The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

written by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper

directed by Tobe Hooper

Goddamn. I’ve seen this movie countless times and it still packs a punch. It’s not particularly well acted, and the first half hour – aside from a great opening shot of two rotting corpses atop a gravestone – is pretty amateurish. But once a group of hippies starts to get terrorized by a family of deranged cannibals (inspired by the real-life murders of Ed Gein), it becomes a tight little horror flick – and arguably the first slasher film ever.

Contrary to popular belief, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has very little actual gore. There are only five deaths, but they’re all ingeniously staged – much of the shock comes from what you don’t see. The scene where now-iconic psychopath Leatherface (played by Gunnar Hansen as an imposing, slow-witted man-child) first appears in a doorway and bashes a victim’s head with a sledgehammer still scares the bejesus out of me. And the final sequence, in which (original?) final girl Sally (Marilyn Burns) screams non-stop as she attempts to escape Leatherface’s chainsaw, is almost poetic in its audacity. There’s frankly nothing like it… and you will never forget the final thirty seconds.

Rating: ***½

Carlos I. Cuevas