THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

DIRECTED BY Tobe Hooper

SCREENPLAY BY Kim Henkel & Tobe Hooper

STARRING  - Marilyn Burns as Sally Hardesty,  Allen Danziger as Jerry,  Paul A. Partain as Franklin Hardesty,  William Vail as Kirk,  Teri McMinn as Pam,  Edwin Neal as Hitchhiker,  Jim Siedow as Old Man,  Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface,  John Dugan as Grandpa.

PLOT - Five teenagers are taking a holiday road trip out in the wilds of Texas when they make the mistake of picking up a sinister hitchhiker.

The hitchhiker attacks the disabled Franklin with a razor blade and then flees from the terrified teens.

Low on gas, the teens find themselves at a remote and seemingly deserted farmhouse but all is not as it seems. For the house is home to a degenerate family of hillbilly cannibals...hillbilly cannibals who are very, very hungry.

One by one the youngsters are picked off until only a girl named Sally remains. Can Sally escape from the clutches of the inbred flesheaters, and will she survive horrors of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre ?...

DIALOUGE  - Hitchhiker  - "You could have dinner with us. You like head cheese ? My brother makes it real good ! You'll like it."

PERFORMANCES  - Most of the main "teen" characters (they all look about 30) in this film are of the standard character types ie - they're not onscreen for very long before they're all horribly murdured. They're decently enough acted but we never feel that we ever really get to know them.

The exception is "final girl" Sally played by Marilyn Burns. I think its safe to say that Burns gives an absolutely harrowing performance. She totally nails it and realistically sells the sheer horror and terror that her character is feeling. Literally the entire second half of the film she gets little to no actual dialogue, all we hear are Sally's tortured screams as she frantically runs and fights for her life. She becomes believably hysterical and desperate. Burns' whole performance is an object lesson in how to convincingly portray stark terror, both in her blood curdling screams and her hysterical frantic body language.

Sally's screams will haunt you long after the film has finished. Best of all is the moment when she finally manages to escape in the back of a pickup up truck. Her mad staring eyes and maniacal laughter leaves us in no doubt that although Sally has escaped with her life, her sanity is an entirely different matter. This is one young lady who's going to need LOTS of therapy in the months, years and decades to come. Its this realisation thats probably the most chilling aspect of this film. Fantastic stuff.

Paul Partain is also good as Sally's disabled brother Franklin. He's clearly embittered about being confined to a wheelchair and cuts quite a lonely figure throughout the film, he's a part of Sally's group of friends but at the same time apart from them. He also gets lots of indignities heaped upon him which are all darkly comedic in some way.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is mostly remembered for its cast of villians though - the cannibalistic Texas hillbillys known as the Sawyers (although we don't learn their name until the later movies in the series). 

The first family member we meet is the hitchhiker (retroactively named Nubbins Sawyer) played by Edwin Neal. Neal gives an absolutely electrifying performance in his first scene. As soon as the kids pick him up you just know they've made a massive mistake. As he giggles and jitters in the back of the van you literally can't take your eyes off him. You just KNOW this weird little lunatic is about to do something seriously messed up. He doesn't disappoint either.

Later on he becomes perhaps the most sadistic of Sally's tormentors - openly mocking her fear and physically intimidating her. Something which he seems to find hilarious.

Then we get Jim Siedow as the ostensible head of the family (named Drayton Sawyer in the sequals). Outwardly he appears to the most normal and sane member of the clan, but don't let that bumbling "good ol' boy" demeanour fool you - he's just as crazy as the rest of the family.

Drayton doesn't seem to have as much of a taste for killing as the rest of his kinfolk, instead he prides himself on being the "chef" which basically means he's the one responsible for cooking and serving up the corpses of his family's victims as food. Disturbingly he also runs a B.B.Q. in town, so he's probably also serving up "murder victim hamburgers" and Kebabs to the local townsfolk. I'm guessing they know nothing about this. Its hard to tell whether Drayton is the eldest brother or the father to Nubbins and Leatherface (the Sawyers are so inbred even they probably don't know) but he certainly seems to be the one calling the shots.

The other head of the family is Grandpa (John Dugan), a wizened centenarian who seems like he's going to drop dead at any second. He apparently used to be the "best killer" of them all but his glory days are now long (loonnggg) past him. These days he can barely even lift up a hammer to attack Sally with.

Most famous of all we get Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) the hulking, retarded muscle of the family who went on to become the true face of the Texas Chainsaw franchise. From his first appearance its clear that this character is destined to become horror movie royalty. Wearing hideous "skin masks" cut from the corpses of his victims (clearly inspired by Ed Gein's real-life antics), we never see what Leatherface really looks like. It's implied that he's possibly deformed (most likely due to generations of inbreeding - lets face it, you can't shag your own sister and expect much good to come of it). He never speaks either- he just communicates in a series of pig like squeals and inarticulate grunts. Most amusingly is the fact that for all his terrifying demeanour Leatherface seems genuinely stressed out by all these 30 year old teenagers getting under his feet. He's having just as bad a day as everyone else is. I like this (slight) humanising of Leatherface, it makes him a lot more interesting than he otherwise would be.

SFX - Some gore (not as much as you might think). There's a pretty realistic looking semi- decomposed corpse seen in the opening shot.

Grandpa Sawyer's face looks a bit like a cheap Halloween mask. John Dugan was only about twenty five years old when he played the part (Grandpa was probably younger than most of the so-called "teenagers" in this movie), so it's hardly surprising he had to wear a prosthetic mask. It doesn't quite work though and detracts a bit from the gritty realism of the rest of the film (Grandpa looks a lot more convincing in the sequals).

VIOLENCE  - With a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre you'd naturally expect the film to be awash with fountains of gore, flying heads, limbs and entrails and all manner of gooey nastiness wouldn't you ? Surprisingly enough this film is rather restrained in that department. It's more the sounds that we hear going on in the background that conjure up mental images more horrific than anything we ever see onscreen.

Perhaps the best actual kill is when Leatherface first appears and smashes one of the unfortunate teens over the head with a hammer. We see very little blood, its more the way that the victim's legs spasm as he dies that makes it disturbing. Oh, it's also pretty satisfying when Nubbins gets run over by an articulated lorry in the film's final scene. Franklin gets it pretty bad as well - the culmination of the truly shitty holiday he's been having when he runs afoul of Leatherface and his trusty chainsaw.

RATING - Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece of terror. Its fast moving, taut and very disturbing. It's actually quite exhausting to watch in parts (this is a good thing). A true classic that deserves its legendary status.

5 Texas b.b.q's out of 5. Just don't eat the spare ribs.

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