The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
WHO WILL SURVIVE & WHAT WILL BE LEFT OF THEM?
Tobe Hooper & Kim Henkel's classic story (very, very loosely based on the life of Ed Gein), began a new era of horror... seedy, low-budget and very grizzly. Chainsaw spawned many sequels, re-makes and copy-cats, but all of them pale into insignificance in comparison with this bona fide cult classic. It plays like an episode of Scooby-do, but with added blood lust.
In true Scooby style, a bunch of wandering kids drive around the country in search of an old house belonging to the father of a cripple. Despite numerous attempts by the local yokel ("don't go messin' 'round therrrr"), the crazy kids end up wandering into a lonesome house... a house of DEATH! Oh, and cannibalism. Yummy.
Squalid, macabre, hilarious, and surprisingly expertly-crafted, Chainsaw still makes the skin crawl today as it ever did in the grubby 1970s. The beauty of the film is that it doesn't mess around. Right from the off, the imagery is designed to make you feel uneasy. Next thing you know, a crazed hill-billy with a penchant for rusty knives and KOOKY hoodoo turns up, and sure enough all bloody hell breaks loose, peaking with the introduction of leatherface, a genuinely iconic figure not just in horror movies, but in the entire movie culture.
The ensuing madness is both funny and creepy. Hooper pulls out every possible trick from his grizzly hat of horror, especially in the final 15 minutes, where almost every shot is place to make the audience permanently (and deliberately) on edge. Chainsaw is one of the very, very best horror movies of all time. Forget all others that lie in its wake. The original is still the best.
