The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

I remember first hating this movie, not because I found it scary, it is, though not in a jump scare kind of way, but on the back of it first being released on DVD, in the UK, and all the attention it was getting. So, I bought a copy, decided I didn't like it, returned it, and when asked for a reason I reported that the 5 star reviews on the cover, and those pointed to within the store, were wholly inaccurate - I'm amazed I managed to get a refund for that. Anyway, I was 20 years old back then, 42 now, and find myself able to appreciate it much much more.

All the really good stuff in this movie sits within the last 20 mins or so, and is really quite masterful. There is some good amount of build up to that, including Leatherface's first moments of hack and slash, but all the serious tension and horror comes at the very end, and is really effective. What's interesting about it, is that there isn't an enormous amount of character development, which I suppose also serves to make the travellers in this case more disposable, the focus being much more front and centre on the horror being experienced. It seems somewhat more visceral, with the victim's having had very little character development, in the build up, which seems to bring it more closely to you. Hope that makes sense in some way.

Anyway, well worth your time!

I hated this film.

I still fail to see how it, along with F13, managed to acquire a cult following. TCM is critically acclaimed for its rawness, for its brutality, and for unrelenting portrayal of a warped family based on everyone's favorite psycho Ed Gein. And granted, it has perks and high points . . . but good God, did it ever annoy the hell out of me!

Maybe I'm just sick and twisted and desensitized by violence in the entertainment mediums, but I don't sympathize with the victims solely because they're about to be slaughtered in a 16mm slasher film. The TCM family of films was the first to show me this. I did not like the characters. Although, the characters in TCM did teach me a small lesson – I learned that even if I feel sympathy for someone who is physically disabled, that person can be so annoying that I'd ignore those feelings and want to see him crippled further (specifically, something to permanently incapacitate the jaw.)

"I'll cut you some slack, Franky, given the circumstance. But if you deserve a punch to the face, I don't care if you are in a wheelchair, you will get punched to the face."

Texas Chainsaw Massacre also taught me why other movies ignore the realism of having their characters not scream when they should. Sally, sweet Sally, what powerful lungs you have . . . she screams. And screams. And continues screaming. And I wanted more than anything for Leatherface to shut her up. For the love of God, end the scream before it goes on for another 30 minutes. Gramps? Please, maybe you can shut her up! Someone! Is there a competent killer in the house?

I hesitate to say Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a plot, just as I hesitate to say any slasher film has a plot. A "scenario" would be a better phrasing. It's a bit unnerving how vividly and accurately three words can describe the typical slasher scenario: "Kids. Isolated. Killer." If you need more than that, you've never seen a slasher film. If you expect more than that, you've never seen a slasher film. So I really can't criticize TCM for having any less of a plot than, say, Halloween. I *can* say the unsympathetic characters in TCM made me care that the scenario they were to enact was so threadbare.

Leatherface running around in an apron that eerily resembles a dress struck fear in me for all the wrong reasons, and I really did not need to see the cut scene on the DVD where he puts makeup and the Grandma's wig on the mask. Leatherface running through the woods with the chainsaw over his head while Sally screamed and screamed and ran, and went on way too long (much like the action films that would come 30 years later) – all of went to prove that without a doorway to pop out of, Leatherface is a pansy who can't shut up one girl.

Anyway, contrary to what I had written in my original review I did revisit Texas Chainsaw Massacre with hopes that perhaps I had let expectation get in the way of seeing the movie for what it was. Also contrary to what I wrote in the original reviews, I did check out all the sequels and even the remake. While my opinion has come away from the extreme hatred I initially held for the film, it didn't come away by very much. I still more or less feel the same way: it has some nice camera work early on in the film, wonderful colors in the dusk sky, and a sweet camera move as it glides under a swing. I'm still impressed that the movie for the most part refrains from dragging out its "stalking" sequences with false scares, and that Tobe gets some kills over and done with before the audience can blink. The music has never stuck with me, nor has much else.

Revisiting Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I still did not like characters, although I did find myself tolerating them a lot more. And actually, early on in the film I thought perhaps my opinion might – just might – have changed in the years since my last viewing. Alas, that glimmer of hope slowly faded until the bottom dropped out entirely at the sound of Sally's screams. Sally, sweet Sally, shut up already.

Oh well, looks like I'm going to continue to walk a part from the bandwagon on this one. I still feel that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is living breathing proof that shock-fest exploitation films lose their power to truly and rightly be considered classics. TCM shocked the generation who grew up on it, but I come from a different time where all of TCM's descendants have robbed it of what power it might have held – that first glimpse of 16mm terror that no one had ever seen before. Now it's just the first in a long monotonous line.

In closing: There's a difference between shocks and suspense, the latter gives a film its staying power. I still hold my breath watching Psycho. I still feel a rush of anxiety hearing Benny cue up his infamous strings, and I still feel a chill run down my spine as the camera pushes in on Norman Bates. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, by contrast, has no more shocks, thus has no power over me.

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs n found it to be very very disturbing.

Revisited it recently on a dvd which I own.

This film is very terrifying n intense.

What a terrific achievement inspite of the tiny budget.

