Product: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original Uncut) [Region 2] (1974)
Rating: 5.0
Shure it's old, but it's good.
After hearing about a slew of recent graveyard robberies and desecrations, a vanload of teens travel to the graveyard where their grandparents are buried, just to make sure that the family plot has not been disturbed. The group includes two scantily-clad hot chicks, their dorky bell-bottoms wearing boyfriends (God bless the 70's), and the wheelchair-bound fat-...brother of one of the hot chicks, who is obviously there for comic relief.On their way back from the graveyard, they pick up some whacked-out hitchiker who rambles on about killing cows with a sledgehammer to the head, cuts the fat kid on the arm, and then runs away. Hmmm, must be that Texas heat. The van full of victims then stops at a gas station, only to discover that the tanks are dry and the truck won't be there until later in the day. In order to pass the time, the fat kid suggest that they drive to a nearby abandoned house that he used to live in, which supposedly has a swimming hole out back. What he neglects to mention is the family of redneck psycho cannibals who live in the next house over. Let the killing begin!The first act, while uneven, provides a good setup for the carnage-filled second act. As unsettling as it is to see Leatherface jump out and bash someone over the head with a mallet, the real star is the house itself, and the bizarre discoveries our human cattle make inside, right before they get a dose of Texas psycho hospitality. The house is creepy on the scale of Norman Bates' Victorian or Rustin Parr's cabin, and Hooper's slow but steady revelation of room by room really works to sell the film's atmosphere. No this isn't gory! There is barely even a drop of blood in this entire movie. So don't expect a cheezy slasher flick with nude chicks, and lots of blood. This is an effective little horror film that I think is far better than any other slasher film in exestence.