Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this movie is a legend in the horror genre. I have heard so much about this movie, the interesting thing is, my mom told me it's one of the bloodiest movies she's ever seen, then she paused and said "Wait, actually there wasn't that much blood… it's just creepy". So I had to see this movie, was it really that scary? Is it really that bloody? Is it really that creepy? I had to see for myself, so of course I bought the movie, it was on sale, watched it during the day, not much effect, was pretty disappointed. But then my friends came over and we wanted to watch a scary movie and they all saw that I had The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, we turned off the lights, turned on the surround sound and then the screams came as I realized this is one messed up movie!

Sally Hardesty and her wheelchair-bound brother Franklin travel with three friends to a cemetery where the Hardestys' grandfather is buried to investigate reports of vandalism and corpse defilement. Afterward, they decide to visit an old Hardesty family homestead, and on the way, the group picks up a hitchhiker. The man speaks and acts bizarrely, and then slashes himself and Franklin with a straight razor before being forced from the group's van. Franklin tells Kirk and Pam about a local swimming hole, and the couple heads off to find it. Instead, they stumble upon a nearby house. Kirk decides to ask the residents for some gas, while Pam waits on the front steps. Receiving no answer but finding the door unlocked, Kirk enters the house and is immediately murdered by Leatherface. Pam enters soon after to find the house filled with furniture made from human bones. She attempts to flee but is caught by Leatherface and impaled on a meat hook. At sunset, Sally's boyfriend Jerry heads out to look for the others. Finding the couple's blanket outside the neighboring house, he investigates and finds Pam still alive inside a freezer. Before he can react, Leatherface appears and kills him, stuffing Pam back inside the freezer afterward. With darkness setting, Sally and Franklin set out to find their friends. As they near the killer's house, calling for the others, Leatherface lunges out of the darkness and murders Franklin with a chainsaw. She is captured and invited to Leatherface's house for a family dinner she'll never forget.

Movies from the 1970's are so special to me, the reason why I think some of the greatest horror movies came out of that decade is due to the fact that directors didn't hold back like today. Most directors of today's Hollywood are too scared of the censors or go too far and make the audience gag rather than scream. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre I'm sure Tobe Hooper wasn't exactly expecting this movie to become the classic it has. Leatherface is frightening and I'm not so sure I'd accept an invitation from him and his family for dinner. I think they made the Manson family look like the Cleavers, you haven't seen a horror film until you've seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

10/10

There has been a time that I wasn't really that fond of horror films, finding some had cheap excessive gore, bad acting and scripting and a lack of genuine thrills and suspense. I couldn't have been more wrong, some of the best of the genres are anything but these. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the best, it screams horror classic from the character Leatherface to the many times it's been imitated/parodied but never equalled. I think the use of the documentary-style realism is masterful, and the fact it is low-budget makes no difference to me, in fact to me this adds to the gritty, harsh and creepy tone this film conveys. The gore is not at all excessive, in fact its count is quite low, and when it is used, it never feels cheap or gimmicky. The script is razor sharp, the story is compelling and Tobe Hooper's direction is probably Texas Chainsaw Massacre's strongest asset. I was fine with the acting as well, Leatherface is genuinely unnerving. In conclusion, a classic. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This low-budget monstrosity has a gritty feel to it which makes it feel like a documentary - the same kind of realism was also exploited in THE EVIL DEAD, and taken to a logical progression in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. All three films deal with rural isolation and horror, with young protagonists battling to survive against something very nasty in the woods and countryside. Rightly acclaimed as a masterpiece in gruelling terror, the sheer psychological torment taking place in this film got it banned for 25 years in the UK before censors wised up and released it in an uncut form.

Violent without being gory, brutal without being graphic, the hype that surrounds this film inevitably detracts from a final viewing, as no film can live up to it. Very much a product of its time, this and THE EXORCIST helped to usher in a new wave of graphic, in-your-face gorily violent horror films in the 1970s in which there were no boundaries. However, unlike THE EXORCIST, it only briefly tampers with nauseating the viewer (the finger-sucking and hand-cutting moments spring to mind),instead brutalising us with an endless psychological assault.

The backwoods psycho theme has always made frightening viewing, as indeed the Ed Gein case showed us that these things aren't based in fantasy. Opening with a voice-over telling us that the events are true make this feel even more like a documentary. We learn of corpse-robbing and body snatchers; Burke and Hare are very much still alive, it seems. We then get a quick succession of camera flashes in utter darkness in which we get glimpses of decayed corpses. Coupled with the strange guttural noises, this is a very frightening and disturbing scene which then continues into a beautifully composed yet disgusting shot of a decayed body tied to a graveyard statue, the work of vandals. The film now really begins.

The violence is implied rather than shown, and indeed there is little blood in the film; most of the gore is left to the imagination. The last half hour consists of the sole survivor being chased, attacked, kidnapped and taken back to the cannibals' house to take part in a meal, and finally escaping. The non-stop screaming makes this segment extremely irritating and takes a lot of the realism away from things; the hysterical over-acting is amateurish in the extreme. Thankfully director Tobe Hooper gets some great images in the final chase through the woods, in which the pretty, bloodied young blonde girl is pursued by Leatherface, swinging his chainsaw all about. In the end, Leatherface accidentally saws his own leg open (portrayed comically) and the hitch hiker is torn apart under the wheels of a heavy truck - a fitting demise.

Hooper's film succeeds in creating a truly unforgettable clan of manic cannibals. There's the friendly 'Old Man', the owner of a gas station who secretly acts as the chuckling head of the family; the insane 'Hitchhiker', who whines, moans, laughs a lot and enjoys killing things; 'Grandpa', the ancient, corpse-like toothless figure who sucks blood, and finally the most memorable of the lot, 'Leatherface', the hulking figure who wears a mask made of human flesh and who carries a gigantic chainsaw. Gunnar Hansen makes his creation an almost mythical figure; witness his final ad-libbed dance in the sunset, another beautiful moment of sheer expressionism. Many words can be used to describe this film; disturbing, frightening, nightmarish, effective, realistic...but the best would simply be to call it excellent. Tobe Hooper would go on to make some more good films (but never as scary as this one) before his career petered out in the '90s.