Back to the Feature: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is said to be the first slasher movie, and one of the best. Of course, it’s far from the only movie to claim either; various Hammer, grindhouse, splatter, and giallo titles with similar levels of violence pre-dated Tobe Hooper’s false true story about a group of students who fall victim to a family of cannibals in remote Texas; but it does establish many aspects of the formula John Carpenter would later refine with Halloween. The cast of uninteresting, expendable characters, the killer in a mask, the isolation, and the heavily misogynist undertones (in this case overtones) all appear in conjunction here for perhaps the first time and in a grislier context than even many of the more popular slashers that followed. That alone however doesn’t really mean anything. There needs to be meat on those bones.

It’s the cheapness of this film that distinguishes it most obviously from the similar movies that followed. The cast is full of first-time actors from rural Texas, many of whom aren’t very good performers (the most notable exception being Marilyn Burns), it’s shot in the middle of nowhere on a budget low-speed camera (an Eclair 16mm to be specific) that sometimes feels handheld, and visual effects like the make-up on the grandpa are pretty poor even for the 1970s. Really in its production, this wasn’t all that different from the usual exploitation horror movies of the era, but it made waves off its shock value –which is what the movie relies on for most of its horror. From the moment the deranged hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) slices his own hand, the movie goes out of its way to indulge in disturbing imagery, much of it loosely inspired by real cases –most significantly the crimes and horrors of Ed Gein- though not specifically so as its opening statement attests (a not so apparent commentary on government gaslighting). This was an effective tool for marketing, the “true story” lie broadening the audience, while the supposed violence and public reaction to it attracted others, curious about its transgressive content. Some theatres banned the film, whole countries banned the film, what better way to bring those who can see it into the theatre. We’re just too morbidly fascinated.

And that might still be the appeal of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, more than any of its now conventional slasher elements. Leatherface (a lumbering Gunnar Hansen) isn’t as scary a movie monster as Michael Myers or even Freddy Krueger (before his descent into parody) despite being more graphic in his aim and appearance, but you are disturbingly compelled by the fact he is a guy in a butchers’ apron who wears a mask made of human flesh and wields a mechanical tool as a weapon; just as you are intrigued by the home, and all the furniture, tools, and appliances made of skin and bones. That is the movies’ power. We’re disgusted and appalled by the taboo subject matter, drawn to its grisly details, morbid creativity, and the illusion of realism –hence why serial killer documentaries have remained so popular. The film opens on a series of quick cuts to mangled and strung-up corpses for gods’ sake.

Not that it’s all good or frightening of course –in fact it’s often gross for the sake of being gross, without much purpose otherwise, as in Teri McMinn’s Pam being impaled on a meat hook and the near vegetative grandpa sucking the blood from a finger. Even the gore, far from a sure-fire horror device in any case, is muted perhaps by Hooper’s cuts to earn a rating lower than X –rendering its’ bloodiness pedestrian by todays’ standards. In as much as this shock value works as a horror device, it does create an immediately uncomfortable atmosphere and eventually generates real suspense once the only character we marginally care about (Burns’ Sally) is in the clutches of the family of sadists. The fact that she suffers a few injuries before and in her escape also escalates the tension. Leatherface’s initial introduction makes for a good low-key jump scare, but the proprietor (Jim Siedow) is the scariest member of the family, the closest in manner to Gein and other killers who appear outwardly normal. The true story conceit is most believable with regards to him, and the bait-and-switch when Sally turns to him for help is the most frightening plot point in the film.

However, the terror is most effective in the editing, likewise the films’ greatest technical strength. Hooper cuts very quickly and very precisely during major attack or chase sequences, the latter especially benefitting from his method of letting the killer get very close to their prey before cutting to a new angle with more distance between figures to allow the pursuit to continue. He turns continuity errors into great suspense sequences, the final chase being particularly thrilling in this regard –the fact it takes place unusually in daylight, and an evocatively shot daylight at that also helps. Of course the most eerily chaotic scene is the family dinner, which balances the films’ only real dose of comedy (playing up the cannibals as a perverse sitcom family, complete with dumb squabbles and a dynamic that wouldn’t be out of place in something like All in the Family), with a terrifying, desperate intensity in the shooting and editing choices, including multiple, increasingly deep close-ups of Sally’s eyes. The urgency and absurdity work in tandem with each other in the climax and the result is something uniquely horrific and the right kind of unnerving.

But it does happen to come at the end and in the midst of a rampant misogyny that the film takes a little too much delight in, despite being intentionally made in poor taste. It’s hardly coincidental that the three men who die are disposed of in relatively short order, without the movie dwelling on their deaths much –even the gruesome end of the wheelchair-bound Franklin (Paul A. Partain) is almost entirely off-screen. However both women are more harshly brutalized, even though one of them survives. Pam is made to suffer a slow and painful death while Sally is physically and emotionally traumatized. Either one of them could have been killed as swiftly as their male counterparts, but the killers chose to prolong their torture, the filmmakers chose to. The horror genre has rarely been kind to women, especially in an age predating Ripley, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, coming only a year after the shamelessly depraved Last House on the Left, is no different from the usual suspects of exploitation in using young women to illustrate violence and brutality, devoid of agency independent from that. As good as Burns is, she only gets to stand out through her performance of abject fear -some of which may not have been entirely faked given how much Hooper threw caution to the wind by imposing dangers such as using a real, functioning chainsaw and actually having someone cut Burns’ finger for that “feeding” scene, deservedly earning the ire of his cast. That nobody had a problem with this speaks to a then-pervasive regard for women as horrifying as any redneck cannibal.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is certainly set apart by its lurid decadence, exploitative violence, and grisly subject matter when ranked against the comparable slasher fare that followed. Its’ grim excess can only carry it so far though, and it doesn’t prove to be much interesting, barring a few scenes and technical achievements. Perhaps the rub lies in expecting this film to transcend its material and B-movie shocks and cheapness, given how often it’s cited as an influence by horror aficionados and filmmakers of much better works in the genre. Only in its relatively grounded tone and occasional moments of artistic creativity does it do that. Besides, it’s every bit as repellent as any other B-grade horror schlocker. Its’ indulgences are fascinating, its’ morbidity perversely compelling, but it isn’t all that frightening.

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