Rent The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Classic in terror - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre review by CP Customer

Often copied by never beaten, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains a powerful classic of the horror genre. For anyone who enjoys the serial killing or gore evident in today's releases, you have to check out this first.

The name itself is misleading as it creates the impression that the film will be full of blood can carnage. This is far from the truth as Hooper relies on sheer psychological terror to convey the horror of the situation. However avoid the remake and subsequent sequels as it was always going to be downhill from here.

Despite it's seminal status as perhaps THE definitive horror film, I found it mostly quite funny - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre review by TB

Whilst it has one of the most provocative & image-baiting titles you could possibly create, especially in 1974, this is actually fairly light on gore, instead going all in for mental terror & shock. Creating the set-up that has since been copied a million times (group of carefree & fairly clueless young adults on a road trip, being taken off course & then terrorised by a demonic creature,) it then proceeds to slowly kill off the group one by one in ever more horrific ways.

It is also an unashamedly low-budget film in every sense, almost revelling in this whilst also full of highly inventive camera work & staging.

However, for me, in the middle part, I just couldn't take it seriously and spent a good section of it laughing out loud. The first time we see Leatherface, it is meant to be this horrific reveal & searing onto our brains this unrestrained evil... He jumps out of the shadows, kills one of the group, drags him into a room then slams the door with a roar like Harry Enfield's character Kevin. And from there I just couldn't stop laughing.

The scenes of him then pursuing one of the women in a protracted chase sequence, consisting of an out-of-shape actor holding a blatantly fake prop with a smoke machine attached to it & finished with some massively over-the-top sound effects alongside the obligatory grunting, is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a film. I just couldn't take it in any way seriously.

But the end scenes, particularly the dinner scene, are extremely unpleasant & nasty, bringing us firmly back into horror territory. The ending is also well done as well, really keeping us on the edge of our seats.

As much as this wasn't for me a scary horror film, I did really enjoy it in parts and it absolutely is memorable. And for the squeamish readers of this, despite the relentlessly nasty tone & atmosphere, there is amusingly very little actual violence.