What a title; and yes, literally, the title, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It’s phonetically satisfying to read, and as a title of a motion picture, implies terror, gore, and revulsion.
And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has the three in droves. It’s a film that suggests it’s based on true events, something that was later revealed to be a marketing ploy. What the film lacks in honesty, however, it makes up for in character and style. It’s a film about a group of young revellers, in seventies Texas, looking to hang out and enjoy life.
Things, naturally, take a turn of events when the group pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be something of a freak; he cuts a disabled member of the group with a knife, burns a photograph of him after he fails to sell it to him, and subsequently paints blood on the side of the car. Events later develop into far more horrifying, macabre, and grisly scenarios which are as shocking now as they were when the film was released 50 years ago.
As mentioned, the film succeeds, and endures, due to its style. It’s grainy and ugly, with a Southern ruralism that is captured in beautiful analog hideousness. The atmosphere is furthered by a low drone that perpetuates the soundtrack, and complemented by garbled conversation and blood-curdling screams from the film’s victims.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is not an easy, or necessarily enjoyable viewing experience. However, it is technically astute. The camera captures the grim events in excellent detail, and is a safe statement to say that this is quality filmmaking. Its legacy endures for a reason.
1974, Tobe Hooper
7.5
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