Franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

As I've said before, when you grow up being a fan of the horror genre, there are some movies that you instantly know of long before you actually see them, either because their reputations are almost mythic or simply because of how lurid their titles are. In the case of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was both as far as I was concerned. It was one of those movies like The Exorcist that I heard so many things about while I was exploring the horror genre from my early adolesence onward. My mom had actually seen it at the drive-in when she was a teenager, as she did The Exorcist, and I remember her saying that it was one of the more horrific movies she had ever seen. (Incidentally, Mom doesn't like horror films and she says she can't remember whom she went with to see those movies. It couldn't have been my dad because he feels the same way so I don't know who but apparently, somebody was trying to give Mom a heart attack when she was a teenager!) That's often what I heard about it from other sources. People would tell me that it was one of the most disgusting, gruesome, hideous movies ever made and the general feeling that I got from it all was, "This is something you shouldn't see. This is absolutely vile." It wasn't hard to believe what everyone was telling me as well. With a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I was imagining the most horrifying stuff you could think of: bodies being sliced to pieces, the cannibal family munching on the pieces of meat and drinking the blood, the sheer gruesomeness of the bone and skin sculptures that I had heard were in the film, etc. It sounded like a movie that was the epitome of madness and, like The Exorcist, I actually felt like I would be committing a sin in watching it due to how everyone I knew regarded it.

Because of all that, I actually didn't see the movie for the first time until I was seventeen. I was avoiding it, not only because of what everyone else said but I honestly thought that this movie would harm my psyche, that it would scar me! It all came to a head one day when I was in FYE and I saw the DVD in the horror section. Back then, FYE and other video stores had these little monitors where you could scan the barcode of any given DVD and you could watch the movie's trailer. Being curious, I did that for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and what I saw was that original trailer that Bryanston put out when it was released. Good God, did that freak me out! I remember being absolutely disturbed by the scene of Pam running away from Leatherface in the house only for him to catch her just as she gets out the door and drag her back in and by Jerry getting whacked in the head by the mallet after he discovers Pam's body in the freezer. I was thinking to myself, "This looks like the most insane movie ever made!" I also decided, "Okay, this isn't for me. I will never see this." However, despite that decision, I still couldn't hold back my curiosity and I researched the film further. As I read more and more reviews of it, I discovered that, while undoubtedly disturbing, it wasn't quite the insane, grotesque horror show that I had pictured it being. I learned that it actually wasn't very bloody at all and that it was more about sheer terror than gruesomeness, although it had quite a bit of that as well. I also saw the iconic clubbing scene during Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments and thought, "Wow, that was really suspenseful and had a great payoff." I then figured that if the movie really was trying to be a scary horror film instead of a disgusting exploitation movie that would just make me feel unclean for having watched it, then it was my cup of tea after all. And I actually saw quite a bit of the 2003 remake on cable when I was in my senior year in high school and I thought that was pretty good so I decided to give the original a shot. I actually got the DVDs of the original and the remake for Christmas that year and, not too long afterward, I saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time.

My initial feelings were, "Interesting. Dated and at times a little too weird but interesting." Yeah, I had mixed feelings about the movie that first time. I think there were a couple of reasons for that. One is undoubtedly because I had seen the remake a few times beforehand. I guess since that film is much faster paced and was a bit more in line with what I was expecting the original to be like in terms of its gruesomeness, that really hurt my first impressions of the original. Another thing that didn't help was that the print of the film that I saw and had for a long time was really crappy. I had heard all of the stories that the film felt more like a documentary than an actual movie but I think I was expecting that in its atmosphere rather than its actual look. I was a bit taken aback by how grainy and crappy the film looked and it was actually so dark that half of the time I couldn't tell what was going on. Even though, upon subsequent viewings, I had to admit that it did actually add something to the film (again, once I turned the TV's brightness up a little bit so I could see), I was at first expecting the movie to be remastered at least a little for that DVD release. (In other words, I was expecting the movie to look like the Dark Sky Films release when I first saw it.) Third and foremost, all of the stuff I had read and heard about the movie no doubt created expectations that it couldn't meet. Watching that Bryanston trailer probably wasn't a good idea since it spoils a lot of the scares (not to mention that section of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments that I saw) but, on top of that, I had heard that the film was just the most intense, white-knuckle horror film ever. While I did think the movie had some creepy and disturbing moments, I was never absolutely scared out of my wits and I thought some parts of the movie dragged (although, that could have simply been due to the fact that I couldn't see half of what was going on). To sum things up, I unintentionally screwed up my first viewing of the film and ended up with some very mixed feelings. But, I've always felt that I should see a movie at least twice before making a final judgement on it and gave it another shot. That second time, I was a little more into the movie now that I knew what to expect. The third time, I got even deeper into it and it went on from there each time I watched it until finally, I had gotten to a point where I could safely say that I thought it was an awesome horror film, an opinion that I still hold to this day (which is why, for those of you who haven't read it, I put it in the top ten of my 101 Favorite Horror Films).

Everybody knows the story of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: five teenagers are driving across South Texas so a brother and sister can see if their grandfather's grave has been involved in a recent series of grave-robberies (although I'm sure few other than die-hard horror fans know those specifics) and eventually fall prey to a cannibalistic family living in the backwoods. However, one of the things that has made the film infamous is that many people, both in 1974 and to this day, thought and still think that the story is true. The trailers and posters, with their lurid taglines, "What happened was true. The most bizarre and brutal series of crimes in America," and, "The story is true. Now the motion picture that is just as real," were what cemented that idea in the mainstream. However, as anybody who has ever read up on the film knows, it may have taken some elements and concepts from the real-life case of 1950's serial killer Ed Gein but, other than that, the actual story is a work of fiction. It was the people at Bryanston Pictures who came up with the notion of promoting the film as having been a true story, a notion that they played up with their marketing campaign (although, as we'll see, Tobe Hooper himself has given a very timely reason for the opening crawl that proclaims the film to be true). As a result, they anticipated what Artisan did with The Blair Witch Project over two decades beforehand. This fact is actually unnecessary in discussing the film but I just felt that I had better address it before diving really deep into it.

Anybody who's been reading this blog for a long time knows that, for the most part, I am not a fan of the movie's director, Tobe Hooper. He's made some fairly good movies as well as some entertainingly bad ones in the decades since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but most of his films have been absolutely dire and unwatchable. Save for Poltergeist, the success of which is more often credited to Steven Spielberg than Hooper, even his good films have paled in comparison to his debut movie, which makes myself and other people wonder what happened. Did Hooper just put so much time, thought, and energy into this movie that, as a result, everything else that followed was nowhere near its level? Or is Hooper, in reality, a talentless hack of a director who got really lucky and just sort of fell into making The Texas Chainsaw Massacre what it would ultimately become? Maybe, as my friends over at Deadpit.com have suggested, the film was the fruitful result of a collaborative group effort between Hooper and his cast and crew. I can sort of understand that since the movie does have some of the staples that you would see in Hooper's other films, most notably moments that are just plain crazy and bizarre but here, they actually work in the film's favor rather than derail it (in other words, perhaps somebody was able to reel Hooper in a little bit in this case, which seems to not have happened on other movies). But, however the film came to be, even though I'm not a fan of the majority of his subsequent movies, I do think the fact that it was so well-made and has become as legendary and influential as it is does grant Hooper a spot in the pantheon of great horror directors like Tod Browning, James Whale, George Romero, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven among others. Most directors would kill to have a film as mythic as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on their resume and for that, I have to, and will, give Hooper props. But, even though it is by far his best film, I can't resist the urge to pick on Hooper for a dumb flub he made in regards to the film's actual title: he spelled chainsaw wrong. While most posters and DVD releases have corrected it over the years, the actual film and original marketing material have the title spelled as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, apparently because Hooper thought that's how the word "chainsaw" is spelled. I know it's a very minute thing to pick on but I can't help but look at that spelling in juxtaposition with some of the awful films Hooper has made since this movie and just shake my head and think, "Hooper, you're an idiot." Petty, I know, but it gets that reaction from me. (I also know that many sources do list the original film's title with that spelling but, for the sake of proper grammar, I will continue to write it with "chainsaw" spelled as one word.)

