The texas chain saw massacre 1974 film3/25/2023 ![]() ![]() And if you listen to the commentary on the DVD by Gunnar Hansen, you’ll find out exactly how much everybody hated working with the actor, too. You’ll probably cheer when Leatherface buries that chainsaw in his gut. He doesn’t shut his whiney trap for an hour straight and, for a lot of people I’ve talked with, comes close to ruining the movie. Most of the protagonists are empty shells of characters, the only one with even a remotely stand-out personality being Franklin… and dear God, how I hate that guy. Veering away from tangents and anecdotes for a second, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, from an unbiased critical point of view, has its ups and downs. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it actual “snuff” (that’s more the territory of flicks like Faces of Death), but flicks like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House on the Left did begin a trend in horror which can still be felt today in flicks like Saw and Hostel: The “torture porn” movement, if you will. They adored The Evil Dead but came back telling me that Texas Chainsaw Massacre was nothing but “snuff” and were disappointed that I enjoyed it. I recommended it to a couple of kids back in high school along with The Evil Dead. A lot of critics hated it back then and I can still find people today who loathe the film. When it hit in 1974, audiences were, well, justifiably confused (intrigued and excited, but still confused). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a difficult horror film to classify part slasher flick, part splatter flick, part pure, meaningless violence. Some of those old video copies were so dirty you could hardly tell what was going on (I recall always being baffled as to what Sally was looking at in the barbecue pit at the gas station and not being able to decipher it until Pioneer’s special edition DVD in 1998). Of course, I do mean gritty within reason. ![]() While recent transfers have cleaned the picture up to a pristine shine, I actually felt that the gritty picture enhanced the overall nastiness of the plot almost like you’re watching some weirdo’s home movies. Most of the DVD generation likely aren’t aware of this, but the video version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that most of us grew up with was grainier than a wheat silo. And now n’ days, good atmosphere in a horror film is hard to come by. Sure, there are parts that haven’t aged all that gracefully, moments that were scary thirty-five years ago only to come across as humorous now, and Franklin never ceases to become more obnoxious with each repeat viewing… but the atmosphere crafted by Director Tobe Hooper is one of the finest you’ll find in any horror film. ![]() Watching it again so many years later, and having seen it at least a dozen times, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre holds up remarkably well. These inbred hillbillies, including the grotesque Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), the spastic Hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) and the two-faced Old Man (Jim Siedow) have a massacre in store for the foolish teenagers. Little do they know, their old digs are right across the way from the Sawyer family, a group of cannibalistic and sadistic fiends of all shapes and sizes. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother Franklin (Paul A Partain) and three of their friends decide to take a road trip down the back roads of super duper rural Texas to visit the old house they grew up in. ![]()
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