The Legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 2022 American documentary film about the obvious subject matter.
Directed by Phillip Escott, the Fractured Visions and Second Sight Films 83-minute documentary features lots of contemporary talking heads…
Meanwhile, here’s our previous coverage of the horror classic:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1973 [released 1974] American horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper (Invaders from Mars; The Funhouse; Poltergeist; Lifeforce) from a screenplay co-written with Kim Henkel (Butcher Boys; Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation). Often listed as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Although it was marketed as a true story to attract a wider audience and as a subtle commentary on the era’s political climate, its plot is entirely fictional; however, the character of Leatherface and minor plot details were inspired by the crimes of real-life murderer Ed Gein, who was also the inspiration for Psycho (1960) and Deranged (1974).
Main cast:
Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen (The Demon Lover; Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers; Mosquito).
Plot:
In Texas, a group of young friends falls victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead…
Hooper produced the film for less than $300,000 and used a cast of relatively unknown actors drawn mainly from central Texas, where the film was shot. The limited budget forced Hooper to film for long hours in sweltering temperatures seven days a week so that he could finish as quickly as possible and reduce equipment rental costs.
Due to the film’s violent content, Hooper struggled to find a distributor. Louis Perano of Bryanston Pictures eventually purchased the distribution rights. Hooper apparently limited the quantity of onscreen gore in hopes of securing a ‘PG’ rating (!), but the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it ‘R’. The film faced similar difficulties internationally.
Upon its October 1974 release, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was banned outright in several countries, and numerous cinemas later stopped showing the film in response to complaints about its violence. While it initially drew a mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable, grossing over $30 million at the domestic box office.
It has since gained a reputation as one of the most influential horror films in cinema history. It is credited with originating several elements common in the slasher genre, including the use of power tools as murder weapons and the characterisation of the killer as a large, hulking, faceless figure. The popularity of the film led to a franchise that continued the legacy of Leatherface and his family through sequels, remakes, comic books, video games, toys and action figures.
Review:
If for any reason, you don’t own this film or haven’t seen it, you need to rectify that immediately. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the best horror film ever made. I could argue that it is the best film of any genre if I felt so inclined. It’s a film that essentially reinvented the genre, putting into place elements that have long since become clichés (and yet still work with powerful effect here) and offering a structural style that the best of the genre have tried to copy but never quite matched.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre takes the reinvented modern-day realism that the genre moved towards in the 1970s and grafts it onto a new form of delirious gothic grandeur, and it is relentlessly, insanely horrifying – and absurdly funny. No other movie – not even Tobe Hooper’s own out-of-control sequel – comes close to matching the sheer levels of hysteria and madness shown here, and no film so perfectly manipulates the audience from the opening moments, bringing them to such a state of expectation that when the horror actually kicks in, it’s almost a relief.
The opening moments of the film are a textbook exercise in setting the audience on edge. The text scroll and voice over, calmly telling us that bad things are going to happen to everyone in the movie and implying that this is a true story (without ever saying so) give way to camera flashes of decayed body parts and that noise – a discordant, startling sound that is somewhere between an animal squeal and scraping metal.
Cut to wired up, rotting corpses that remain the most grotesque ever seen on film and a radio report about “grave robbing in Texas” before we then go to the opening titles or solar flares and Wayne Bell’s industrial score (the most vital, unsettling and entirely essential score in cinema history, Bell’s music is nearer sound effect than a traditional score, and is a massively important part of what makes the film work – replacing it would be a crippling act of cultural vandalism). This is the most jaw-droppingly powerful opening in film history.
The film continues to set us up to expect the worst. Even as we meet the characters – Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her wheelchair-bound and whiney annoying brother Franklin (Paul Partain), boyfriend Jerry (Allen Danziger) and friends Kirk (William Vail) and Pam (Terri McMinn) – we hear a radio news report that is nothing but a series of atrocities – death, murder, mutilation and assault. The film is letting us know that the events that are about to unfold are not even that unusual in 1974 America.
The kids are investigating whether Sally’s grandfather has been dug up in the grave robbing atrocities and checking out the old family farmhouse, now entirely dilapidated. En route, they pass the local slaughterhouses and pick up a hitchhiker (Edwin Neal). He’s an odd sort, to say the least – a grotesque birthmark on half his face and a personality that hovers between harmlessly sub-normal and dangerously psychotic. When he slices his own hand open with a knife, starts a fire in the van and cuts Franklin with a razor, the audience is already reeling. If this is the set up, what the hell is coming next?