What really helps the film is that the five teenagers are all portrayed as being very likable, decent kids who are just out for a summer afternoon drive, two of which have a noble reason for going, and end up running into one hideous, maniacal character after the other (which, let's face it, could happen to any one of us when we venture into the backwoods anywhere). You can't help but just naturally like Marilyn Burns as Sally Hardesty. Not only is she very pretty (I didn't notice how pretty she actually is until after many viewings but when I saw her face up close when I watched the film on my computer or portable DVD player, I did think she was quite a looker) but she comes across as a kind soul whose main reason for coming on the trip is to check on her grandfather's grave as well as show her friends an old homestead that belonged to her family. She just generally comes across as very sweet and a little bubbly. She's also one of the ones who suggests picking up the hitchhiker when they first see him, telling Franklin to give the guy a break when he says that he'll smell like the nearby slaughterhouse, which shows off a caring personality. The only time she shows any kind of frustration or gets absolutely angry is towards Franklin and you can't really blame her since her brother is pretty annoying and difficult to deal with. But, other than that, she's a nice young lady, which makes what happens to her all the more horrific. I just can't help but feel so bad for her during all of the crap she's put through in the film's final forty or so minutes and, by the end of the movie, it's clear from her hysterical laughing after she escapes from Leatherface that she has completely lost her mind. She's sort of akin to Barbra in Night of the Living Dead in that sense but I like her a lot more. If you remember back in my review of Night of the Living Dead (which was my very first one), I said that I felt Barbra was the one weak point in that movie's cast since she becomes pretty much useless and more than a little annoying. While Sally does sort of go the same route in that she becomes a babbling, screaming wreck of a person, I guess I felt more since you get to know her much more than you do with Barbra. Also, unlike Barbra, who becomes a useless, catatonic shell, Sally still has enough gumption to fight back against her attackers and ultimately escape. Again, she's lost her mind by the end but at least she was still able to get herself out of there.

I know that a lot of people find Franklin (Paul Partain) to be really annoying and almost unbearable (Joe Bob Briggs has even said that he sees him as one of the most despicable handicapped characters in film) and while there are points in the film where I do wish he would shut up, I actually feel sorry for the guy. Being confined to a wheelchair your entire life has to be frustrating and after a while, you get tired of having to be pushed and carried around by everyone around you (I know my breast cancer-stricken aunt does). The part that exemplifies that for me is the first scene where he has to stop on the side of the road and urinate in a can. That has to be embarrassing and unpleasant, which is probably why Franklin angrily snatches the can out of Kirk's hand at that point. On top of that, when they get to the homestead that used to belong to his family, everybody leaves him outside and he has a really hard time getting inside the house, which causes him to throw an angry tantrum and even says something that suggests that he didn't even want to go but was talked into it. So I understand Franklin's frustration. Also, everyone who criticizes him acts as if he curses and screams at the other characters throughout the film but he doesn't. He's just whiny all the time. Although, you can't fault him for being really freaked out and paranoid after the encounter with the hitchhiker. Personally, I can be rather paranoid myself at times and if something like that happened to me, I think I also would be fretting that that guy might be trying to follow me, especially if he wrote something blood on the side of my van. And I'm sure I would get creeped out too if I saw weird bone ornaments hanging around an old house that my family once owned. In fact, if you think about it, he's right most of the time in what he says. When they pick up the hitchhiker and he comments, "I think we just picked up Dracula," I'd be thinking the same thing. And he was also right when he told Sally that they shouldn't go down into those woods at night because they might get lost and their best course of action would be to go get help (although, knowing what we learn, going to that gas station would have been the worst possible idea but you get my point). Now, does Franklin have his annoying moments? Oh, yeah. How many times does he have to tell them exactly how that air-gun in the slaughterhouse works? (Boom, shuck! Boom, shuck! Boom, shuck! We get it already!) Does he have to get so snippy when he can't find his knife and take it out on Sally? And that whole thing with the flashlight and such when they're waiting for Jerry to come back is just ridiculous. I know he wants to leave and doesn't want to be left alone in the dark but, God, is he irritating when Sally tries to take the flashlight and when he repeatedly honks the van's horn. He makes it harder on poor Sally when he makes her push him down the hill and through the woods and, in the end, he gets himself killed by forcing her to do so. He really should have just stayed up on that hill. To end, I think his death surmises why I felt so bad for him: he was completely helpless. He had no way to get away from Leatherface when he came charging out of the darkness so he was a sitting duck in every sense of the word. So, yes, Franklin was a bit annoying but I also understood his frustration and did, in the end, feel for him when he was sliced to pieces.

Pam (Teri McMinn) is the one member of the group who reminds me the most of a hippy. It's due to her clothing (which makes her look very sexy, I might add), the jingling bracelet that she wears on her wrist, and also just the way she looks in the face and with her hair. It's hard to explain but I just think of hippy when I see her. Also, she's preoccupied with astrological signs, horroscopes, and their effects on people, which is something you would expect a hippy to be interested in. And I don't think I have to say anything about her aversion to eating meat and killing animals for food. But, putting all of that aside, I feel that she's the member of the group who has the most common sense. Not that the others are stupid but she seems to know when something is up and tells the others that they should probably avoid whatever unusual things they see. She's the one who advises the others not to pick up the hitchhiker because of how bizarre he looks and, what do you know, it turned out to be a bad idea. When Kirk plans to trade the owners of the farmhouse they find in the woods his guitar for some gas, Pam tells him that they're probably not going to be interested and that they should just go back. And, finally, she knows that any place that has human teeth randomly lying around is not somewhere you want to be and when Kirk freaks her out with it, she yells, "Let's go!" Sensible woman. Unfortunately, she stupidly wanders into the house when Kirk doesn't come out and, while I get that she's concerned for her boyfriend, her instincts should have told her that something wasn't right and she should have gone back for help (of course, who knows what I would have done in a similar situation). And, the minute she came across that room full of human and animal bones and feathers, she really should have gotten the heck out of there instead of staring at everything for such a long time. Finally, her death really disturbed me when I first saw it in the trailer. The sight of her running down the hall with a screaming Leatherface chasing after her just freaked me out and, also, the fact that she almost gets away but he catches her just as she gets out the door and drags her screaming back into the house was what really got to me. That idea just disturbs me so much and what happens to her afterward makes it all the more so.

