For years I swore that I would never see this movie. The very idea of it was frightening enough. I didn't like horror movies, I don't like gore, and a just didn't see the point of subjecting myself to 90 minutes of torture for no concievable purpose. But recently I've been mining the horror classics that had previously been off-limits due to self-censorship. Some of them have been enlightening - the original Halloween is a masterpiece - others (Friday the 13th, for instance) have not. With my gin and tonic in one hand and ice cream in the other (now there's a combination) I eagerly awaited what director Tobe Hooper had in store for me.
Thankfully, he did not disappoint: this is the scariest movie I've ever seen. Like most truly scary movies, it scares you by what it implies more than what it shows. Instead of the later, more gore-centric slasher flicks of the 80s or the recent torture porn trend, little is explicitly shown. What is implied, though, is truly frightening.
Five twenty somethings are travelling cross country in a van and pick up a hitchhiker. He turns out to be a psychopath who relishes knifing his own hand and raves about his work at the nearby slaughterhouse. They sensibly loose him quickly, and head towards a house in the countryside owned by the father of one of the characters. Unfortunately, a nearby house is home to a lunatic family including the iconic chainsaw killer of the title, known as Leatherface. Amazingly well-designed, the house lures many of the characters to their deaths, each scene masterful constructions in building terror. Ultimately, the heroine Sally and her wheelchair-bound brother venture in after them. The chase scenes that follow are some of the best of their type, and remarkably avoid most of the stereotypes that would later become cliches.
While the skill with which it's been put together is undeniable, the material is still inherently replusive - especially in the last fifteen minutes where Sally's screams of impending death are so incessant no amount of technical skill (including a cool Repulsion-style montage of her eye) can disguise it. It was at this point I was thinking, enough already, I don't have to watch fifteen continuous minutes of misogynistic violence for no purpose other than itself. And then Hooper pulls out a cracker of an ending and a brilliant, iconic final shot.
The movie succeeds - and is somewhat refreshing - because it doesn't feel like a "horror" movie. Beginning with a voice-over narration fortelling events to come, it feels like a documentary, and is realistic enough to convice us of its authenticity (though, despite the film's claims, there is no "real" Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Some complain that there is no point to a film like this and that characters only exist to create terror and to be terrified. That may be true, but when its constructed with such skill and provokes such a strong response in the viewer, I can't help but be impressed.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a true classic of the genre.