It’s a smart move from director Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel, because this is already unlike anything that horror movie audiences would have seen before. It’s also one of the goriest moments in the film (despite its reputation, this is a remarkably bloodless movie) and this sets the audience up to think they have seen far more than they actually have. It’s a sequence that further puts the viewer on edge, expecting the very worst. The film further sets us on edge by cutting scenes abruptly, sometimes almost mid-word, giving it a breathless quality that wallows in your subconscious.
But Hooper doesn’t need overt acts of violence to build up the tension and the feelings of growing disgust. A mass of daddy long legs in the corner of a room, or a few unidentified bones lying around will do the job just as well. Hooper can make a simple shot of Franklin trying to get his wheelchair over a door entrance seem almost unbearably stressful at this point, and so when Kirk and Pam head out to a long dried out swimming hole and then spot a farmhouse where they could hopefully buy some gas, the audience is already at breaking point.
Still, no one was ready for what came next. As Kirk enters the house and wanders towards a doorway – squealing noises on the soundtrack, animal skulls on the wall – Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) appears, lifts a hammer, smacks Kirk in the head and then drags his twitching body through the doorway before slamming a steel door shut. Bang! The single most apocalyptic moment in horror film history, right there. It all happens so quickly that the viewer barely has time to recover from the shock before it’s over. Horror films just didn’t do that. They still don’t.
From this point onwards, it’s essentially full-throttle madness. Pam enters the house and stumbles into the bone room – a room full of bones, teeth and feathers (and a caged chicken hanging from the ceiling), some of which are being made into furniture – before Leatherface grabs her and hangs her on a hook to wait her turn as he chainsaws Kirk into bite-sized pieces. Then Jerry shows up looking for them and is also despatched. At this point, you feel for Leatherface, as he panics, wondering where the hell all these people are actually coming from all of a sudden (it’s easy to assume, as other Chainsaw films did, that Leatherface could be played by any big guy in a mask, but Hansen actually gives an intelligent, nuanced performance throughout the film).
Finally, the bickering Sally and Franklin go in search of their missing friends, and Franklin is made short work of by Leatherface, who then chases Sally through the woods as she screams… and screams… and screams. In fact, Sally rarely stops screaming for the rest of the movie, first hiding out in the death house before escaping (one of two jumps through a glass window for her) and then making her way to the service station that we’d seen earlier.
Back then, the proprietor (Jim Siedow) had explained that he was out of gas and offered what would soon be the advice given in every rural horror movie, namely not to hang around or go poking about in other people’s property (so the kids can hardly say they weren’t warned!). Unfortunately for Sally, her rescuer is part of the same crazy family that includes Leatherface, the Hitchhiker and ancient Grandpa (John Dugan), and soon she finds herself tied to a chair as the guest of honour at the world’s worst dinner party, tormented, mocked and abused.
This is perhaps the most relentlessly insane scene in cinema history. Apparently as hellish and hysterical to shoot as it is to watch, it’s a non-stop series of screaming, howling and psychological torture, with Hooper and cinematographer Daniel Pearl filling the screen with close-us of Sally’s teary eyeball as the soundtrack becomes ever more intense. It feels like it will never stop. It’s the ultimate horror movie experience because it pulls you directly into the experience. You can almost smell it, the atmosphere is so potent. When Grandpa is handed a hammer that he can barely hold to kill Sally, the film reaches a new level of delirium.
It’s entirely understandable that audiences in 1974, for whom this was all very new, would react so physically to the film. Sally’s second escape leads to the film’s finale, and it’s a shock to realise that all this hasn’t been taking place in some isolated place – they are right next to a highway and it’s broad daylight. Her ordeal has lasted all night. The final shot, a frustrated Leatherface waving his chainsaw insanely before a sudden cut to black, is iconic and unforgettable. And it offers us no respite from what has gone before. We know he’s still out there.
