The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Directed by:
Tobe HooperCinematography:
Daniel PearlCast:
Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John Dugan, Robert Courtin, William Creamer (more)Plots(1)
A group of teenagers on the road in Texas stop off at the wrong farm and encounter a family gone awry. Once abattoir workers, the decay of the Southern rural economy has left them unemployed, and the directionless father and sons take to using their butchering skills on passing people. One by one, the kids encounter members of the grisly family. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (9)
I'm not a big fan of old horror movies, but with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I just couldn't resist. I've seen the 2003 film, which didn't impress or scare me that much. The original film can't be denied for creating an authentic atmosphere of some American backwater where a bunch of young people are at the mercy of madmen with perverted appetites. At times I found the character of the invalid very irritating, but that's just my opinion. All in all, a solid horror film that is a bit dull at the beginning, but the second half positively balances this out.
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Despite the lack of bloody naturalistic details, it is an absolutely brutal piece that I don't recommend to weaker characters. The last quarter of an hour is probably the scariest passage I've seen in the horror genre. No macabre orgy, no flying limbs, but something much worse, a concentrated mixture of terror, dismay and a certain sense of disgust at seeing human perversion in its most horrible form. The last time I had a similarly intense experience was watching the famous violent scene in Boorman's Deliverance.
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It's strange, but much more of the tension and eerie atmosphere happen in the daytime. With the onset of night comes a psychotic sequence of scenes that jolt the brain and common sense rather than the nerves. The confused running through the forest accompanied by the roaring of the "chainsaw" may not be as strange, but the dinner scene at the family table is among the weirdest things one can witness in cinema. The editing of both the visuals and sound, along with detailed close-ups of the protagonist's eye, create an almost hallucinogenic impression. The resulting effect, presumably intended to disgust the viewer, is achieved fully. All in all, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre feels like two disjointed episodes that don't quite fit together, and the connection between them, represented by the shared title, seems somewhat forced. The feeling of mutual incoherence lingers in the mind and cannot be easily dismissed.
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Today, it’s considered a classic slasher film, which, among other things, shows that even a proper maniac should be in good shape. What I certainly didn't expect was the swift and uncompromising elimination of all the protagonists. For the opening scene with the skeletons and the ending with the dinner and everything after (especially the dance with the saw), the film deserves five stars. But it's still missing "something". And there is quite a lot of "something".__P.S. Now I can watch the remake in peace, so I'm in the loop.
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A very intense film full of violence and filth in the distinctive style of Tob Hooper. I was very surprised that when compared with the remake, this one is a completely different film, one that relies on the atmosphere generated by the violent behaviour of the cannibal family, but without being as graphic (the remake had blood and innards hanging everywhere), here the brutality is only hinted at. Since the viewer doesn’t see anything clearly, their fantasy can start working at full steam, which is a lot worse than when they show intestines and blood.
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