There's not much to say about the last two members of the group. Kirk (William Vail) is the one who would typically be the hero in this type of movie, particularly in the old horror films of the 30's, 40's, and 50's as well as in later slasher movies since he's the most handsome of the three guys. He doesn't have that much of a deep personality but he comes across as a nice, sensible guy when he says that they should pick up the hitchhiker since he'll die out in the heat (by the way, I like the look on his face when the hitchhiker is showing how crazy he is and earlier when Franklin is describing the way butchers kill cows at the slaughterhouse) and he also knew that they should have stopped for gas sooner when they had the chance. But, he really should have known better than to go into a weird house just because he hears animal-like noises. And his death scene is quite iconic, with Leatherface bashing him in the head with a sledgehammer, just how Franklin said workers at the slaughterhouse used to do to cows. And finally, there's Jerry (Allen Danziger), the van driver. I'm not quite sure if he's supposed to be Sally's boyfriend or what but she does seem to be the most concerned about him when he goes off into the woods to look for Kirk and Pam and doesn't come back. In any case, there's not much to say about him other than he loves to tease Franklin, telling him that the hitchhiker is coming to get him, and he's also kind of the jokester of the group, asking the ladies if they think the gas station has room service and when he sees the odd symbol that the hitchhiker smeared in blood on the side of the van, he remarks, "It's the mark of Zorro. He's gonna get you." I also can't help but smirk when Sally mentions that her grandmother died and Jerry just matter-of-factly says, "What happened?" It's just an odd thing I find funny. Finally, I have to say this about Jerry: does that shirt scream 1970's or what? That's the first thing I thought of when I first saw the movie and I just can't help but stare at that shirt every time he's on-camera (can you imagine how much he must have been sweating in that thing since it was so hot while filming the movie, though?)

One thing that adds immensely to the film's disturbing factor is that the members of the cannibal family are both extremely creepy and, yet, believable. They're not so over the top that the movie becomes cartoonish and silly (as would happen in the sequels). I also like how you meet the various members of the family one at a time and if you had no prior knowledge about the film, you would just assume that these kids are having the worst luck imaginable and are running across one insane person after another. It's only during the climax of the film that you realize that all of these characters are connected to each other and, in actuality, make up a very messed up family.

The family member that feels the most authentic to me is Edwin Neal as the hitchhiker. I know a lot of people were really freaked out by the scene between him and the kids in the van and I can understand why. This guy does not look like an actor. It feels as if Tobe Hooper just found a crazy guy on the side of the road or somewhere and just put him in the movie. He looks so creepy, with his gangly physique, greasy hair, dirty clothes, and little furry saddle-bag where he keeps stuff like gunpowder and pictures of the cows he killed while working at the slaughterhouse. And what in the hell is that stuff on the right side of his face? Is that blood or a weird birthmark or what? He also appears to have dark moles here and there on various parts of his arms and other parts of his body. He acts as creepy as he looks as well. Neal is absolutely amazing in his ability to comes across as an honest-to-God schizo with his twitchy movements, bizarre way of speaking, and inexplicable mood changes. In that scene in the van, one minute he's talking and laughing with Franklin about headcheese, then he suddenly takes Franklin's knife and cuts the crap out of his hand with it, pulls out a camera and takes a picture of Franklin, invites everyone to have dinner with his family, actually looks hurt when they decline the aforementioned invitation, demands money from Franklin for the picture, and, when he's turned down, blows the picture up with gunpowder and slashes Franklin's arm before being thrown out of the van. You watch that scene and you can't tell me that Neal doesn't come across as absolutely insane there. Later in the film, we see that the hitchhiker is rather wild even amongst his own family. He mocks and pushes his older brother's buttons constantly when he shows back up at the house, talks back to him, and even declares that he has no control over him and Leatherface whatsoever, that they do all the work and he's just a cook. He's also the cruelest member of the family for me. I know the old man is the one who beat Sally up with a broom and put her in a sack to be brought back to the house but during that last half of the movie at the house, the hitchhiker seems to take real pleasure in tormenting Sally. He pokes Sally many times when she's tied up in the chair, holds a knife to her throat while Grandpa sucks on her bleeding finger and even forces her to watch, and, worst of all, actually mocks her crying and screaming at the dinner table, including when she's begging for her life! And let's not forget that when she escapes, the hitchhiker immediately starts chasing her again, slashes repeatedly at her back with his knife, and is only stopped when he gets run over by a huge truck (a cattle truck, according to the ending credits). To sum up, the hitchhiker for me is not only the most authentic feeling member of the family but he's also the wildest and most sadistically cruel as well.

The most conflicted family member is Jim Siedow as the elderly gas station manager. When the group first meets him when they stop at the station, he comes across as rather kindly, actually warning them that it's best not to go messing around other people's property, especially in this particular area because the locals don't take too kindly to it. He even tries to get them to stay at the station and wait for the transport to come by so they can fill their van's gas tank up. It's like he's trying to save them from being butchered by the other members of his family. From his hesistation towards being asked about the "old Franklin place," we can tell that he does know what they're talking about even though he acts unsure and we get a confirmation that the family is aware of the place due to a couple of objects that Franklin finds there that could only have been made by them. In other words, he undoubtedly knows that if those kids go to the Hardesty homestead, they'll be within grasp of his family and, like I said, it's as if he's trying to save them from his own family. Maybe he just doesn't want to have to deal with them and risk them escaping and warning the police, since late in the film he tells the hitchhiker, "I hope your brother didn't let any of those kids get away. They'll have the whole country after us!" That's no doubt why he takes Sally prisoner after she bursts into his gas station later on because he now has no choice but to do so and hope that her friends haven't escaped as well. In any case, the old man (as he called in the credits) seems to suffer from a severe split personality. One minute he's acting very kindly and reassuring towards the hysterical Sally and then, before she knows what happens, he beats the crud out of her with a broom, ties her up in a sack, and takes her in his pickup truck. The whole way to the house he switches from telling her that she has nothing to worry about to poking her with the broom handle and sadistically enjoying it as well. Even when he gets her to the house, he continues to switch. One minute, he's comforting again and saying that they'll fix her some supper soon and the next, watches the hitchhiker and Leatherface feed Grandpa some of her blood. During the dinner scene, he's cackling and going on with the others' torturing of Sally and then, he suddenly gives them crap for it and says there no sense in it. Because of this sense of conflicting emotions and of a trace of sanity still being in there, Sally actually begs him to make Leatherface and the hitchhiker let her go. But, his response to that is simply more proof of his schizophrenic nature. He says it just can't be helped and that he can't take any pleasure in killing but, as I've said, he clearly gets pleasure out of causing Sally pain and even gleefully cheers Grandpa's botched attempts at clubbing Sally, yelling, "Get her, Grandpa! Hit the bitch!" He sure doesn't seem to have any qualms with killing right there! Maybe he's okay with it as long as someone else does it? Who knows? But, the bottom line is, even though the old man is the one member of the family that seems to have a bit of a conscience, he's still as insane and capable of evil as the rest of them are.

