“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” Review
The most memorable character in the film, Leatherface’s memorable look and weapon of choice has made “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” one of the best slasher films of all time.
Just like “Peeping Tom” and “Psycho” in 1960, 1974 produced two horror films that would be frontrunners of the slasher film sub-genre which would become popular by the late 70s and throughout the 1980s: “Black Christmas” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with the latter proving to be exceptionally influential.
With a title like that, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is guaranteed to be something special and indeed it is. While most older horror films can be difficult at scaring modern audiences, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” still manages to send shivers down my spine just thinking about it. In terms of slasher horror, this film is truly one of the best.
Set in the backwoods of Texas, siblings Sally and Franklin Hardesty (Marilyn Burns and Paul A. Pertain) and their three friends Jerry (Allen Danziger), Pam (Teri McMinn) and Kirk (William Vail) take a road trip to an old house owned by Sally and Franklin’s grandparents. But a fun trip in the country takes a horrifying turn when they come across a family of murderous cannibals, including the chainsaw wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), who begins to pick them off one by one.
What works so well about the film is how small of a budget it had. Costing around $100,000, director Tobe Hooper had to use 16mm film, resulting in a more grainy film than if it had been shot with 35mm, as well as hire unknown actors. This certainly makes the film all the more realistic because we can’t associate any of the actors with prior roles since most of the cast made their film debut here.
The film was shot over the course of a massive heatwave in Texas which made nearly everyone on set either sick or close to it. The uncomfortable feeling of the cast and crew translated incredibly well into the final film and, despite the low budget, there was room for artistic license.
Tobe Hooper took every opportunity to make this film look much better than it needed to be. In particular, shots like the camera following Pam from under a swing as she approaches the porch of Leatherface’s home are marvelous. When Sally is captured by the family, Hooper and Director of Photography Daniel Pearl made the decision to have startling close-ups of her eyes and it establishes feelings of tension and dread.
The entire film does an incredible job of establishing a scary atmosphere and making you feel uneasy from the first frame. Before Leatherface and his family even show up, there’s no escaping the horror that you feel watching “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” And when Leatherface does enter the picture, he’s one of the most terrifying killers in film, in part because elements of him, mainly his cannibalism and wearing a mask of human skin, are based off of real serial killer Ed Gein who was also the influence for Norman Bates in “Psycho” and Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Marilyn Burns’ performance as Sally is one big exercise in insanity as she is constantly trying to survive in the face of pure evil.
It’s not hard to see how this film influenced later slasher films like “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” with the killer of both of those series being a masked, hulking figure who seems unstoppable. However, Leatherface isn’t the main antagonist because he’s too mentally deficient to command his family. He’s merely the sadistic pawn of his brothers The Hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) and The Cook (Jim Siedow) who are just as scary.
While the film is very influential and scary, even all these years later, the biggest problem with the film is that the main characters aren’t anything to write home about. Unlike other female protagonists in slashers like Sydney Prescott in “Scream” or Nancy Thompson in “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” who are more fleshed out individuals, the empathy I feel for Sally is that of basic emotion. From the moment Sally becomes the final girl to the ending of the film, I am completely on edge mainly because of the psychological damage she’s going through after being captured by Leatherface’s family.
But while the film does a good job of making you cringe at character’s deaths, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about these characters. The only one who seems to have any personality is Franklin and that comes from how annoying actor Paul A. Pertain intentionally made him.
The one element of the film that seems bizarrely unnecessary is that they try to make the film appear to be a true story. The film starts off with a text read by John Larroquette saying that the film is accurately based on shocking real events. With the exception of Ed Gein being an influence on Leatherface, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is an obviously fictional film and I don’t think anybody thought that the film was actually based on real events unlike “The Blair Witch Project” which had an exceptional marketing campaign.
With that said, the film’s realism is incredibly disturbing. It’s not especially gory as the film’s title would suggest and keeps much of the scares based on what you don’t see, which is more effective. When Sally is being chased by Leatherface, it’s one of the most heart pounding moments of horror cinema.
As for the film’s ending, it’s easily one of horror’s most iconic. While Sally does survive and escape from the family of cannibals, that image of Leatherface dancing with his chainsaw is every bit as haunting and macabre as anything cinema can come up with.
While well respected as a game changer in horror, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” has held up extraordinarily well and still scares the hell outta me every time I watch it.
