third term, and challenger Democratic Congressman Colin Allred.

- They had a debate a few weeks ago in Dallas, and then last Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris joined Allred at a rally in Houston.

Coincidentally, former President Trump was also in the state the same time here in Austin to appear on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Joining us now to talk Texas politics is Matthew Choi, the Washington correspondent for The Texas Tribune.

Matthew, thanks so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Well, Matthew, we've actually seen a close race like this for Cruz before.

Six years ago, Cruz narrowly beat Beto O'Rourke by only 3%, but Allred has never run in a statewide race.

According to a poll last week from Emerson College, the race is virtually tied, but a newer poll still shows Cruz up by almost four points, but also within the margin of error.

So why do you think this is so neck and neck again?

- Well, I think something that has to be taken into account is just how singular of a candidate Ted Cruz is.

I mean, this was, this is a candidate who, you know, made a name for himself kind of bucking the institution.

When he first got to the Senate, he angered a lot of his peers.

So, you know, he is the kind of person who really elicits a lot of ire on the left, and he's very cognizant of this.

He warned his fellow Republicans that, "Hey, every time I'm up for reelection, "I'm gonna get a lot of hate from around the country, "and that's gonna lead to a lot of money "from outside of the state going into this race."

So it was always gonna be a very competitive race, regardless of who the Democrat was gonna be.

- Absolutely, and it is so competitive, it's hard to escape their warring ads all over the place.

And now, what would you say are the major issues for both sides in this race?

- So I would say one of the biggest issues definitely is abortion.

This is the first time we've had a senator up for reelection since the Dobbs decision, and Texas has kind of been, you know, ground zero of the fight for access to abortion, because of the state's really restrictive abortion laws.

And, you know, like it's not only Texas Democrats who have really kind of been zeroing in on the state on this issue.

The Kamala Harris campaign paid a visit to Houston to talk about this issue as well.

So it's definitely become one of the biggest attack points from the Democratic side.

On the Republican side, it'll probably be, it's been largely the border, and also access to transgender care for children.

- And you actually bring up a very big point is that, you know, Kamala Harris last Friday in Houston, she joined Colin Allred.

That's very significant.

Why would she campaign with him in Texas, a historically red state, at this late date?

- Right, I mean, I think it's really interesting that she made that decision.

It was kind of surprising, because her campaign said from the get-go that, you know, "Hey, we only have so many more days left "in order to win this thing, "because this is a short campaign, "and Texas is just not really a gettable state for us."

But the fact that she showed up with Colin Allred does hint that Democrats show some optimism in the Senate race at the very least.

- And to note, like with Harris, this Senate race has historical implications for Texas, too.

If Allred were to win, he would be the state's first Black senator and the first Democratic senator since 1993.

And last question is, you know, what are your thoughts on the potential for some Texans to split their ticket, meaning voting for Democrat Allred and then Republican Trump, or vice versa?

- Yeah, I think the Allred campaign is really kind of counting on that, because, you know, he kind of sees that Kamala Harris is polling behind him in the state, and throughout most of the campaign before this kind of rally in Houston, he kind of kept the Harris campaign at a bit of an arm's length, because he didn't wanna be tied with a candidate who, you know, when she was in the Senate was one of the most progressive senators, you know, in the chamber.

So I think it's really, you know, kind of wise of him to kind of make sure that it's very Texas-focused, because that's ultimately what voters are interested in.

- Well, without a doubt, this is going to be a race to watch for sure.

That was Matthew Choi with The Texas Tribune.

Matthew, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- We'll turn now to the city of Austin and the race for mayor and for five city council seats.

In the mayor's race, incumbent Kirk Watson is seeking a third term, facing off with four challengers, Jeffrey Bowen, a local businessman, Doug Greco, former director of Central Texas Interfaith, Carmen Llanes Pulido, a community organizer, and Kathie Tovo, a former city council member.

Joining us now is Luz Moreno-Lozano, city government reporter for KUT News.

Luz, thank you so much for being here.

We appreciate you.

- Thanks for having me, yeah.

- Oh, this is so exciting, and also there's a lot to digest here.

Mayor Watson is, of course, the front-runner at this time, especially when it comes to, you know, fundraising.

And so, I was just wondering, you know, with the five candidates in this race, what do you think that the risk might be for ending up in a potential runoff?

A lot to digest.

- Yeah, you know, there's always the potential for a runoff.

You know, there's five candidates, and the winner of the race has to have 50% plus one vote in order to secure the vote and the win.

But with five candidates, it can be really thin, and so, it could be really close and really tight.

But yeah, you know, he does have a lot of money, and he's raised quite a bit, and it's, you know, it's not, it's unclear how well that's gonna play out with voters on Election Day.

But yeah, we'll see.