Of course, the character in the film that everybody remembers is Leatherface, who is the icon of this series as well as of contemporary horror films in general alongside Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger. I actually knew his name long before I knew of the title The Texas Chainsaw Massacre because I had seen an action figure of him in a magazine along with Freddy and Jason when I was around eight years old. It wasn't until years later when I learned what horror franchise he was from though. In any case, I learned of his specifics in the Horror Movie Survival Guide, a tongue-in-cheek book that profiled famous movie monsters and taught you how to survive an encounter with them. It was his entry in the book that taught me the gruesome details of not only the character but of the film in general: that he and his family were cannibals, that they made furniture and such out of human bones and skin, that Leatherface himself wore a mask of human skin, and that while he can't talk, he screams a lot. Needless to say, that added even more to everything I had heard about the film and made me think even more so that it was just the most hideous movie imaginable. And going back to that original Bryanston trailer, most of its content is Leatherface's scenes and so when I watched it at FYE that day, I got to see most of the chainsaw-wielding maniac's horrific rampage long before I would actually see the film. He was the reason why that trailer just creeped me out completely. As I said earlier, the sight of this big, hulking man wearing a butcher's apron and skin-mask chasing after Pam while screaming crazily just disturbed me to my core and so did the images of him coming in and bashing Jerry in the head and charging out of the darkness to take his chainsaw to Franklin (that closeup of his masked face as he does so I swear is the stuff that nightmares are made of). So Leatherface had me scared to death long before I saw the film. Little did I know that he's actually quite a complex and slightly sympathetic character and not just simply a psycho with a chainsaw.

Despite his huge size, Leatherface has the mindset of a child and a rather frightened one at that. Gunnar Hansen himself has said that Leatherface is completely under the control of his family and will do whatever they say because he's afraid of them. He's definitely afraid of the old man, who beats on him and verbally abuses him. He doesn't seem to be afraid of the hitchhiker but merely just goes along with whatever he's doing, like when he helps him get Grandpa down the stairs or when he joins him in tormenting Sally at the dinner table. Also, when he kills Kirk, Pam, and Jerry, he's actually doing it out of fear since he's been left alone all day long and is freaked out by these strange people who keep showing up in his house. After he kills Jerry and puts Pam's body back in the freezer, he's clearly distraught by what's going and runs around the living room, looking for anyone that might be hiding in his house and when he sits down at the window, what's probably going through his mind is, "Oh, God, are there going to be more?" To that end, he takes the initiative and goes out into the woods, waiting for any more strangers to come along and when they do, he attacks. He also doesn't take it very well when somebody gets away from him, which we see at the end of the movie when he throws an angry tantrum, swinging his chainsaw everywhere and running around in place as if doing a crazy dance. In fact, that was meant to be a payoff to a deleted scene where Leatherface throws a smaller fit when Sally gets away from him after he chases her through the woods. The ending was meant to say that Leatherface is really furious now that Sally has escaped from him again.

I don't think that Leatherface's masks in the other movies came anywhere close to looking as creepy as they did here. In the other movies, the masks were always too overdone: cool-looking in design, sure, but you could tell that they were latex creations made by Tom Savini or whoever was the makeup artist on the particular film. Here, they're very subtle and natural in their look and do feel like dried up, skinned faces that Leatherface has stitched and sewn into masks. As Gunnar Hansen has said, Leatherface has many different masks and he takes on a different personality depending on which one he's wearing at the time. (Most casual viewers seem to not realize that he has more than one mask but if you look at Leatherface after the old man brings Sally back to the house, you can clearly tell that he's wearing a different mask as well as during the dinner scene.) I really like the mask he wears throughout the majority of the film, which is known as the "kill mask." That thing has a very creepy quality to it and, to me, looks a bit like the mask that Michael Myers wears only more nightmarish looking. Not only is that closeup of Leatherface when he attacks Franklin scary as crap but there's also that one where he sits down after killing Jerry. As the camera slowly pans up to him, you get to see a lot of detail in the mask, including the hair, the dried-up skin, and what appear to be wires around the corners of the mouth. (Plus, Leatherface has some serious dental problems that you can see in this closeup.) The "old lady" mask that Leatherface is wearing when the old man and the hitchhiker come into the house with Sally is meant to signify that he's being domestic now and is preparing supper. All I can say is that it does look like the face of an old lady and does have an eerie quality to it all its own. And, finally, there's the "pretty woman" mask that he has on from the dinner scene on and it's a pretty surreal and freaky-looking thing with the makeup and lipstick. Also, that deleted scene of Leatherface actually putting the stuff on is just such bizarre and, honestly, kind of funny imagery, made even more so by it being completely silent.(Incidentally, Kim Henkel would take the concept of that scene to ridiculous extremes in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it). Although, when Leatherface helps the hitchhiker chase Sally after she escapes, you'd think he would have put the kill mask back on since what he's doing doesn't fit with the personality that mask is supposed to represent. I guess he didn't have time to do it. But, then again, he had no problem freaking Sally out at the dinner table while wearing that mask so it's all relative I guess.

Finally, I have to mention the sounds that Leatherface makes. Like I said, those screams and yells that he lets out in those moments I saw in the trailer really disturbed me but he also makes more sounds that I find to be really freaky. There are those pig noises that he uses to lure Kirk into the house. The first few times I saw the movie, I thought Leatherface actually had a pig back there that he was about to butcher. It took me a while to realize those sounds were being emitted by him. In any case, the shot of that doorway with those sounds coming from it while everything else is dead silent is very eerie. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but right before Leatherface puts Pam on the meat hook, doesn't it sound like he lets out an evil laugh? Other sounds that Leatherface makes are these bizarre moans that he uses to lure Jerry into the house. He's trying to make him think it's Pam since he's jingling her bracelet while making that noise but, again, that whole thing is just creepy no matter what he's up to. He makes some more moans when he and the hitchhiker are torturing Sally at the dinner table and the sight of this big man wearing this face mask (with dark eye-holes, I might add) and making this moaning sound while getting right up close to the camera is another freaky image. Finally, there's the babbling that Leatherface does when the old man questions about what became of the other kids. This is the closest Leatherface comes to actually talking and, while it is just a bunch of gibberish, I think you can easily catch the meaning of it, especially when he does those hand movements along with it. In fact, according to Gunnar Hansen, the script actually had notes detailing what he was supposed to be saying. And, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that this is the only time in the entire series where Leatherface actually attempts to converse with another person. In the rest of the films, the only sounds he makes are his usual yelling and such. In fact, not only does he never do the gibberish again but he also never emitts any of the other sounds that he does here again, which I think is a shame since they made him even creepier than he already was.

And finally, there's old Grandpa (John Dugan). The most notable thing about him is the fact that when Sally first comes across in the top floor of the house when she's trying to get away from Leatherface, you assume that he's just a corpse since he doesn't move. Well, as you find out, Grandma, whom you also see up there, may be a corpse but Grandpa is ancient but still alive. In fact, drinking the blood oozing out of Sally's cut finger right before the dinner scene seems to give him some energy, seeing as how he starts sucking rather rapidly on it and even makes some delighted gestures while doing so. And I've been waiting to talk about this since I started this review: I find the moment where Leatherface and the hitchhiker are trying to get Grandpa to club Sally to be really funny. I know others have said that they also find it funny in a sick sort of way so I'm obviously not alone but I just can't help but at least smirk during that moment. I think it's because they keep giving Grandpa the mallet but he's so old and weak that he can't grab it and he keeps dropping it. And it keeps happening over and over again, with him dropping the mallet into the tub they're holding Sally's head over and eventually only hitting her by accident. I even crack up the hitchhiker when he gets sick of the whole thing and says to Leatherface, "Give me the hammer! I'll kill her!" If it wasn't for Sally's piercing screams through the entire thing, I think there would be even more people who realize how funny all of this is than there already are. And it's also funny ironically when you think about how right before that, the old man talked about how Grandpa is the best killer there ever was, saying stuff like, "It only took one lick, they say," and, "Why, he did sixty in five minutes once," and now he can't even hold the mallet. So that stuff is all great. As for the actor playing Grandpa, I can't help but just feel really sorry for John Dugan. He doesn't have any lines, he's covered underneath gobs of makeup, he's wearing an old-fashioned black suit, and, given how hot it apparently was in that house when they filmed (almost 115 degrees), he must have been completely miserable and just wanted to die. I know would have. Normally, I would kind of rag on him since he doesn't give much of a performance but not only do I think that this character didn't really call for one but given the conditions, I think it was trying for him to simply be there so I can forgive him for not doing that much with the character.

