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A group of teenagers - Sally (Marilyn Burns), her wheelchairbound
brother Franklyn (Paul A.Pertain), her boyfriend Jerry (Allen Danziger),
Kirk (William Vail) & his girlfriend Pam (Teri McMinn) - pick up a
hitchhiker (Edwin Neal - henceforth called Hitchhiker) on their trip
through rural Texas, who thanks them by freaking them out by cutting
himself in the hand & Franklyn in the arm. Fortunately the kids get
rid of him, but unfortunately they decide to spend the night at the
abandoned house of Sally's & Franklyn's parents nearby. Not a good
idea, since their neighbours there are laid-off butchers who, despite
being out of work, have not given up their trade. First Kirk & Pam
stumble over their house, & Kirk is soon met with the wrong end of a
sledgehammer being wielded by a weird man wearing a leathermask (Gunnar
Hansen - henceforth called Leatherface), while Pam accidently enters the
room where the butchering family store their bones & make artworks
of them - much to her horror. But much more horrific is that she is
caught by Leatherface, who hands her up on a meathook & has her
watch as he cuts her boyfriend apart ... Our remaining teenagers after
some time grow worried over the whereabaouts of their friends, so Kirk
goes looking for them - to get a taste of Leatherface's hammer
firsthand. Meanwhile it has grown dark, & Sally & Franklyn are
understandably worried about their friends, so they go on a search too -
which ends all of a sudden when - without warning - Franklyn is cut to
pieces by Leatherface's chainsaw. Sally however can escape the maniac,
but her escape route leads her to the house of horrors, whicvh she flees
in horror when meeting the corpses of grandpa & grandma (that
grandpa [John Dugan] is not really dead we do not learn until later in
the picture, he certainly looks dead though). Finally our girl reaches a
gas station & considers herself in safety - until she finds out the
owner (Jim Siedow - henceforth called Old Man) is actually the head of
the family, and he beats her unconscious. When she re-awakens, she finds
herself at the head-end of a perverse dinnertable, bound to a chair made
of human remains, & considered to be the main course, with the whole
murderous family - the Old Man, Grandpa, Leatherface & Hitchhiker -
staring at her with appetite, & Grandpa even sucking blood from her
finger. Then they come up with the idea of letting Grandpa slaughter her
- he was once considered the best in the business -, but the old man is
much too old to lift the slaughtering hammer, much less wield it,
providing Sally with an opportunity to escape, with Hitchhiker &
Leatherface in hot pursuit. Once she reaches the main road, Hitchhiker
is run over by a truck while she manages to hitch a ride, with
Leatherface menacingly waving his chainsaw as Sally is leaving into the
rising sun. Being highly controversial upon its release
& considered pure trash by many, Texas Chainsaw Massacre
today has the status of being one of the true classics of modern horror
movie - & I happen to totally agree. Despite having the reputation
of being a pure gore-flick - which it garnered from its critics upon its
release - this movie shocks more by its macabre details than its -
relatively restraint by today's standards - use of gore. Also great care
was given to the creation of a menacing atmosphere, & by the use of
weird filters so even the scenes shot in broad daylight have a certain
eerie feeling. The totally depersonalized Leatherface as the main
killer also adds to the horrors, as his raw presence &
unpredictability totally lack the relative elegance & sophistication
of even Halloween's Michael Myers. That the teenagers' characters
are etched out just well enough to have us care for them without
reverting to too much clichés or taking up too much screentime introducing
them is another plus that does set Texas Chainsaw Massacre apart
from movies of similar ilk. Director Tobe Hooper, despite all the
qualities of that movie, never managed to make another film that was
even half as good. Most of his later movies were pure trash, & even
those that were somewhat entertaining were so on a vastly inferior level
- & often for all the wrong reasons. But whatever Tobe Hooper's
shortcomings, in 2003 the talentless Hollywood-airhead Michael Bey
produced an impersonal popcorn-remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Simply put: You MUST NOT watch that movie !!!
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