The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974 original]

Forget the abysmal remakes and sequels to this Tobe Hooper masterpiece,this is horror at it's best as the art has succumbed to young greenhorns who's offered us such bathetic portions like The insipid Saw series and the pathetic Hostel 1&2. Only films like 2000's Gingersnap  and even the computer animated Monster House are worthy of being called films as today's young filmmakers think that perpetual bloodbaths make an intelligent horror.

Like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho released 14 years earlier,Tobe Hooper based his story on true accounts of serial killer Ed Gein's horrific murders in the 1950's and even opens the film with the caption/narration ''The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths......'' a brilliant marketing strategy similar to Hitch not allowing audience members into the theatre after 5 min of Psycho's opening.

Texas chainsaw is modest with it's showing of graphic violence,leaving a lot to the audience's imagination.a cognitive attribute I salute Hooper for as today's filmmakers can seriously learn from.

The film opens with grave robber/hitchhiker [Edwin Neal] removing decomposed bodies from their graves,placing them in bizarre poses and snapping Polaroids with the most disturbing reverberation added after the pictures are shot,a sound you won't forget..

Hooper shot this for $ 300.000 that would be over a mil today using relatively unknown actors including the lovely Marilyn Burns [Sally Hardesty]. Gunnar Hanson would spend time observing the mentally challenged to make his Leatherface character more credulous. Night court's John Larroquette offered his pipes as the opening narrator.



The lovely Marilyn Burns

TCSM premiered in Austin Texas on Oct. 1 1974 and was banned in the United Kingdom and Australia and understandably so as this film broke all the rules for it's time,two theatres in Canada withdrew the film,while shown in San Fransisco many theatre goers left in disgust.The film grossed $30 million at the theatres and $14  milin rentals.

I first viewed the film in 1984 while living in Dallas,the film was shown uncut on a local station with a warning,graphic violence caption before it was shown.This was a common attempt for TV stations to compete with HBO,I was enamored after viewing,and consider Silence Of The Lambs and Halloween tame compared to this shocker.The film depends more on nauseating sound effects then it does graphic violence,such as the scene where Leatherface slams the cooler door,or impales his victims skulls,Hooper uses these effects quite effectively.

So,the verdict?,this is the greatest horror film ever made hands down! For the record,both remakes are absolutely pointless,and just moneymakers to greedy directors.

All in the family,lol,horror's most motley crew