There are other minor characters in this film that are memorable in their own way. One is the character simply known as the "Drunk" in the closing credits, played Joe Bill Hogan. He's the guy who's laying down in the grass with the bottle of beer when the kids stop at the cemetery to check on the grave of Sally and Frankin's grandfather. He's only in this one scene but he's memorable in that he gives a warning of possible bad things to come, saying, "Things happen here about that they don't tell about. I see things." He also says, "You see, they say it's just an old man talking. You laugh at an old man. It's them that laughs and knows better." Short but memorable and more than a little creepy. I also can't help but smile at that kindly older man who tells Sally to go tell the sheriff to let her in to see her grandfather's grave. I think he's called the "Storyteller" in the ending credits and he's played by John Henry Faulk (whom I've heard actually had some part in getting the movie made). Anyway, I've known some nice old folks like him in my lifetime and so I was fully able to relate to him from the first time I saw this movie. One guy that I've always been curious about is the window washer (Robert Courtin) at the old man's gas station. He's this weird, short bearded man who never says a word and begins washing the kids' van as soon as the old man walks up to it. In fact, if you keep your eye on him, you'll notice that he takes his cues from whatever the old man does. When the old man walks away, he stops washing the van and follows him but when the old man comes back, he follows him back to the van and starts washing it again! Otherwise, he just sits around and stares up at the sky. Who is this guy? He's not part of the family since he never shows up at the house and yet, he doesn't seem to be all there either. He must just be some mentally challenged guy that the old man found and gave a job to at the station. I also wonder if he ever ended up on the menu for the family as well. He's just another odd character that pops up in the film and, according to IMDB, the actor who played him died in 1985 at the age of 36 and he spent the rest of his life working at a camera rental firm. He didn't seem to be all there in real life either seeing as how he flung soap suds onto Jim Siedow and did some other weird things while they were filming. And, finally, I have to talk about the cattle truck driver (Ed Guinn). He's this big black guy who pops up during the final part of the movie, accidentally runs over the hitchhiker, and after that, ends up becoming a hero. When he sees Sally being chased by Leatherface, he actually helps her by pulling her through the front of the truck, gets her out the other side, and afterward throws a wrench and hits Leatherface right in the head, which causes him to accidentally cut his leg with the chainsaw. This guy is a bonafide hero! But what cracks me up is that he doesn't stick around at all. After he hits Leatherface, he just books it down that road and you don't see where he went. He probably waited until Leatherface left after throwing his tantrum, got back into his cattle truck, and drove off. If he didn't quit his job, I'm willing to bet he at least asked to have his route changed. I know I would.

The technical aspect of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that everyone talks about is the very look of the film. Since it was shot on 16mm instead of the regular 32, it looks less like a movie and instead has a gritty, realistic feel to it, often described as a cinema verite-documentary feel. It's one of several horror movies made around that time to use this technique, with some other notable examples being The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes (for my money, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the best film in this bunch). I have a small confession to make, though: until recently when I was doing a bit of research for this review, I wasn't sure how the documentary feel was supposed to work when juxtaposed with what was going on. What I mean by that is, while there's no doubt that the film does feel very real, I couldn't quite grasp how the idea that this movie felt like a documentary was supposed to work. My biggest question was, "If this is supposed to be a documentary, then wouldn't Leatherface and the family attack the person holding the camera?" You get what I mean? So, not wanting to go into this review looking like an idiot, I decided to look up the definition of cinema-verite and now that I understand that it's meant to be sort of a "fly on the wall" style, with the characters completely unaware of the camera, then I understood. As John Larroquette says at the very beginning, this is first and foremost meant to be what happened to these kids. So, thanks to this blog, I now completely understand exactly how this style is supposed to work.

In any case, I've always understood what people mean when they say that this movie feels authentic. It's because everything in the movie feels that way. The environments, from the chainsaw family's house to the interior of the kids' van, the rundown old Hardesty homestead, and the gas station, all look and feel like actual places. If they're not grungy or dirty, they at least have an old, lived in quality with a bunch of clutter everywhere and such. The idea of being stuck in the country where no one can help you is very scary to me and the fact that there weren't any real sets but, instead, Tobe Hooper and his crew found a bunch of places out in Texas and filmed there helped that feeling of genuine isolation. My personal favorite location in the movie is the old Hardesty place that they visit. That old rundown house is so creepy and the scenes inside it are so darkly lit that it has a real feeling of eeriness. One moment that I always think about at that place is when Kirk is walking around by himself, exploring the house and when he enters one room, he spots a big clump of daddy-longlegs skittering all over each other in a corner of the wall. It's just a quick moment and has nothing to do with the rest of the film but something about it has always stuck in my mind. I guess since those are real daddy-longlegs that they just stumbled across and filmed, it just makes me think, "Wow, this is the real thing and it's effectively spooky." In fact, that's why the movie feels so real: because a lot of it is and that's not just in regards to the locations. As anyone who's researched the film knows, art director Bob Burns used a lot of real bones and dead animals in creating the grisly furniture and upholstery seen in the family's house. At one point, real human bones are even seen in the film (something that I've noticed Tobe Hooper does a lot) and the dead armadillo at the beginning is a real, dead animal that Burns taxidermied up. Like I said earlier, the various face masks that Leatherface wears in the film feel very real and makeup put on John Dugan for Grandpa, which was done by an actual doctor, looks quite convincing as well. There's so little blood in the film that when some does show up, it also feels authentic since it's not flying all over the place and soaking the walls. Heck, even the old pickup truck that the old man drives looks like something I would see around the small town that I live in. Basically, what I'm getting at is the movie feels authentic because a lot of the stuff in it is real and, therefore, adds to how creepy it is.

Another factor that adds to the movie's atmosphere is the conditions that it was filmed under. Its notorious for having been shot during a horrible Texas summer heatwave, with temperatures topping over 100 degrees each day and with extremely high humidity. I think it shows in the film. You can just feel the heat because of how miserable the actors look at some points and how sweaty they are as well when they're in closeup. What also makes me feel for them is that, except for Pam, they're all dressed in long pants and Jerry actually has on a long-sleeved shirt. I just can't imagine how awful they must have felt. I actually wonder why anyone would dress that way when it's that hot out in the first place. I always wear shorts and such when it's hot and even then, it's still unbearable for me so I can't imagine how they must feel. The shots of the blistering yellow sun, the shimmering effect you see on the various roads in some shots, and even the simple images of outdoor photography in very bright sunlight just add to the idea that it's hot as crap. And here's something else to ponder: except for what little blood you see, there are almost no fluids of any kind in the film. Everything is dry and dessicated, with the constant presence of bones and feathers compounding that notion even more so. There's no water to be found, illustrated by the scene where Kirk and Pam discover that the creek they were going to go swimming in is bone-dry, and even though Franklin and the hitchhiker both blow raspberries, you don't see anything in the way of spit except when Franklin spits out that piece of meat or at least I don't. And then there's the idea that the gas station doesn't even have gas in its tanks (which I'll expound upon shortly). For the most part, the only bits of moisture that you see in the film are blood, like I said, the booze the drunk is drinking at the cemetery, and sweat on the actors' face. Other than that, everything in the movie is just as dry as you can get (I'm actually getting thirsty as I'm writing this). Even at night, there's no respite from the heat, with a weather report on the radio in the gas station, which you hear after Sally bursts into the station to get away from Leatherface, saying that the current temperature is 96 or so. And, as has been documented many times over, the brutal heat of the inside of the farmhouse contributed to the mood of the notorious dinner scene. A big part of why that scene is so insane is because everybody was about half out of their minds when they filmed it due to how hot it was. So, in retrospect, the miserable conditions that the cast and crew worked under helped give the film an effectively unpleasant and oppressive atmosphere.

