The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Tobe Hooper
Country:  United States
Availability: DVD

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - for a film that is now 38 years old its reputation for being brutal and horrifying still precedes it. The history of the horror movie genre is just as long and as rich as any other genre in movie making.  There have been scary movies that have tested the tolerance of its audience since the silent film, and the controversies surrounding their violence, gore and gratuitous sex and nudity are just as old still. Thousands of movies have been made under the blood-soaked umbrella of the horror genre and yet to this day there remain very few that are remembered past their shelf life. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one such movie.

The first scene that we're introduced to is completely surreal. We're forced to look at a decaying, gooey corpse posed awkwardly atop a tombstone in midday as we listen to a radio broadcast play. The unsettling part comes in when you realize that you're so caught up with listening to what the broadcast is saying about the recent brutal murders and the discoveries of bodies that you forget that you're staring at this horrifying, unwavering statue of death and decay for over a minute. And for all of you horror movie buffs out there you'll note that the opening sequence of the photographs being taken introduce us, perhaps for the first time ever, to that creepy camera sound effect (later to be reused in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well as other slasher flicks that follow).

The movie setup is one that is tried and true - a carload full of friends on the road to somewhere end up in the middle of nowhere and soon after tragedy befalls them one by one. The characters aren't particularly remarkable, nor is the dialog, but the places where TTCM shines makes all the difference - like the gritty home video feel; the complete helplessness and clumsiness of the wheelchair-bound brother; the utter unpredictability of the hitchhiker; the atmosphere of all of the buildings and so forth. And that's all before we even get to Leatherface. The terror truly starts when Leatherface makes his first appearance, bursting through the rusty metal door like some faceless Frankenstein's monster, swallowing you up before you've even had the chance to scream. The violence starts from there and while it's horrific it's practically bloodless, your terror is born with the endless screaming and flailing and running and ... screaming. There is a lot of screaming. Let's talk about the screaming.

The performance given by Marilyn Burns, who plays Sally - the main female character, is unrelenting and intense and one of the most remarkable elements of the movie. She goes from zero to one hundred in moments and never stops, never lets up. Her fear and her reaction to that fear just grows and becomes more manic and desperate, in the end she more resembles a tortured, mad, blood-soaked wild animal than anything resembling a person.  And the final scene is so iconic in horror movie history that even if you haven't seen TTCM you're probably familiar with the image of Leatherface standing in the road, chainsaw raised over his head as he spins wildly in circles. To this day, 38 years later, TTCM is still regarded as one of the most important and influential horror movies ever made. And having only just seen in for the second time in ten years, I might just have to agree.

5 out of 5 stars