Review: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Rated R

Score: 4 out of 5

Last night, I got the opportunity to see this classic on the big screen courtesy of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival at the Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, complete with cinematographer Daniel Pearl giving a Q&A via Skype afterwards. While I'd seen this movie before, it had always been on DVD and never quite like this, not in an old-style moviehouse packed with people like how it had been first screened forty-four years ago. Watching it again for the first time in years, I can say that the first half or so felt a bit sluggish with underdeveloped and often unlikable characters, but once it got moving with one of the best jump scares and kills in slasher movie history, it became immediately apparent why this movie is still a classic. Even without much actual blood on screen, it felt more raw and brutal than many of the body-count slashers that it, together with Black Christmas that same year, helped write the blueprint for, between its immediately iconic villain, visuals that dropped the viewer right into the Texas heat, and Marilyn Burns as one of the all-time great scream queens. If The Texas Chain Saw Massacre didn't feel quite so shocking watching it now, then that's only because of the towering impact that it had on the genre, as even today, it still packs a vicious punch.

The plot is straightforward and to-the-point: on August 18, 1973, five young friends, led by Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother Franklin, are out visiting the grave of the Hardestys' grandfather after it's been reported that grave robbers visited the cemetery. After making sure that his remains are still in the dirt (and having an encounter with a deranged hitchhiker), they decide to pay a visit to the Hardestys' old, abandoned country house. Since they're low on gas, some of them head next door to ask if they have any fuel they're willing to trade... only to discover that the house is full of furniture made out of bone and skin (only some of it animal) and occupied by some very unusual people. Things go downhill fast from there.

For the first half or so, this film was fairly uneven, with highs like the frightening encounter with the hitchhiker mixed with a distinct lack of development for Kirk, Pam, and Jerry, the three friends accompanying Sally and Franklin. Pam's interest in astrology is about the only really interesting quirk between the three of them; all are obvious victims. Sally and Franklin were the ones who got the most attention, naturally given that they were the ones who set up the trip, and while I immediately liked Sally, with Marilyn Burns taking a fairly underwritten part and imbuing it with vitality and life, I had mixed feelings on Franklin. Stuck in a wheelchair, he's understandably grumpy that his friends are keen on leaving him behind to sit in the heat while they run off and have fun, calling to mind any number of times that I've been bored in the company of others (albeit without his disability) and getting a number of funny lines in about being the general butt-monkey of the group. However, there eventually came a time when his attitude went from amusing to annoying, as his constant complaining began to grate on me. I found myself realizing just why the other friends always left him behind, as he spent a good chunk of the second act moaning like a pair of alter kockers.

Fortunately, it was around this time when the film fully transitioned from a slow-burn chiller into a high-octane slasher, at which point it truly took off. Even before Leatherface steps out of the house to actively hunt his prey, he is an immediately terrifying figure, a brute of a man with a first-grade vocabulary, a mask made out of somebody else's face, and a very large chainsaw. Director Tobe Hooper portrays him as, first and foremost, a butcher, something that is used to draw on our own love affair with red meat as Leatherface's abuse and torture of his victims is juxtaposed with the Texas stockyards and slaughterhouses around him -- a metaphor that others have read into as convincing them to go vegetarian. While we almost never actually see the effects of the chainsaw and the meathooks carving and digging into flesh or the hammers bashing in skulls, we certainly feel it. Leatherface isn't a strong, silent type like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, either. His weapon of choice is loud and mean, and he himself is shown in full view from the first time we're introduced to him. The only time when he's able to sneak up on the characters (and the viewers) is when we can't be sure if the motor we're hearing is his chainsaw or his house's generator. And as we see in the third act, his family is quite the pieces of work themselves, a flamboyant redneck cannibal clan whose actors must've known they were treading close to the line of camp, but still flung themselves head-first into it and made their characters terrifying anyway.

This film likely wouldn't have had nearly the same impact, however, if not for just how beautiful it is. Forget the stereotype of low-budget '70s grindhouse films being cheaply-made and workmanlike in their visuals; Hooper and cinematographer Daniel Pearl dragged the oppressive Texas heat straight into that theater. The daytime scenes looked blazing enough to make me squint to keep the dust out of my eyes, and even at night, I felt every scratch and cut that Sally accumulated as she trekked through the brush, rushing to stay one step ahead of Leatherface's power tool. We get a pair of outstanding chase scenes that are still gold standards for such in slasher movies, culminating in a legendarily bleak final shot. The fact that, as the opening crawl informs us, the crimes of Leatherface and his family will soon be exposed brings some welcome closure to our surviving protagonists, but even then, it's shown that the journey was absolute hell given all that they've lost and seen along the way. It felt like a brutal trip into the heart of darkness in the heart of Texas, an accomplishment that still stands as Hooper's crowning achievement even after a long and illustrious career spanning over four decades in the horror genre.

The Bottom Line

It's not a bulletproof film, but once it gets off the runway, it grabs onto you and digs in like the teeth of Leatherface's trademark murder implement. An oppressive, grimy, yet gorgeously-shot experience in terror, this is still a must-see for anybody who calls themselves a horror fan, and not merely as a historical curiosity.