According to Tobe Hooper, the small amount of blood in the film was because he was hoping to get a PG-rating for it (although, Bob Burns once said that he talked Hooper out of a grisly effect for the meathook scene because it would be much more effective if it was implied). But, the MPAA still gave the film an R-rating and for good reason. Even though there's not much actual blood in the movie, the implications of what's happening coupled with the intensity of the truly frightening scenes make the film even more disturbing than it would have been had there been copious amounts of gore. That's why I'm baffled at people who say that the film is drenched in blood, one of whom is Roger Ebert. In his review of the film back in the day, said that it was "as violent and gruesome and blood-soaked as the title promises." It makes me wonder if any of them have actually seen the movie. Or, as Tom Savini once suggested, perhaps the movie is so powerful in its relentlessness, in its implications, and in how real it feels that it can make you think you've seen a gore fest when you haven't. What ever the case, there is no doubt that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has many disturbing and creepy moments throughout it and, if you dig deeper into the subtext, it can make you think about some things that you'd rather not. (I often wonder what made Hooper think that this film would ever get a PG-rating, especially when he saw the finished product. He surely realized how powerful it was even without a lot of blood. This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder what goes through Hooper's mind sometimes.)

The very opening of the film sets the mood, with the sounds of someone rummaging around what is revealed, in brief sudden shots, to be a crypt and what's happening is that the person is removing a corpse. Given that late in the film the old man tells the hitchhiker, "I told you to stay away from that graveyard!" we can assume upon subsequent viewings that the person we hear remvoing the body and ultimately attaches is it to a monument is the hitchhiker (although in actuality, it's Tobe Hooper himself who is making the sounds). But, in any case, that opening is really creepy with the brief illuminations of the corpse's various body parts accompanied with that screeching sound that is meant to be that of a strobe camera. Those brief shots were sprinkled throughout the Bryanston trailer and I actually thought they were meant to be someone from the police department taking photos of the remains of the family's victims (i.e. the kids). When the film began with that sequence, I still thought that's what it was and that the story of the movie was going to loop around back to it at the end. I thought the reveal of the corpse attached to the monument afterward was completely separate and was the real beginning of the film. It wasn't until I watched the movie again as well as when I read up on it that I realized what this all was supposed to mean. But that aside, I thought and still think that corpse looks uncomfortably real. It truly does look like a body that has been decomposing for a long time. Not only is it an effective way to set the film's tone but it's also one of the few parts of the movie that you can say is truly gruesome and is like something you would see in movies that are gore fests.

As I mentioned earlier, the scene between the kids and the hitchhiker in the van is often cited by many people for being very creepy and the reason for that, again, is because Ed Neal really comes across as some crazy person you would meet out in the middle of nowhere. It also helps that there are long moments of silence where nobody is saying anything and the kids are just staring at the hitchhiker, wondering what kind of a freak they've picked up and terrified at what he'll do next. That Fool for a Blond song that's playing on the radio just adds even more to the awkward vibe of the scene. I, personally, was never creeped out by the scene, mainly because I had already seen most of it on another special that talked about horror films (I really need to stop spoiling movies for myself, don't I?), but, like I said, I do get why a lot of other people are. The moment where the kids get some barbecue from the gas station and share it among themselves is one of those things that is cringe-inducing when you look back on it in subsequent viewings. The family is made up of cannibals, right? And the old man is selling barbecue at the gas station, right? Well, more than likely, what the kids are munching is all that's left of other people that have come across the family. And I've never liked the shape of that piece of sausage that Franklin has in his mouth. I'm not trying to be disgusting but just look at how that thing is shaped and I think you'll get what I mean. The implication is beyond gross. Also, not only does the sequence inside the old Hardesty place have that eerie moment with the daddy long-legs but the shot of a weird bundle of feathers and Franklin's discovery of a bone windchime-like object is proof that at least one member of the family has been there before and has marked it in their own macabre way. Not only do they not live far from the Hardesty house but at least one of them is aware of it and probably goes up there from time to time, an idea that is also quite creepy.

There are some eerie pieces of scenery that Kirk and Pam come across while they're walking towards the house that belongs to the family. It's weird stuff like pots, cups, watches and similar things hanging from trees as well as a section where a large amount of netting covers a bunch of cars. These are meant to be items that belonged to people who fell victim to the family in the past and they have used the stuff they couldn't eat as a way to decorate their outside surroundings. There's actually a deleted scene that I kind of wish was still in the film that portrayed an old abandoned campsite which, again, belonged to people who were killed by the family. While I know why it was cut out (it wasn't important to the overall plot and stopped the flow), I think it's eerie just from looking at the deleted scene, which doesn't even have sound. If it had been kept in the film and you could hear what Kirk and Pam are saying, it would undoubtedly be even creepier. Anyway, as soon as Kirk goes into the house and is killed by Leatherface, I feel that the film ramps up big time. The hideous crack sound that you hear when he's bludgeoned is bad enough but his convulsing body afterward is even more horrific and makes you wince (for me, the shot of the bits of blood on his chest makes it even worse). After that is the scene where Pam stumbles into the bone room, the ultimate display of how many poor souls have met grisly deaths at the hands of the family. But one thing I'd particularly like you to think about is what appears to be a very tiny ribcage hanging amongst the other bones. That brings it to a whole other level of ghoulishness. I've already talked too much about how disturbing Leatherface chasing Pam was to me but I also have to mention how effective the meathook scene. You may not see the hook pierce into her back but you still get the feeling of it, which is all the more effective. Equally so is when Leatherface cuts up Kirk's body with the chainsaw. Again, you don't see it but the placement of the objects on the table that Kirk is lying on coupled with the apparent visual of the saw making contact with his limp body is all that you need.

There are a couple of things I want to mention before we move on. One is some of the sounds you hear coming from the house when Jerry walks in looking for Kirk and Pam. As I said, the moaning that you hear is Leatherface trying to lure Jerry inside. But when Jerry enters the kitchen, you hear what sounds like banging coming from the inside of the freezer that Pam is revealed to be inside. What was causing that banging? Since Pam convulses and lunges out of the freezer right after Jerry opens it, does that mean she was doing that sporadically before Jerry opened it and that was what we heard? Creepy stuff. And there's the moment where Leatherface attacks Franklin in the woods. It's like the meathook scene in that you don't see anything but, with the position of the camera behind Franklin, the passes that Leatherface makes with the saw, and the bits of blood splattering onto him as he does so, you get the impression that Franklin is being sawed to pieces. I really wish more horror filmmakers nowadays would take their cues from this film and understand that stuff like that is more horrific than anything in films like the Saw and Hostel movies. Anyway, those are the particularly creepy moments of this movie that stick out to me. I know I haven't talked much about the dinner scene but don't worry. I have a very special section where I plan to discuss that!

