THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
53 minutes of the best horror you'll ever see
The all-time classic, the movie that sent an unsuspecting The Taking Of Palham One, Two, Three audience screaming for their money back, the movie that suggested that Tobe Hooper might just have a kernel or two of talent. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may be a number of things (and it may not be a number of things it's reputed to be), but nobody can say it ain't an important film in horror history.
This movie has what I call the ol' "don't go in the barn" setup - it introduces us to five teenagers (looking an awful lot like the cast from That 70's Show), and when their van breaks down, one of them goes off to help. He doesn't come back, so someone goes to check on him, and he doesn't come back, so...you get the idea. These youths are on some trip on a hot summer's day, looking to see if Grandpa's grave is still intact after a rash of grave desecrations, when they make the damn fool mistake of picking up a hitchhiker. This guy turns out to be crazy beyond belief, so they kick him out (after a long time - had they half a brain between them they would've kicked him out after about a minute and a half), but he "marks" the van by slapping his bloody palm on the side. Later, when they're low on gas, they're told by the helpful gas station owner that they're all dry and are waiting for the tanker. Soon it becomes apparent that the gas station owner, the hitchhiker, some drooling, senile old idiot and a big retarded apron-wearing maniac with a mask made of human skin are all part of a big cannibalistic family and they're sizing up a few sides of two-legged mutton.
The movie opens with a printed (and voiced-over by John Larroquette) narrative which gives us such unmemorable lines as "It is all the more tragic in that they were young." Don't worry, it gets better. (I still prefer the intro to part 2, which gives us the immortal description "hacked up for barbecue") Things are set up with radio reports not only of the desecrations, but of various atrocities and tragedies around the country, not to mention Franklin's childishly enthusiastic descriptions of slaughterhouse procedure.
Now, this is one creepy skin-crawler of a movie for quite a while. The teenagers aren't sympathetic for a moment (particularly Franklin, the disgusting, annoying paraplegic who poses a good case for eugenics, and inspires an unimaginable amount of hatred from the audience, soaring into dangerous red levels), but this somehow makes their ordeal more horrifying in that we find their fates a little more inevitable. Ol' Leatherface gets two entrances, equally shocking and horrifying. And what's found inside the family's house is enough to make just about anybody think twice about entering before knocking.
Leatherface is loosely based on skin-wearing cannibal serial killer Ed Gein, who also inspired Psycho and Slayer's song "Dead Skin Mask". This is the genesis of the notion that this film is a true story; it most certainly is not, it's just very loosely based on one.
It's all stark and ugly and unrelenting, just a pure assault of terror terror and more terror, certainly living up to the wonderful tagline, "Who will survive and what will be left of them?"
And then, at that 53-minute mark, when the film's finest moment comes with the killing of the person we most want dead, things go to shit.
I can think of few things less scary than the nonstop noise of some woman screaming at the top of her lungs for a half hour, except a half of said woman screaming, partly amplified by the incessant buzzing of saws and babbling of maniacs. An unrelenting assault of terror is good, but this is an unrelenting assault of noise, and it gets tiresome quickly. One finds oneself wishing they'd just hurry up and brain her with the hammer. By then, we've also realized that the wonderfully lurid title is a bit of a cheat - only one guy gets killed with a chainsaw, and I'd hardly call that a massacre.
The movie is infamous for being gory, which is a misconception, but I've found that amongst its fans, there's an equally false misconception that it does not contain a drop of blood (I've heard this a LOT). There isn't much blood, but there is some. What there is, is body parts, and bones. Human and animal, tossed together interchangeably, for this family of course has the same fate in mind for both. (my favorite: some unlucky guy's face used as a lamp shade)
Kind of a blown opportunity overall, but still loaded with a lot of excellence and style, guaranteed to haunt you for quite some time. If you haven't seen it yet, where have you been?