- Directed by Tobe Hooper
- Written by Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
- Stars Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Alan Denziger
- Run Time: 1 hour, 23 minutes
- Trailer: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) – Movie Trailer
Non-spoiler Judgment Zone
It’s gritty, dirty, smelly, and relentlessly intense. It’s got surprisingly little gore for the title, but it’s the forefather of all the other slasher franchises. It’s definitely worth a watch!
Synopsis
There’s a long narrative introducing a bizarre crime and a true story that occurred in August, 1973. There’s a radio report about grave robbing in Texas; just that morning, a strange art piece was found of a rotting corpse tied to a headstone. Dozens of graves have turned up empty. Credits roll.
A van pulls over on the side of the highway so the passenger, Franklin, a man in a wheelchair, can get out and pee. There’s a slight action, and he goes rolling down the hill. Sally reads a bunch of astrology stuff to Jerry, who says it’s all nonsense. They park the van and Sally gets out to see if her grandfather’s grave is still intact. He’s fine, so they get back in the van and continue down the road.
They stop to pick up a hitchhiker, a strange man with a birthmark. He says he works there in the slaughterhouse with his whole family. He grabs Franklin’s knife and cuts his own hand, which grosses out everyone else. He asks if they can drive him home, and offers them a dinner of head cheese. He cuts Franklin with an old straight razor, so they throw the guy out of the van.
They stop for gas, but the gas station is all out, so they can’t refill. They ask directions to Franklin’s father’s old place. He warns them that they don’t want to go up there. They make it up the hill to the house, but we knew that’s going to be an issue later. The house is a ruin, but they have no choice but to stay.
Kirk and Pam find another nearby farm and walk over there to hopefully buy or trade for some gas. They hear a big generator running, so someone must live there. They see animal bones everywhere, but Kirk goes inside anyway. Leatherface whacks him over the head with a big mallet and hides behind a big metal door.
Pam follows inside, looking for Kirk, and she finds what a strange place this actually is when she finds a human skeleton. Leatherface opens his door, squeals, and then grabs Pam and hangs her on a meat hook. Leatherface then picks up a chainsaw and beheads Kirk.
Jerry goes looking for the missing twosome, leaving Franklin and Sally to wait back at the house alone. He finds the same house and goes in just like everyone else. Leatherface’s mallet does its job again. Three down!
Sally and Franklin go looking for them after it gets dark. Leatherface pops out of the darkness and cuts Franklin in half with the chainsaw as Sally goes running through the darkness. He chases her through the dark until she gets to the house and goes inside. She finds a couple of long-dead bodies upstairs. She jumps out of the upstairs window, which hurts her foot, thus slowing her down. They run back into the woods where there’s a lot more chasing.
Sally runs all the way to the gas station, where the attendant lets her in. He says there’s no phone there to call the police, so they’ll need to drive to the next town over. He knocks her out and ties her up; this isn’t the rescue she was hoping for. He stops to yell at the hitchhiker, “I told you to stay away from that graveyard! Look what your brother did to the door!”
The old man is clearly the boss. He orders Leatherface and the hitchhiker to do things, and they do them. He promises they’ll all have dinner soon. They bring Grandpa downstairs; he looks dead, but he isn’t. They feed him some of Sally’s blood, which he eagerly slurps.
She passes out and soon wakes up tied to a chair at the dinner table. She screams, and the others start howling. After a good deal of torment, they bend her over a bucket and prepare to kill her, but poor old Grandpa can’t hold the mallet. “Hit ‘er Grampa!” She breaks away and jumps out another window.
She limps through the countryside, but now the sun has come up. A giant semi truck runs over the hitchhiker, but Leatherface chases her and the truck driver. Finally, a pickup truck stops and picks her up, leaving Leatherface frustrated behind her…
Commentary
For such a legendary, famous film, not one of the stars ever became a big name. Franklin is a hilarious character, but he’s clearly the brains of the group, which isn’t saying much.
The slightly grainy quality of the film actually enhances the hot, smelly, stickiness of the environment and makes everything just a little bit ickier. There’s surprisingly little gore here, considering the title, and actually, only one person is killed by the chainsaw in the whole film. There is not even a hint of sexual content in the film, consensual or otherwise, which is unusual for a “slasher” film.
It all moves really fast, maybe a better term would be unrelenting. The usual first act where all the exposition takes place is completely overpowered by the weird hitchhiker scene, so it’s almost like pure action from start to finish.
It’s old. It’s low budget. It’s cheap. It’s also really, really effective.