Like most horror films made around that time, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre took a lot of influence from the less than perfect state that the country itself was in. Tobe Hooper has said that the opening crawl by John Larroquette that proclaims that the story is true was meant as a response to how, by that point, the American government was deemed untrustworthy due to all of the stuff with Watergate and Vietnam. Therefore, Bryanston's advertising campaign helped the film to fool the public even more so, just as Hooper and many others had felt that the government had fooled the whole country. Also, while it's not really something that you would think about now, Hooper makes an allusion to the fuel crisis that was prevalent at that time when the old man tells the kids that he has no gas at all at his station and the transport might not arrive until late that afternoon or even the next morning (in other words, it might not come at all). Nowadays, you'd probably just think that it's a case of a little out of the way hick town that doesn't have a transport full of gas come by very often but, at the time, it was meant to represent a national problem. Hooper also cited the graphic violence that was prevalent in all the news coverage he saw at the time as giving him the notion that the real monsters in the world are men, who in this case were simply wearing different faces. To that end, he decided to make the notion literal and have the monster of the movie actually wear the faces of others. There's a bit of the hippy counter-culture movement in here as well as the idea of the young people no longer trusting the old. Even though, as I said, to me Pam is the only one member of the group who does feel like a hippy, you can see a bit of that distrust factor when the men of the group are listening to the old man tell them that it's best not to go to the old Hardesty homestead. You can see the distrust in Kirk and Franklin's faces while they listen to him talk and it's followed up by Kirk suggesting to Jerry that he should ask the old man if there are any other gas stations nearby, to which Jerry responds, "Don't you think he would have told us if there was?" Kirk just answers that it doesn't hurt to ask but, still, there's that sense that he doesn't quite trust the old man.

There are also more timeless influences present in the film. As many have observed beforehand, the film at its core is like the story of Hansel and Gretel: kids go into the woods and come across a house that is inhabited by a horrible person (or, in this case, persons) who intend to eat them. But, while Hansel and Gretel ultimately managed to escape from the witch, all but one of the kids here are killed and even the one who manages to get away has clearly lost her mind by that point. Sally may not have needed a woodsman to save her, as one critic observed, but she's still paid a heavy price for her freedom. Another theme present in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the tension between the city and the countryside, which was a popular idea for horror films around that time with stuff like Deliverance and Straw Dogs as other examples. The kids in the film may not be millionaires but they are rather well off, probably upper middle class, and when they travel into the country, while they do get a warm reception from some of the locals such as a few of the people at the graveyard, they find out from listening to that drunk and through their horrific encounters with the family that the country isn't as meek or pure of a place as they might have originally thought. Joe Bob Briggs has commented on this a few times by stating that in the past, the countryside was believed to be a safe place and the city was evil but this film, as well as those similarly-themed movies that I mentioned above, turned that notion on its head. Another example of this theme is that the family used to be made up of slaughterhouse workers but new techniques brought over by the city, such as the air-gun that Franklin mentions, has put them out of a job and now, in order to eat, they've turned to cannibalism and even quite possibly sell their human barbecue to unsuspecting visitors.

The family itself can be seen as a satire of the image of the American family. Even though Jim Siedow's character is brother to both Leatherface and the hitchhiker, he acts more like an angry, abusive father with his admonishing of the hitchhiker for messing around graveyards and Leatherface for destroying the house's front door and for possibly letting some of the kids get away. Weirdly enough, since Leatherface is wearing his old woman mask by this point and is about to start fixing dinner, he could be seen as a housewife and the old man as an abusive husband! And the hitchhiker is the rebellious son with his unruly long hair and sloppy way of dressing. A couple of the family members can also be seen as warped versions of the kids. When Leatherface is in his kill mask and butcher's apron, he's very masculine, like how Kirk is with his jock-like physique and constantly open button shirt and yet, when Leatherface is wearing the woman faces during the film's last quarter, you can take him as a hideous version of Sally and Pam (remember, he's even wearing Pam's bracelet around his wrist). And it's a strange coincidence that the hitchhiker targeted Franklin when he was in the van with them because the two of them are a lot of like. Both have interests in the nearby slaughterhouse and, while everyone else is disgusted, Franklin listens with interest to the hitchhiker's story about how the old way of killing cattle with a sledgehammer was better than the new mechanized way and how headcheese is made since he himself has at least known of it although who can be sure if he's telling the truth when he's said that he's had it before. In addition, both of them blow raspberries a lot during the film, the most explicit similarity, and, despite his initial horror at the hitchhiker slicing the palm of his hand open, Franklin later wonders aloud how he or anyone else could do that to themselves, saying that it takes something. Kirk even compounds this idea by telling Franklin, "You're crazier than he was." You would half expect Franklin's worries about the hitchhiker following them and killing him to come true after you realize how intertwined they are, making it surprising when Leatherface is the one who kills him.

There are also hints throughout the film that there's something bigger going on here than simply the kids running across a maniacal family in the Texas backwoods. There's a suggestion that this is all fated to happen at the beginning of the movie when Pam is talking about how Saturn, which is a bad influence anyway, is particularly bad now because it's in retrograde. In addition, after the hitchhiker is thrown out of the van, Pam reads both Franklin and Sally's horroscopes, with Franklin's saying that everything around him could make it a disturbing and unpredictable day for him and Sally's, whose sign is ruled by Saturn, saying that there are times where you can't believe that what is happening around you is true but if you pinch yourself, you might find out that it is. These moments, coupled with the footage of sunspots that the opening credits play over, quite possibly prove Tobe Hooper's point that the film is simply about a very bad day in the cosmic sense.

For me, the most logical way to view the film that is simply a nightmare in the worst possible way, in particular from the moment that Leatherface kills Franklin onward. One example is one that Hooper himself has commented on: no matter where Sally flees to, she runs right back into the domain of her pursuers. When she runs from Leatherface after he's killed Franklin, she ends up going into his house and when she escapes from there, she ends up at the gas station where the old man takes her prisoner and brings her back to the house. The chase between Leatherface and Sally in itself is like when you would have bad dreams as a kid about being chased by a monster, since so much of it is her running from him through a black void due to the darkness of it all and there are moments where shots seem to repeat, which adds even more to the nightmare quality of it. The part of the film that really feels like a bad dream is when Sally is brought back to the house. She's tied up in a burlap sack, tied to an armchair with real arms, has this old man who kidnapped suddenly reassure her that everything will be okay and that they will fix her something to eat, and her blood is fed to what at first appears to be a corpse only for it to come to life and begin moving while sucking on her bleeding finger. This would be the mean that Pam described earlier where Sally would pinch herself to see if this is really happening or not. The dinner scene is the epitome of nightmare fuel in this movie. It really is the definition of madness and chaos on film, which, if you remember, is what I was expecting the film to be when I first heard about it. Whatever initial misgivings I had about the film during that first viewing, I can assure you that during this scene, I was thinking to myself, "My God, this is crazy!" From Sally's constant screaming (which is horrific in and of itself), the hitchhiker mocking her tears, him and Leatherface getting right up into her face several times, the insane sound effects of the music, the looping shots of Sally's screaming face that culminate with such an extreme closeup of her eye that you can see the veins in it, and just the sheer spectacle of this cannibal family have dinner around a table with a skull, a chicken-headed decoration, and a dead armadillo, this entire scene is just nuts. And then, as I said, it gets grotesquely funny with Grandpa trying to club Sally to death but unable to grip the mallet! Finally, the film's ending is like waking up from a nightmare. It doesn't end but instead, just stops. One minute, Leatherface is running around the road and swinging his chainsaw everywhere and the next, you're watching the ending credits. That threw me when I first saw the film and for a while, I wasn't sure why Hooper decided to end it that way. But it was a comment on YouTube funny enough that gave me some insight into it. This person said that you always wake up from a nightmare when it's at its most chaotic, insane peak and, therefore, that's what the movie's ending is. That's a good way to view it. Personally, going with that logic, I would have expected the movie to end in the middle of the dinner scene but, nevertheless, that's a useful way to interpret the film's abrupt ending, which I'm sure has thrown others besides myself off.

