Product: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original Uncut) [Region 2] (1974)
Rating: 5.0
The saw, the saw is true terror!
This film is one of the horror greats. The Texas Chainsaw massacre belongs right up there with horror giants such as the Exorcist, The Birds, Psycho, Halloween, House of Wax (original), Night of the living dead, Dawn of the Dead (original), Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. To be honest for me, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre beats out all those films and it is equal to Dawn to the Dead (original), and the Exorcist.I have always said that a good slasher film needs to have a lot of gore and blood. Well in this case Mr. Tobe Hooper proves me wrong. He shows enough to get the point and the film is still gruesome. I think it has to do with the setting of the movie, and most of all the twisted family. Gunner Hansen did a stellar job as Leatherface. Granted it may seem like not a hard character to play, especially because he had not any lines what so ever. But Hansen spent a lot of time in homes for the mentally challenged and observed how people who have mental disabilities acted. The scene where after Leatherface had killed two of the teens, he escapes into a room and holds his head in panic and rocks back and fourth presents some of Hansen's research. This almost shows that the character somewhat knows he's doing wrong but can't help it. Moreover, having Leatherface unable to speak adds to the terror. Just look at two classic killers that were created in his wake that couldn't speak, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees.The music in the film is nothing but weird sound effects that seem to be like cymbals, drums and such, which also adds to the atmosphere. The camera angles and shots of the setting sun, and the trees is almost documentary worthy. I think one thing that makes this film so good but yet so darn disturbing is that something like this really could happen. There are a lot of extremely rural areas out there and I'm sure some really unusual things happen in them.This film set the bar for horror movies that came after. It pushed the envelope and disturbed, and scared a lot of people. Before there was Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Kruger, there was Leatherface, who is a true horror icon.