It’s hard to find fault with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It really is the perfect horror film. And while the movie has a lot of dark humour, none of it seems forced or awkward, and all fits within the demented family dynamic of the story that it’s unsurprising that it went over the heads of most audiences at the time. Lots of the comedy is rather subtle, too, like the service station attendant who continually gets up to wash the van whenever Siedow’s character returns to offer more advice to the passengers (and they really should’ve listened to him).
Some people have scoffed at the acting in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but this is actually a film full of great performances. Siedow is astonishing as the ostensibly more stable of the family, torn between enjoying the killing and being more responsible, usually within the same moments. His ability to be both disapproving and excited almost at the same time is fantastic, and he provides much of the film’s humour with his continual outrage (“you damn fool, you’ve ruined the door!”) and genuine creepiness.
Neal is as horrible and creepy a character as you could ever want to see on screen, and Partain does a great job of being absolutely annoying, yet still somehow sympathetic. He’s far from the ‘sentimentalised cripple’ we tend to see in movies, and while we might feel for him when the others mock or neglect him, it’s easy to understand why they might find him continually annoying. 
As for Marilyn Burns, what can you say? When you talk about gutsy actors, she should surely come close to the top of the list. She spends much of the film running and screaming, covered in blood or being thrown around and beaten up. Her hysterics are worryingly convincing and she essentially sets a standard that no Final Girl has come close to matching. Every aspect of this film is like a master class in horror cinema. Yet there is something here – some indefinable moment – that can’t be copied, which is why no-one has come close to making anything like this since.
David Flint, MOVIES & MANIA
Contemporary reviews:
“It’s notable only for taking woman-in-jeopardy about as far as she can go. The three men are despatched unceremoniously, and the women (bra-less and hotpants respectively), their screams rising into orgasms of fear, are toyed with endlessly while the camera often assumes a pointedly aggressive stance. Pernicious stuff…” Time Out London
“This is, without doubt, the most frightening and macabre shocker I have ever seen.” Evening News ” … what appals me about this film is its lack of purpose; if ever a film should be banned this is it.” Daily Mail “The fact that it is rather efficiently and effectively done only makes the film more unpalatable.” The Times
Buy Chain Saw Confidential from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
Other reviews:
“Horror had never been this raw before, and it could be argued that it hasn’t since, the sheer grimy ugliness of the piece leading some to walk out, others to cry sadism and many more to acclaim the film as a modern masterpiece; horror in its purest, most unforgiving form. Sequels and remakes have come thick and fast, but nothing will ever match your first encounter with the original and its brutal, hammer-over-the-head power.” Time Out London
Soundtrack:
Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre needs little introduction in terms of the effect it had culturally on horror film-making nor it’s notoriety, certainly in England, largely based on what was perceived to have been seen, rather than what was there for all to see.
Regardless, the sound of the film is generally overlooked, a ‘will-this-do?’ coda to discussions focused around power-tools, chickens in small cages and meat processing – this is unfortunate as the sound design, let alone the music used, is something of a tour de force.
The signature theme of the movie is, of course, the saw itself. The sound is uncompromising and unmistakable… plus you and the characters can hear it coming a mile off. As such, the sensible decision was made to not clutter the ears with unnecessary noise – pictures are painted with subtle uses of song and, more jarringly, with more agricultural instruments but sparingly to allow the shocks and terror to build in the mind rather than have the dots joined up for you.
‘Texas…’ is one of the most famous films to use the already-discussed technique of alerting the audience at the beginning of the movie to the fact that the sequences they are about to view are based on true events. The slow crawl of the text against the sonorous tones of the voice are round about the last chance the audience get to relax before the film starts – the warning, bizarrely, considering the mania that follows, rang loudly true, American audiences at least being more than aware of the antics of Ed Gein less than twenty years previously.
The title sequence beyond this is also more than worthy of investigation. The on-screen blackness punctuated by torch-lit glimpses of ‘surely not?’ gruesomeness is pitched against electronic screeches which we will soon realise mimics the screams onscreen. It’s a disconcerting sound as it’s completely unnatural yet we fundamentally know what it means, we’ve already been warned once, here’s your second chance. What the blackness and white-noise roar finally gives way to bright Texan sunshine [and an un-Godly statue] the first sound we hear is of static of radio and snatches of local drawl offering information about the abomination we have just seen; this immediately gives a certain authenticity to the film, no fanfares, no slow build of strings – just the sound of real-life.