As part of the history of the horror genre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the films that laid the groundwork for the slasher films. It's most notable for establishing the idea of the "final girl," the lone young woman who manages to escape from the killer(s). Black Christmas the same year had a similar aspect to it and both films also displayed the idea of the film's villains being alive and well at by the end, like how Norman Bates is still very much alive by the end of Psycho, albeit locked away for the meantime. It was also one of the first horror films to feature teenagers as the protagonists as well as victims for the monsters. There had been horror films that involved teenagers before, like The Blob, but in films like that, teenagers would be trying to warn adults about the monster while it's picking other people off one by one. This movie, along with The Last House on the Left, was one of the first to depict teenagers actually being killed by the villains, with no nearby adults to help them. But here's an interesting question: even though it introduced a concept that would become a major of the slasher subgenre, can The Texas Chainsaw Massacre itself be considered a slasher movie? I, personally, don't think of it as a slasher film. When I think of a slasher movie, what comes to my mind is Friday the 13th and all of the films that ripped it off. They have the ingredients that everyone thinks of when they think of the modern slasher formula: kids drinking, doing drugs, and having sex while the killer is lurking around and looking for victims. The kids here don't do any of that. The only bit of booze in the entire film is at the beginning of the film with the drunk at the graveyard, there are no drugs to be found, and neither of the film's woman get naked or have sex with their significant other. Also, Leatherface isn't stalking around and picking them off one by one in the dark. Three of them get killed simply because they wander into the house and Leatherface, with his childish mind, gets freaked out and does away with them and the only reason he attacks Sally and Franklin in the woods is because is probably because he had decided to face any more intruders before they got into the house. It's the same thing with the hitchhiker. He didn't attack them the minute he saw them. He was just some weird guy whom they decided to give a lift to and it turned out to be a bad call. Basically, the kids in this film just stumble across the film's villains instead of the villains actively coming after them. So, I can't call The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a slasher movie. But is it, as some have suggested, a precursor to the so-called torture porn subgenre that would become popular with Saw and Hostel? I can see a little bit of that here, with Pam being hung on the meathook and all of the physical abuse that Sally certainly takes. But when I think of those movies that are called torture porn, I think of the victims being actively beat on, sliced, and such by their captors. Most of the victims here are killed off quickly and Pam is hung on the meathook to be killed later on rather than for some sadistic pleasure on Leatherface's part. As for Sally, I would argue that the only reason the old man beat her up with a broomstick was to knock her out and take her captive but he gets sick pleasure out of poking her with the stick while she's in the truck so I can traces of the torture porn thing there. And I also can't argue with the hitchhiker slashing at her back while chasing her during the climax. Otherwise, the only reason her finger is cut open is to feed Grandpa and while she's tied up at the dinner table, they don't beat on her but rather torment her mentally. I guess you could say that she's being tortured while Grandpa is trying to club her but, again, the only reason that goes on for so long is because he can't grip the mallet. So, I have to say that I can see why some would call this movie a "torture porn," although I think The Last House on the Left is more so due to the stuff Krug and his gang do to the two women. I just think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a nightmarish, uncomfortably realistic exploitation movie more than anything else personally.

Contrary to popular belief, I think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre does have a score. It's just not played by the typical types of instruments. In any case, though, the bizarre metal clanging sounds and rumbles that make up the soundtrack are some of the film's most effective features. The most effective use of it comes during the iconic clubbing scene. There's no music during the actual act but when Leatherface slams the door shut, you hear this percussive rumble that is very creepy and leads up to when Pam enters the house. A similar rumble is heard when she walks around the stairs towards the metal door, expounding on how we know what has happened and what's going on behind that door while she doesn't. The clanging and slowly building piece that you hear while Pam looks around the bone room and continues on while she is chashed and grabbed and hung on the meathook compliments the horrifying visuals very well. The creepy main theme that plays over the opening credits and the faster, more chaotic and threatening one that plays over the ending credits both highlight the nightmare quality of the film and I believe are meant to let you know what it's like to be an animal in a slaughterhouse through sound. The similar-sounding section during the chase also helps that scene's bad dream quality; the dinner scene has a suitably crazy sound to it as well, with twirling noises, a very unpleasant bit near the end, and so on; the low rumble that you hear as the kids drive up to the old Hardesty homestead forewarns the horror that will soon befall them; and I even like how there's even a sort of lazy, mellow sound that plays when Jerry is walking around, looking for Kirk and Pam and that it turns sinister again when he arrives at the house. I also like this odd, echoing sound that you hear when Leatherface pushes Pam back into the freezer after he's killed Jerry. It's hard to describe but it's simply a weird, distinctive noise, like most of the stuff on this film's soundtrack. Besides the "music," sound design itself plays a big part in the film's effectiveness too. Everyone knows about that screeching camera sound that you hear during the opening as well as throughout the film. It's become as synonomous with this series as Leatherface and for good reason: it's a creepy sound that makes you go, "What the hell is that?" when you first hear it. In fact, the sounds you hear during that opening with stuff being knocked out of the way, crunching, beating, and apparent cutting make the reveal of the corpse even grosser when you think about what the perpetrator must have been doing to create them. And let's not forget the buzzing of the chainsaw, which you during a good chunk of Leatherface's scenes. Finally, there are all of the country songs that you hear playing on the radio throught the movie. They're those types of local country songs that feel as if they're never going to end and while some of them are meant to offset the horror of the film, sometimes they add to it, like that Fool For a Blonde during the hitchhiker scene in the van and the one you hear at the gas station when the old man has knocked Sally out and is tying her up. They clash so much with what's going on that they add to how awkward and uncomfortable the scenes in question are.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is truly a classic of 1970's horror. Its authentic look and feel, believable and likable characters, iconic and disturbing villains, and nightmarish structure all combine to create one of the most intense and legitimately creepy films ever. All of the cultural and historical archetypes and influences in the film aside, it is, at its core, simply the type of scary story you would be told while sitting around a campfire. I know that I've given Tobe Hooper a lot of grief on this blog and while I still don't think he's a very good filmmaker, I can't argue with how effective this film is. If you've only seen the sequels and the remakes, I would recommend checking it out. Just don't do what I did and go into it after you've watched a bunch of trailers and specials on it. Going into it with as little prior knowledge as possible will make the viewing experience all the more effective. And if you do make the same mistake I did, trust me when I say that the movie will get better with every viewing. It's one of those movies that grows on you despite what your first impression was and, when you really think about it, you realize just how creepy and brilliant of a flick it is.