When released in 1974 the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a film that was ahead of its time. Or at least ahead of the Censors. Injecting subjects such as grave robbing and cannibalism into the film it was prime fodder for the growing war on film classification, which ended up in it being banned in the UK for 25 years.
The film was made on a budget of around $140,000 the film grossed around $100m worldwide and became a cult classic as the years went on, this is what happens when films are banned, just look at I Spit On Your Grave. However, while most films are banned because of violence they should really be banned because of their sheer low quality.
Luckily The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn’t fall into the common trap.
Ironically though the gore is minimal. There is very little violence actually seen in the film, the violence is implied rather than shown, which makes it that bit better than it trying to be another gore-fest horror film because you can use your imagination. There is more violence in Scream than there is in this film.
The film follows a group of 5 unlucky teenagers who set out to a graveyard that has been desecrated. Sally (Marilyn Burns) wants to know if her grandfather has been left or taken. Along with Sally is her wheelchair bound brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain), Jerry and friends Kirk and Pam.
They then decide
to go to her grandfathers house, as there is no petrol at the station for them to be able to get back, while driving they pick up a slightly odd hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who seems harmless at first (albeit a bit mad) but grows ever more disturbing and he is chucked out of the van when he slashes Franklin.
They arrive at Sally's grandfather's house and Pam and Kirk decide to find an old swimming hole. While exploring the area Kirk finds a farmhouse with a gasoline canister, thinking that he could borrow it he enters the house. Unfortunately the house is the home of Leatherface and soon Kirk is caught by him and taken into the kitchen to be 'prepared'.
This then starts a day, and night, of terrifying consequences for each of the hapless teenagers, with each one of them coming under the chainsaw of Leatherface. The heroine is in the form of Sally, who seemingly survives an intense and very well done nighttime chase, only to find out that her efforts were in vain, resulting in her meeting all the cannibalistic family.
The house is simply amazing. There are long, wide drapes of animal skin adorning the walls. The furniture is made entirely from bones, in all shapes and sizes and on the floor there are hundreds of pieces of animal skin littered on the floor. Top it off with the fact that there are some ‘permanent tenants’ upstairs and you’ve got a house fit for a cannibal family. It’s not nice to look at and I bet it’s not too nice to live there either.
The pace of the film starts off quite slow. There is the initial high when they pick up the hitchhiker but then it goes down once more. However you always get the underlying feeling that they are heading for impending doom (and that’s not just because the film has ‘Chainsaw’ and ‘Massacre’ in the title). The pace does pick up once Leatherface has shown his face, well a person’s face anyway, and from then on it’s an adrenaline rush as you see the characters get picked off one by one.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is unsettling for a number of reasons. For a start with it being true. Well not totally true, to be truthful, it is loosely based on real events of grave robbing in Texas. However the context of the film is unsettling enough. The way in Tobe Hooper has made this film is worthy of credit. This is thanks to its low budget. If it was flash, with lots of special effects, big sets and fancy camera angles it would loose most of its effect straight away. What we have is a film that has a gritty, raw effect, which makes it realistic. Then is Leatherface himself, played by Gunnar Hansen, the unspeaking and unemotional killer. A pure psycho. Leatherface is a true horror character; he kills but acts as if everything he does is normal. Credit has to go to Hansen, who plays Leatherface superbly, making him seem very real indeed.
The acting itself is, by most parts, well done. Marilyn Burns may be a bit too ‘screamy’ towards the end but it doesn’t hide the fact that she plays the part with a lot of effort and plays it well. She also did her own stunts, so there we go. Jim Siwdow also does well at playing the ‘head’ of the family, despite him looking weak against Leatherface it is he who commands the authority in the house.
There are a few problems with this film though. There is little character development, this is because that the screentime is always being split with the characters at the beginning and when they are alone they are then killed. Another is the way they split up or go wandering around on their own, its painful to watch because you just know what’s going to happen, however this is only because the horror genre has done this with slashers and that craze didn’t start until the 1980s.
The film has ‘inspired’ 3 sequels, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (1990) and The Return of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994). The gore content in these films are substantially greater than the original leading them all but Part 4 to be banned in this country. However you are not missing out on much. There was also a rumour that there was to be another sequel to the series ‘TX25’ (to mark it’s 25th anniversary) however the rumours stopped as soon as they had started and there has been no other news on the supposed sequel.
As the saying goes the original is the best and has the effect diminished? Well, no. Today TCM is still viewed as a 'nasty' and people are still going to be shocked by it. My friends can happily watch mock-serious horror films such as Scream, and I Know, they even don’t mind watching The Exorcist, another former ‘nasty’ but they don’t ever want to see Leatherface in a million years.
The tagline is true, once you've stopped screaming you *will* start talking about it.
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE IS
Shocking Unsettling Slightly true
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE IS NOT
That violent That deep A film to get cooking tips from
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Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe ... more
Hooper (Poltergeist,Lifeforce,Salem's Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it's also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it's blood-curdling scary, too. Loose...
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![The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [DVD] [1999]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/75115440.jpg "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [DVD] [1999]")
Jun 7th, 2001
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