2023-04-18

Review: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper)

A couple of kids on a trip pick up a creepy hitchhiker, and get stranded at some remote farmhouse. Soon, one of the group is missing, and bit by bit the others get to know the inhabitants of the house... will they make it out?

All-time classic "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" by Tobe Hooper is one of those 70es horror films that shaped the genre and are frequently listed among the best of their kind.

The story sounds like a pretty default low-budget slasher scheme, but the movie is an exceptionally raw, not funny, but genuinely grotesque, and coherent statement. 

It paints a picture of a society in decay, the forgotten leftovers beyond the edges of progress and TV. It has a lot of similarities to e.g. "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977), "Mothers Day" (1980), and "The Devils Rejects" (2005), but very much unlike these, there's an obvious artistic vision here that goes beyond the usual shock-and-awe tactics. 

In fact there's not much gore in "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre". Creepy, foreboding images, quick hard cuts that leave the worst to your imagination, a family devoid of any future, images and sounds of pure terror - it works in your head, long after it's over. Modern civilization has created its own downfall, and as the sun sets, the apocalypse is lurking just beyond the horizon...

Verdict: Raw, brutal, and visionary. 10/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072271/

Trailer video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKn9QIaMgtQ

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