From Amazon.co.uk
This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper (
Poltergeist,
Lifeforce,
Salem's Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it's also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it's blood-curdling scary, too. Loosely based on the true crimes of Ed Gein (also a partial inspiration for
Psycho), the original Jeffrey Dahmer,
Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of teenagers who pick up a hitchhiker and wind up in a backwoods horror chamber where they're held captive, tortured, chopped up, and impaled on meat hooks by a demented cannibalistic family, including a character known as Leatherface who maniacally wields one helluva chainsaw. The movie's powerful sense of dread is heightened by its grainy, semi-documentary style--but it also has a wicked sense of humour (and not that camp, self-referential variety that became so tiresome in subsequent horror films of the 70s, 80s and 90s). OK, in case you couldn't tell, it's "not for everyone", but as a landmark in the development of the horror/slasher genre, it ranks with
Psycho,
Halloween, and
A Nightmare on Elm Street. --
Jim Emerson
Amazon.com Essential Video
This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper (
Poltergeist,
Lifeforce,
Salem's Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it's also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it's blood-curdling scary, too. Loosely based on the true crimes of Ed Gein (also a partial inspiration for
Psycho), the original Jeffrey Dahmer,
Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of teenagers who pick up a hitchhiker and wind up in a backwoods horror chamber where they're held captive, tortured, chopped up, and impaled on meat hooks by a demented cannibalistic family, including a character known as Leatherface who maniacally wields one helluva chainsaw. The movie's powerful sense of dread is heightened by its grainy, semi-documentary style--but it also has a wicked sense of humor (and not that camp, self-referential variety that became so tiresome in subsequent horror films of the '70s, '80s, and '90s). OK, in case you couldn't tell, it's "not for everyone." But as a landmark in the development of the horror/slasher genre, it ranks with
Psycho,
Halloween, and
A Nightmare on Elm Street.
--Jim Emerson