Before Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell progressed to using synthesizers, they manipulated normally recognisable sounds to the point of perverse parody; percussion was abused, a double-bass was attacked, the sound of the tortured strings treated and reversed, violin bows scratching at anything but strings. Objects nearby were dropped from a height, the crashing sound turned inside-out so that although you were aware of something in the gloom, you are unable to picture it or determine from where it came.
Diegetic sound is prevalent throughout the film, most obviously the voices and saw but also the appalling, frantic scribbling of harvest spiders in the corner of a room, caged chickens, the clatter of shuttered doors – we know the sounds but struggle to associate them with anything good. The character of Sally spends the latter part of the movie ceaselessly screaming, behaving, frankly, as any of us would. The camera cuts to close-ups of her eyes, the faces of her captors – the screaming never stops. We are trapped in her nightmare. With her friends murdered with oddly quick efficiency, the sound of her screams alerts us to the fact that her fate is going to be far more drawn-out.
The songs used in ‘Texas’ are somewhat enigmatic. The most famous, ‘Fool for a Blond’, can at least be attributed conclusively, to local musician, Roger Bartlett. It is recorded ‘as live’, again, lending a credence to the film telling the story as it really happened in Wisconsin. The lyrics have little to do with the movie, save for the fact that the lead actress has blonde hair. This achieves the effect of again rooting the story in reality; hideous events may be happening in front of us but elsewhere, life carries on as normal. The song’s jauntiness and light-hearted observations are clearly at odds with the film’s content.
Other songs also feature; efforts by Timberline Rose, Los Cyclones and Arkey Blue have pieces played but only briefly; the aim is for it to create atmosphere, not to give light relief nor explain what’s happening onscreen. Arkey Blue enjoyed another two minutes of fame recording ‘Two Many Pills’, a song regularly featured in compilations of country songs themed on dodgy landfill.
Of the others, we know little; nearly forty years on, all attempts to locate the remaining musicians have failed; this has had two effects. One is that the songs remain mysterious, timeless and can only be identified alongside the film. The second reinforces the latter statement – the sound was recorded only on mono tape, the music cannot physically be separated from the actors’ speech which overlays it. It is unfeasible to believe a soundtrack could ever happen, the film can only ever exist as a whole. For a film without a hummable title or end theme, the sound of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is unmistakable, challenging and timeless.
Daz Lawrence, MOVIES & MANIA
Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
Cast and characters:
Marilyn Burns … Sally
Allen Danziger … Jerry
Paul A. Partain … Franklin
William Vail … Kirk
Teri McMinn … Pam
Edwin Neal … Hitchhiker
Jim Siedow … Old Man
Gunnar Hansen … Leatherface
John Dugan … Grandfather
Robert Courtin … Window Washer
William Creamer … Bearded Man
John Henry Faulk … Storyteller
Jerry Green … Cowboy
Ed Guinn … Cattle Truck Driver
Joe Bill Hogan … Drunk
Perry Lorenz … Pick Up Driver
John Larroquette … Narration (voice)
Levie Isaacks … Radio Announcer (uncredited)
Technical details:
83 minutes | 88 minutes (unrated version)
16mm
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Mono
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation is a 2019 book by Joseph Lanza from Skyhorse Publishing, available now in hardcover and e-book.
The 304-page book examines the cultural impact of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel‘s classic horror movie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, detailing how and why it connected with so many viewers upon its release in 1974.
“When Tobe Hooper’s low-budget slasher film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal measure with disgust and reverence. The film—in which a group of teenagers meet a gruesome end when they stumble upon a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers—was outright banned in several countries and was pulled from many American theaters after complaints of its violence.
Despite the mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable at the domestic box office and has since secured its place as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation, cultural critic Joseph Lanza turns his attentions to the production, reception, social climate, and impact of this controversial movie that rattled the American psyche.
Joseph Lanza transports the reader back to the tumultuous era of the 1970s defined by political upheaval, cultural disillusionment, and the perceived decay of the nuclear family in the wake of Watergate, the onslaught of serial killers in the US, as well as mounting racial and sexual tensions.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation sets the themes of the film against the backdrop of the political and social American climate to understand why the brutal slasher flick connected with so many viewers. As much a book about the movie as the moment, Joseph Lanza has created an engaging and nuanced work that grapples with the complications of the American experience.”
