TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: Marilyn Burns / Gunnar Hansen / Paul Partain

Plot

Five young people take a road trip to Texas to visit family and wind up running from a family of deranged cannibals.

What I Liked

"Who will survive and what will be left of them?"  Absolutely one of my all-time favorite movie taglines.  It captures this unhinged exploitation classic perfectly.

One of the prototypical slasher films made before the subgenre really existed yet, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remains notorious forty years after its initial release, and for good reason.  In fact, it is still more unsettling and gruesome than most of the horror films I’ve seen in recent years.

Ironically, part of what makes the original such a visceral experience is its low budget.  With a budget of less than $300,000, producer and director Tobe Hooper turned his limitations into advantages.  The grainy quality of the footage, the lack of slick production and effects, and the instability of the camera suggests to the audience the impression of watching a documentary, a feeling heightened by the movie’s oft-imitated introduction.

More than anything, though, it’s just the savagery of it all that continues to make “Texas Chainsaw” a disturbing experience nearly a half century later.  The killers do their chilling deeds without comprehensible explanation.  Leatherface in particular is beyond reasoning.  Everything about this film breaks the rules of how a movie is supposed to unfold and what a movie is supposed to show you.  So as we watch a group of lost hippies get butchered, we the viewers become disoriented by our scattered expectations and scarred by our butchered senses.

In Leatherface, the hulking, chainsaw-wielding man-child who relentlessly pursues his defenseless victims, Hooper created the first iconic killer of the slasher genre.  What makes him, in some ways, more frightening than a Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, though, is that he is more believable.  He has neither the ghostly silence of Myers nor the superhuman abilities of Vorhees.  He comes across as a human being – albeit a homicidal maniac of a man – and not a larger-than-life figure.  That Leatherface is also a family man makes him all the more frightening, especially considering his family.  Throw in the fact that he’s (very loosely) based on an actual guy (Ed Gein), and Leatherface is downright terrifying.

It ranks, without a doubt, among the handful of the most disturbing fictional films I have ever seen.

What I Didn’t Like

Hey, Marilyn Burns.  We get it.   You’re scared.  But really, stop screaming for just a second.  Take a breath.  After about a solid hour of hearing you scream, I can’t blame Leatherface for wanting to string you up and gut you.  I mean, I get it.  If I were in your position, I’d be screaming just as high-pitched and louder (actually, I’d probably just pass right out).  But I’m trying to be entertained here and your voice makes me long for the gentle melodies of fingernails on a chalkboard.  Just shut up.

Please also be forewarned that, though this film influenced a whole generation or two of scary movies to follow, it does not have the precise pacing, scripting, and production values of its more mainstream followers.  An independent film in the truest sense, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” lacks almost all professional polish.  Some viewers might find sections of the film confusing, bizarre, or maybe even boring.  But, as mentioned above, it’s the unhinged, unpredictable nature of the film that contributes to the overall terror that is this movie.

Most Memorable Scene

Like a lot of the films in my list, there are several moments of this movie that will carve out their own little spots in your brain.  For “Texas Chainsaw” this rings all the more true because of how unusual, both technically and thematically, this movie is.  Still, I am fairly certain that there is little in the world of movies that will prepare a viewer for the family dinner.  Of course, we’ve got good old Marilyn Burns screaming her head off the whole time, but the truth is, you’ll either want to do exactly the same thing or you’ll be laughing your ass off at how damn insane this movie is.  Either way, you’ll probably only be able to take watching this movie once every few years.  I've seen the movie several times.  Hell, I own it.  But, if you’re someone who likes to watch that scene more than once a year, you scare me a little.

My Rating: 4 out of 5