Product: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original Uncut) [Region 2] (1974)
Rating: 5.0
Simply thee most frightening of all horror films
When I was very little my uncle from the city would visit and always tell us about TCM. So I, of course, developed a near obsession about it. When I finally saw the film it WAS as scary as he had told. When I got to college I did a paper about it where some research was required. First of all people must consider the times. The Manson case had only recently been settled and people were still affected and freaked by it. It is no accident that the lead looks so much like the beautiful Sharon Tate (a freaksih side note is that this actress, Marilyn Burns, also played one of Manson's women in the TV miniseries: Helter Skelter). What some don't realize about the Manson case is that fear was as much a part of the murders as actual death was. This movie plays that out like no other movie, except possibly Last House on the Left, when the camera seemingly lingers on Sally as she screams so affectingly (a great performance) after all her companions have been killed. As so many others have already pointed out, it is this documentary feel that makes it so amazing. It does of course have elements of the Ed Gein case which so many state but, as other films of these years, the Manson murders were key because they were more recent and imprinted in the minds of so many americans as a most brutal act. These were mostly cautionary tales, especially Last House (which I personally cannot see as a Horror film since all fun is out the door, it's actually too emotionally effecting) whereas Massacre while hard to watch had a sense of fun which horror has to have.