Product: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original Uncut) [Region 2] (1974)
Rating: 5.0
TCM!
I don't know if I reviewed this yet, but here it goes. This film is 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. This may be notorious for its title, but it's also a sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper. This is based on a true story, and is an extremely disturbing and scary movie. This isn't a slice and dice film, it has hardly any blood, so fans of Halloween and Psycho should appreciate this film. 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). It ranks with Psycho, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Watch it alone, in the dark!