- Yes, it is a lot of moving parts for sure.

And so, what do you think maybe voters could expect when it comes to policy and tone, especially when it comes to a fourth Watson term versus those challengers?

We could take an example, of course, housing and land use, a lot to consider there, policing, a lot of issues really.

- Yeah, you know, Kirk Watson has named himself the candidate who gets things done.

You know, he came in.

In two years, he was able to get us a police contract.

He's talking about police safety, he's talking about housing, and he's making moves with Project Connect.

You know, he's gotten things done, and that's gonna be what we, I think, see in a next term.

You know, I think he's got some things that he's still working on when it comes to housing.

There's still a lot to do in that area.

There's still a lot to do with public safety, and if Mayor Watson is elected again, I think we will continue to see him be in that like, "I'm getting things done," mindset.

- All right, all right, well, good stuff.

Let's turn a little bit to council races.

A lot more to digest, Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, and 10, that's a lot- - Yeah.

- Have contested races in the election, of course.

So, I mean, the overall, I guess, overall in the landscape, do you see that there might be a risk for major voting block shifts in the council races, or what are you kind of envisioning there?

- I think, you know, we do have quite a few incumbents.

You know, Vanessa Fuentes and Chito Vela are both running, and I think as incumbents they have a good chance, and Mackenzie Kelly as well in her district as well.

I think the two different ones are District 7 and 10, where we're seeing open seats.

Both of those candidates have not, decided not to rerun.

And so, we will see new people in those places.

As far as block shifts, you know, housing is a really big deal, but I would say like a lot of things have to be in play for there to be a major shift in this change that we've seen across the city, where we're kind of doing like density-forward kind of thinking, and, you know, all of these candidates have their own thoughts about affordability and housing, and I think a lot of things would have to change on the council for there to be a major shift in what we're doing policy-wise.

- Absolutely, we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens, right?

- Yeah, that's exactly it.

- Absolutely, and of course, get ourselves to the polls.

Well, Luz, thank you so much for this insight here on "Austin InSight."

We really appreciate you.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Earlier on in the year, I didn't feel like our democratic health was doing well at all.

- This is the worst I remember it ever being.

People just seem really mad at each other and really tense.

- It's kind of scary to say what you think, what your opinion is, and I wish, you know, we weren't so polarized.

- I definitely do feel like democracy is dicey, which is why this election is more important than anything.

- I think to keep our democracy healthy, we gotta go out and vote.

- As part of our mission here at "Austin InSight," we wanna highlight voices in our community speaking out on issues that matter.

We'll do that with an occasional commentary segment that we're calling "OP/ED."

- In the first "OP/ED," a former longtime county clerk, Dana DeBeauvoir offers her take on voter fraud and election integrity.

- What if you learned from an unimpeachable source that voter fraud was as common as unicorns?

I'm Dana DeBeauvoir, and I served as Travis County clerk for 36 years and conducted over 100 elections for 132 jurisdictions.

In all that time, I never saw voter fraud.

Actual voter fraud is a relic of the past that describes elections long before modern audit laws were passed, and when we had paper ballots that were hand tallied.

The truth is it is almost impossible to change vote totals on over 10,000 locally run individual voting systems.

Voter fraud is the mantra for undermining the credibility of our elections, our entire democracy.

When you hear the term voter fraud, you are hearing an intentional fear campaign that's never been about flipping votes.

Parties and people who don't benefit from outcomes that represent the will of the people spread the lies further.

It takes courage to stand up to fear.

US elections have chain of custody, audits, many checks and balances, and a history of resilience that has withstood constant attack since 2016 without buckling.

So what should you do?

As Dolly Parton said, "Pour yourself a cup of courage."

Make sure you vote.

Your ballot is your courage.

- We, of course, welcome your responses to the opinion segment.

You can send us an email at myopinion@klru.org.

- We'll share various points of view and comments online, and on occasion, on air right here on "Austin InSight."

- I'm a junior in college right now.

So in the next, you know, four years I'll be going into the real world, and I'll have housing costs to think about.

- I have like a strong worry about democracy.

And so, that's definitely something I'm really interested in voting on that issue.

- I think we should have the right to do what we want with our bodies.

Regardless of what I would do with my own, everybody should have that right, and I don't see any laws about a man's body.

(upbeat music) - Now, let's take a break from politics, and onto music.

You may have seen this over the gorgeous Downtown Austin skyline earlier this month above the outdoor stage at the Long Center.

This was a Texas-sized and a Texas-themed drone show, part of the 50th anniversary concert celebration for the "Austin City Limits" TV show, which you know airs right here on PBS.

Texas legend Willie Nelson performed to a crowd of around 3,000 people.