It has amazing direction n top not cinematography. The dreadful, creepy n isolated atmosphere added more intensity.

The opening statement and the way it is handled, all gav this movie a documentary feel n made it more terrifying.

The whole film has this dark n isolated look but the best part is nothing is shot in dim light or shaky cam or with flickering lights stuff.

Screaming from Marilyn Burns got on my nerves at times. Her constant jumping from the windows n repeated screaming n the trauma she goes thru made the movie more emotionally scary.

Some may find the dinner scene to b the most iconic n terrifying coz it gives the entire idea but i found the scene wher Leatherface keeps chasing the victim with a chainsaw to be pure nightmare n pure terrifying n intense stuff.

Also the scene wher Leatherface maniacally dances with his chainsaw is downright creepy.

The first kill is the most brutal n shocking. Ther is no gore or violence portrayed but jus the impact of the scene is brutal. The swing of the hammer and the way the victim falls to the ground and starts shaking, is just plain brutal n unbearable to watch.

Those who have posted here comparing Tobe Hooper's (one and only) masterpiece with the dreadful remake are presumably young children with no real understanding of cinema. The 1974 film is the antithesis of the slick, MTV-influenced, cynical cash-in mentality that informed the later remake. The fact that the remake's target teen audience (well, at least some of them) appeared to lap it up is just a sad reflection of how far standards have fallen since the heyday of the horror film in the 70's.

But Hooper's CHAINSAW is more than just a classic horror film. With its print in the permanent collection at the NY Museum of Modern Art, it truly is a classic of cinema. I've shown this to Bergman fans, Tarkovsky fans and, yes, horror fans too - none of them have been prepared for its power, its inventiveness, its willingness to push the envelope of what cinema can do. And, with its simple story and powerhouse, unstoppable delivery, it is as open to interpretation as any piece of "modern art" - whether it be from the "vegetarian treatise" angle, or the post-Vietnam traumatised America school of thought. But, as I was on my first (of several) viewings, those I have introduced to this movie have been bowled over by the quality of the film-making, and the filmic techniques (soundtrack, editing, startling images) used by Hooper to capture his "waking nightmare" on screen. It is something I really don't think any other film has quite achieved, though many have tried.

Now, of course, there is a fluke element at work here. Hooper never came close to achieving anything like this again, and many, though not all, of the film's fascinating resonances are a product of the era and the filmmaker's unconscious sensibilities. What he obviously had as a director was the kind of daring to take the visceral power that cinema can deliver so well to the limit, to the the edge of acceptability, skirting on exploitation. That the film is so unrelentingly dark and so unbelievably sadistic in its second half, and yet fascinates even as it traumatises, is a definite testimony to the skill of its director. What could have been sleaze is instead a horrible nightmare experience, sure enough, but one that borders on the transcendental. Should be seen by ALL students of cinema at least once in their lifetime.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre can, and will, be reinterpreted by critics and theorists for decades to come. It was shot in the summer of 1973, during the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Munich Olympics massacre, at the height of the Watergate scandal and the legal investigation into the shootings at Kent State. It was an era of plane hijackings, government oppression and dishonesty, racial conflict, terrorism and revolution. As a mirror of a dark period in American history, Chain Saw remains one of the best evocations yet of the era, as a group of young individuals, returning to the nostalgic home of their childhood, stumble into the raw and irrational cruelty of the modern world.

The movie has a weak, though functional storyline, one that has since became the staple for slasher movies; a group of teenagers get lost, stumble across evil and get stalked and killed. But Chain Saw isn't about storyline and plot; it's about creating an experience, a sensory overload. The cast and crew work tirelessly to create scenes and images that are raw and powerful and ultimately, against all expectations, beautiful. Leatherface's travesty of motherly domesticity as he prepares dinner, his child-like dance in the dawn light, the open door at the gas station, the van making it's slow turn off the road towards the derelict and ivy clad Hardesty residence are all images that burn themselves into your consciousness after just a single viewing.

The cinematography is exceptional. Watching the Special Edition, you'd never know that this was shot on 16mm in poor light. The picture quality is outstanding, the colors rich and vibrant, the blacks inky and menacing. The brilliant azure skies, the jade green of the grass, the bright red generator, the searing sunlight and stifling shadows. Every frame seems saturated in nicotine gold. Beautiful.

Though not always likable, the actors are always believable. Performances are universally startling, but special mention has to go to Marilyn Burns. Though she has little more to work with than the clichéd screaming heroine, she works it with remarkable conviction. It was a traumatic shoot, and it shows. Few actresses have so effectively conveyed mind-numbing terror.

The soundtrack is exceptional and deserves more recognition. It is a great testimony to the experimentation and risk taking attitude of the era that all melody is destroyed under an industrial ambient soundscape of metallic clangs, scrapes and screams, evoking the atmosphere of the local slaughterhouse and the Family's state of mind. Terrifying.

Despite the complete lack of gore or extreme physical violence, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre continues to horrify and holds up the countless, shot-on-video, slasher clones of subsequent years for the puerile crap that they truly are. Whether by accident or design, this one is a classic.

9 out of 10