![]() ![]() The protagonists in most haunted house movies lose our sympathy when they react to a blatantly menacing environment by ignoring obvious threats and wandering alone into dark corners. Audiences in 1974 were well aware of the film's ominous tagline: "Who will survive. With this kind of build-up, anything might happen. The guy has a mental problem and is obsessed with cutting things - like his own hand. The basically nice kids in the van are tolerant toward Sally's somewhat obnoxious wheelchair-bound brother Franklin and are ill prepared to deal with the hitchhiker's irrational, demented behavior. After that opening, everything that happens to our college-age cast is a tense waiting game. Someone is opening graves and playing ghastly games. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's horribly expressive opening links portentous narration to half-seen glimpses of a gory disinterred corpse, followed by a sickening reverse tracking shot on a profane sight: In the dawn light, we see a rotting corpse wired to a gravestone. When they open the back door, they see a strange red room decorated with dozens of animal skulls. The yard is festooned with strange totems and a camouflage net hides a number of cars. Partain) wait for a tanker truck to refill the local gas station, Pam (Teri McMinn) and her boyfriend investigate the property next door. While Sally and her crippled brother Franklin (Paul A. They have an unpleasant episode with a disturbingly feral and violent hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) before visiting the deserted ruin that was Sally's family home. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) wants to know if her grandfather's tomb is intact, as some grisly grave-robbings have occurred. The answer is that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre looks darn good, almost too good to have been filmed on 16mm Eastman reversal film.Ī group of college students drive to a rural Texas town. The film has been over-analyzed for decades, but the extra content addresses most of the key questions: Who made this picture? How horrible was the filming? Where did the idea come from?ĭark Sky's 2-Disc Ultimate Edition came out almost two years ago to the day collectors who already have multiple copies of Tobe Hooper's horror classic will be interested in discovering what the film gains in the Blu-ray format. ![]() It's a quality film that faces its subject matter - latent human savagery - square in the eye. Although constructed to bring out audiences looking for transgressive, gut-wrenching horror, it demonstrates considerable restraint, generating almost an hour of creeping dread without resorting to a single cliché. Of all the excessive horror films of the 1970s, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is probably the most worthy and artistic. Partain, Ewin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansenįilm Editor Larry Carroll, Sallye Richardson
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