- The experience was a full circle moment, because Willie Nelson performed in the pilot episode of "Austin City Limits" exactly 50 years ago to the day.

These 250 drones made images of everything from the iconic Willie in braids picture to the show's logo to a birthday cake for the anniversary celebration.

The concert is gonna air on Austin PBS, and stations all around the country next spring.

Well, for our premiere show on Halloween, we have a spooky story for you, but with a scientific twist.

Have you ever heard of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University?

Well, it sounds like a typical scientific research facility, but it's also known as the Body Farm.

- This research program explores how human bodies decompose, providing crucial information that can help investigators solve crimes, and now, maybe even save a life.

Our senior multimedia reporter Blair Waltman-Alexin is here to tell us more about that.

- Yeah, for most of its existence, the priority of this facility and its staff has been forensic science, so very "CSI"-like.

But more recently, the research focus has expanded to encompass health sciences, including new discoveries about cancer.

(light music) - There's a saying that, "Dead men don't tell tales," but that is not true.

(light music) Dead people provide lots of information, not only about themselves, but about how they might've died.

They are very talkative.

You just ask 'em the right questions.

(light music) (lively music) My name is Daniel Westcott.

I am a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University, and I am the director of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State.

Got a nice hip fracture.

Part of the research that we do is what's called taphonomic research.

So taphonomy is everything that happens to a once living organism from the moment it dies until it's discovered.

(camera shutter clicking) (lively music) What we do is research on human remains.

We're getting much better at understanding the first weeks or two weeks after death.

So there's a couple things that we can look at here.

When the body is decomposing you get a lot of nitrogen out of it and it'll actually kill off all the vegetation.

So we get this really dark stain around the body and we can find these for years after the body is gone.

But the other thing.

The driving force behind it was to assist law enforcement, or other investigators in interpreting crime scenes.

How long have they been dead?

What happened at that scene?

How do you find missing individuals, clandestine remains?

(light music) Since we're doing decomposition research, we will have bodies that are laying on the surface.

(light music) We are getting individuals that wanted to donate their bodies.

This is important for us for a couple reasons.

One is that we know that the people that are donating to us know what will happen to them.

The other thing is by doing this, we have lots of information about that individual, how much did they weigh, what they did throughout life, you know, where they lived.

You have information about diseases they had, all that kind of stuff.

You're gonna much better get that information from a living donor than you would a next of kin donation.

(light music) We have received a little over 900 individuals, and we have about 2,000 individuals that are pre-registered.

But we've expanded a lot.

Our skeletal collection has grown, which allows us to do a lot of research.

We can do high-resolution CT scans, for example, that you would never be able to do on a living person (light music) to look at disease patterns.

We can start addressing questions that we have about archeological sites, isotope analysis, which allows us to look at where did the person come from.

(light music) Those are the kind of information that we can have that can be applied to a lot of things, including forensic cases.

(knife scraping) - We're investigating a new method of diagnosing cancer.

What's interesting with this collection is that they're from bodies of donors.

So we have the information of cause of death, the primary cancer that the person had, all of this.

And it's also been operating for a while now, so they have a lot of donors, so there's more chances of having a significant sample.

(light music) It's really like the best that I could have hoped for.

(light music) - When I first started in forensic anthropology, most of what forensic anthropologists did was aid in the identification of individuals.

So all those kind of questions change over time, but in reality, we're still at the very beginning.

(gentle music) So we're getting better information, but we still, there's a long ways to note.

(gentle music) They'll be asking the same questions long after I'm part of the skeletal collection.

(gentle music) - So definitely a spooky story, but definitely some important scientific research happening out there at San Marcos.

- Without a doubt, Blair, thank you so much.

Fascinating in more ways than one, and you, of course, can find more of Blair's excellent community journalism online at decibelatx.org.

(upbeat music) It was named the greatest horror movie of all time by "Variety" magazine, and it was shot right here in Austin.

We're talking about, of course, horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and it came out exactly 50 years ago this month.

- To commemorate the anniversary, the film received a special honor from Austin City Hall.

- I caught up with the cast and co-writer on some behind-the-scenes stories and the film's legacy.

- [Narrator] The story which you are about to see is an account of the making of a low-budget movie, which befall a cast and crew of UT students.

For them, a strenuous summer shoot would lead to the creation of what's considered the greatest horror film of all time, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

(chainsaw buzzing) (Sally screaming) - [Laura] You can stop holding your breath.

She gets away.

(Sally screaming) Even people who've never seen the movie can probably tell you this scene is from 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

(Sally screaming) But Sally here is not just driving away from certain death, but straight into the annals of film history.

(chainsaw buzzing) - When we were making this movie, nobody had any idea that this would happen.

- Let me get this straight.

I'm on the same damn shelf as "Gone with the Wind"?

