The Texas Chainsaw Massacre review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
The film, which you are about to see, is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths. That’s the first sentence of the scrolling text that opens the film. As the text ends we open with a shot of a corpse sitting atop gravestone. The first time you see this film you may think this is some sort of a documentary or a true story. It’s crazy right? Who came up with this?? Tobe Hooper who was just out of film school came up with this film. Chainsaw is a horror film and it is every bit just that. It’s nasty, it’s violent, it’s unrelenting and I love every minute of it. When I think of a horror film this may be the mother lode. Five young adults in a van driving through Nowhersville, Texas to go check on a desecrated grave of one of our character’s family members. Chaos ensues and really that’s putting it mildly. Some more of the text from the intro - they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. There is a lot going on in this film so let’s talk about it.
Released in 1974, TCM is the first film from Director Tobe Hooper who sadly passed away in 2017. We mentioned the plot is about five friends driving somewhere in Texas to check on a grave of a family member of the main character Sally. The cast isn’t memorable but they aren’t bad. Sally’s brother Franklin whines and complains a lot and the other three just seem to be along for the ride. They can’t find any gas so they end up at a swimming hole behind an old run down farmhouse. Well obviously they go in and that’s when the madness starts. They are murdered one by one by an inhuman monster named Leatherface. Sally is the lone survivor of the ordeal but at the end you’re not sure she’ll ever be right again as she is deliriously laughing as she is driven away from harm in the back of a pickup truck covered in blood.
The title of the film is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre so that gets you in the theater. Here’s the reality though – there isn’t that much gore in the film. Leatherface hits his victims with a sledgehammer, hangs them on meat hooks, and attacks them with chainsaws. The thing is we only see a brief part of that. Your mind imagines the rest. One of the great scenes in that film is when he hangs her on the meat hook. I think they used some sort of pantyhose rig to hold her up. What your mind can come up with is a lot scarier than what you actually see.
What you do see in the film though is serious psychological terror that doesn’t stop for 90 minutes. That first scene in the cemetery has a radio voice under it talking about awful crimes committed by grave robbers. There’s a drunken guy at the cemetery babbling nonsense. It’s hot and it’s dusty. I don’t like this place and that’s the idea. The whole feel of the film is just bad. It’s miserable out here in the great state of Texas in the summer and everything that’s about to happen to them reflects it. The old beat up gas station that they stop at is barely in business. Apparently they have good BBQ though! The setting is so real. After I watched this movie a few times and it got into my psyche I swore I’d never visit Texas because I was sure I would get lost and chopped up. Along their trip they pick up an incredibly deranged hitchhiker who takes their picture, demands they pay him, and cuts Franklin’s arm. It’s a really claustrophobic scene in the van with no air conditioning. We’ll hear from our gas station proprietor and hitchhiker later.
After they start snooping around in the farmhouse, one of them stumbles into a room full of bones. Pam trips and falls in and when she sees what’s in there she’s horrified. Full skeletons, bones in birdcages, bones completely covering the floor, lamps made from bones. I think that’s the first time you really start to get scared. After that we meet Leatherface and you won’t soon forget it. He kills Kirk with a hammer and drags him into his lair by slamming a slaughterhouse door. One of the more iconic scenes in the movie. After Leatherface kills Franklin, Sally is captured and wakes up in one of the scarier house of horrors you could imagine. Tied to a chair made of human limbs while surrounded by a cannibalistic family having dinner. The owner of the gas station and the hitchhiker included. They’re howling, they’re laughing, and they’re torturing her. Extreme close-ups of her eye, of the family. It’s almost too much. The scene taking place in a dining room that looks like it might be 150 degrees in there with some mystery meat on the table. Leatherface is wearing his Pretty Woman mask. If that wasn’t enough for you, then they bring out Grandpa who must be 100+ years old and barely alive. They place Sally over a pail while Grandpa tries to bust her over the head with a hammer. It’s intense and you want to stop watching. She does get away though as we mentioned earlier. The final images of Leatherface wildly swinging his saw are a memorable ending to the film.
Ever heard of Ed Gein? He was a grave robber and necrophiliac who became notorious for his crime in 1950s Wisconsin. Hooper based TCM on Gein, as did many films including Psycho. Various themes exist in the movie though. The cannibalistic family is in the meat trade but has been put out of business by evolving technology that doesn’t require as much human effort. They have lost their means of survival and a way to provide food for themselves. This is what their lives have become. It’s the only trade they know and they will continue it now on humans. The film was released in 1974 which was just when the Vietnam War was ending. The country was in a state of madness and the film echoes it. The group is lost, wandering. They can’t get out of the situation, which was a lot like the war. During Vietnam the country finally saw images of what a war looked like right there on the living room television. Well here’s a movie that’s going to be just as graphic. How about the fact that it is just, well, really scary. I certainly hope you remember Leatherface chasing Sally through the woods right?!
This film is great honestly and very important. I said there is a lot going on and it shows in every scene. Made for very little money with borrowed equipment and a cast and crew that knew next to nothing. Shot in the Texas heat the production was legendary. Check out the making of sometime. Word is the mafia was involved in the production and kept most of the money. Let’s not forget the music in TCM. More of a score maybe? High pitched disturbing stuff that works so well. Tuning fork against a piano wire I believe. I realize the title of the film will turn people away and quite frankly if you don’t like scary flicks you will probably never watch it. The Library of Congress thought it was good. So did the Museum of Modern Art. Just saying…
Could you imagine something like this being real? Ghosts are believable; monsters are fun to see on screen but damn, this is a scary film. The atmosphere, the sets, the characters. Leatherface is a seriously terrifying creature. It’s so real and raw. No fancy lighting (if any at all), no known actors, nothing that happens in a regular production. I saw Rob Zombie talking about the movie once and he wondered if these were actors or crazy people? Of course it’s great so none of that matters. I was lucky enough to meet Marilyn Burns (Sally) and Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface) before they passed away. The film has legions of fans and if you are ever in Austin, check out the house from the film. It’s a restaurant now. Lots of sequels of course and a remake. I enjoyed some of them but nothing can touch the original of course. The last line of the scrolling text from the opening is the events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Isn’t there a saying don’t mess with Texas?...
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l88omZtzw9w