- [Laura] That shelf being at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is credited by film historians as pioneering the slasher genre.

- It was so unique, and so unlike anything else Hollywood was producing at the time.

- [Laura] We follow a group of ill-fated friends on a road trip, when they run into a family of murderous cannibals, including Leatherface.

(chainsaw buzzing) The cutting-edge, gritty realism made many wonder if the massacre was real.

- It's because it's believable.

You know, we weren't like actors.

It was almost like a documentary.

- [Laura] But just to be clear, it was not real.

"Chainsaw's" original budget was $60,000, but it went on to gross around a whopping 30 million.

Kim Henkel wrote the movie with the late director Tobe Hooper.

- Absolutely unimaginable that it's achieved what it has, that it's endured as it has.

- [Laura] Fellow Longhorn David Blue Garcia directed the 2022 installment.

- The first "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was made by a group of Texans from Austin, without any Hollywood connection, went out and made a movie that everyone still talks about.

- [Laura] But for the folks in front of the camera, like Edwin Neal, the Hitchhiker, the real horror happened behind the scenes.

- We didn't have no damn CGI.

They said, "Jump out the window."

We jumped out the window.

The bad news is we was on the second floor.

- [Laura] The production was fraught with injuries.

Gunnar Hansen, the man behind the mask of human skin, nearly impaled himself on his own chainsaw.

And Marilyn Burns, who played Sally, (broken glass tinkling) (Sally's body thudding) well, she got hit and hammered by just about everything.

- Gunnar's supposed to be making a little nick in her hand, and then the blood comes out.

Well, he pressed too hard with the real knife, and really cut her.

(Sally groaning) - She was so light on the first take, I picked her up, and threw her into the roof of the truck.

Wham!

- [Laura] On top of that, they used real animal parts that rotted and created a nauseating stench on set.

- So it was steaming.

It was, not only was the bones and the flesh smelling, but the actors by that time were.

- [Laura] Along with a real human skeleton that was reportedly cheaper to buy than a plastic one.

The film narrowly escaped an X rating, and was even banned in some countries.

Teri McMinn, who played Pam, you may know her as the girl on the hook, (Pam screaming) says she actually chose to stay anonymous about her role in the film until 2008.

- I mean, at that time, horror wasn't a genre.

It was considered one step below porn.

It was, and Marilyn, Bill, and I took it off of our resumes.

- [Laura] However, today- - Thank God for "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

- [Laura] To commemorate the 50th anniversary, the city of Austin made special declaration.

- Do hereby proclaim October 11th, 2024 as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Day in Austin, Texas.

(audience cheering) - [Laura] It's the movie that put the Austin film scene on the map, inspiring a boom in Texas production.

50 years later, it still draws in the Leatherface faithful from all over the world.

- I think we've gained respect in our old age.

- So we see a brand-new audience every single year.

That's amazing.

You know how many films can say that?

Not a lot of 'em.

(chainsaw buzzing) - And it was such a great honor to speak to Mr. Henkel and all of the actors, and I wanna say, despite what you may think initially about the film's subject matter, it's actually not as gory as you think.

A lot is left up to the imagination, and it is way funnier than people give it credit for.

- [Danielle] Well, speaking of filmmaking, the 31st annual Austin Film Festival just wrapped up, and several of the headlining premieres were shot here in Austin.

- [Laura] "Austin InSight" dropped by the festival to chat with a recent UT alum debuting his first feature, and a local writer-director who shot a horror movie in her own house.

Next week on "Austin InSight," we'll bring you those stories and more from the red carpet.

- As we wrap up this Halloween evening, Laura and I wanted to share with you some of our very own furry family members trick-or-treating costumes for this year.

Take a look at your screen.

Right there, you see my puppy Laika, and there, he's dressed as a police officer, and I'm the bad guy.

- [Laura] I love it, y'all are too cute.

And now, you're looking at images of my two furry children.

The first is Wiggles, who is very clearly thrilled to be in his hotdog costume, Chiweenie representation.

We love him, and then on the other side is Daisy, our 107-pound Labrador, who is dressed aptly as a lion.

I actually think she looks pretty believable.

I would believe that if I saw them walking down the street.

They recently competed in a Halloween dog contest.

They did not win.

It's okay, there's always next year, right?

- All good fun nonetheless.

- Exactly.

We'll end our program with a reminder to please go out and vote if you haven't already, and don't forget, you can stream episodes of our program through the Austin PBS app.

- That's right, thank you again so much for joining us on our very first episode ever of "Austin InSight."

We are gonna be back at 7:00 p.m. each and every Thursday right here on Austin PBS.

- [Both] Happy Halloween!

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally & James Gavin, and also by Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in Central Texas.

(bright flute music)