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Sycks HorrorFlickReviews: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

“You could have dinner with us… my brother makes good head cheese! You like head cheese?” – Hitchhiker. My favorite month is upon us! With that said what better but to present to you all the classic horror films. This includes Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So much to tell about this film! Let me get rid of the first rumor from the get go. This movie is not based on a true story as said in the movie. It was used just as a selling point, and it worked. The serial killer Leatherface is based off a real serial killer by the name of Ed Gein. Gein was also an influence for other films such as Norman Bates in Psycho  (1960) and Jame Gumb from Silence of the lambs. (1991) Texas chainsaw was directed by Tobe Hooper and seemed to have been a brutal director by pushing his actors to the limit with such a low-budget. Leatherface played by Gunnar Hansen had one shirt that was dyed that could not be washed and had to wear it on set. He smelled so bad after sometime that nobody wanted to eat lunch with him during breaks. Hansen was also allowed to portray Leatherface as he wished and studied his character by studying the actions of  the mentally challenged. Edwin Neal who plays the hitchhiker at the beginning of the film said “ ”Filming that scene was the worst time of my life… and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was.” He means the dinner scene that i will discuss. John Dugan played the old man and is 20 years younger than the hitchhiker. It took five hours to apply his makeup and did not want to go through the process again so it was all filmed in 36 hours for his character. The makeup artist has stated that for eating, he had to cut the makeup around Dugan’s face and reapply it after he was done.

From the get go we as the viewer waste no time into going right into the plot of the film. It begins as five friends drive out to see Sally and Franklin’s grandfathers gravesite. On the way there Franklin is seen playing with a blade, but when the hitchhiker is picked up things turn rather odd. He begins to cut his finger and cut the finger of franklin before he gets kicked out of the car ride. He mentions how he and his family work in the meat business and shows a picture of an animal that he claimed to have killed himself. After cutting Franklin, he gets kicked out and was able to leave a message on the side of the car found later on in the film. They arrive at a home of Franklin and Sallys family but it is abandoned with not much going on inside. Kirk and Pam both head on out to a swimming hole but instead find a house with generators humming in the yard and Kirk sees that the door is open and heads inside shouting asking if anybody is there. He enters the house with a thin corridor and a metal door all the way to the back and as he approaches leatherface appears and kills him bringing him to the room behind the metal door and putting his body on a large table. Pam grows worried as Kirk is nowhere to been seen and also enters the house. She stumbles upon a room filled with bones and freaks out. Leatherface sees her a chases her down and sticks her on a meat hook. During this scene a nylon cord held her up between her legs to the meat hook. That shit must have hurt.

Jerry notices that the couple is taking quite a long time after not returning that he heads out to find the swimming hole and of course found himself in the same house and comes across the room filled with bones , meat and parts and opens a freezer on the floor and finds that Pam is still alive. Before he could take any action to save her life Leatherface shows up and kills him too. Franklin and Sally now both alone in the home worry about nobody coming back and after several arguments about whether to stay or go and where Franklin’s knife disappeared to, they finally head out to the swimming hole as well and when they get close to the house Leatherface jumps out and kills Franklin, leaving sally alone and running away from him. Leatherface’s character is wearing several inches on his shoes to make him appear taller and regardless he still ran further than Sally. Sally was so small that he would always catch up to her while filming that leatherface had to do some bullshit cutting away at trees with his chainsaw to allow Sally to have time to run away. She runs into the house and all the way up into the attic and finds a dead skeleton couple sitting there still with clothing on. She freaks out and runs to the second floor and jumps out a window and runs towards a gas station.  The man at the station tries to calm him down and tells her to take a seat and that he would return. He comes back pulling his truck up and comes at sally holding a burlap type sack to stuff her in. She begins to struggle once she notices that he wants to capture her but he begins to hit her with a broom. I thought that was pretty funny.

She finally gets stuffed in the back and put in the car and he drives away to the house and finds the hitchhiker from before heading to the house down the road. He gets out and screams at the hitchhiker asking him where he has been all day. The hitchhiker turns out to be leatherface’s younger brother. He tells him to help him with the girl in the car and they take her inside the house and tie her to a chair. The hitchhiker then realizes who she is and begins to taunt her. As they gag her Leatherface begins to serve dinner and now appears to be dressed as a woman. He heads upstairs to go get grandpa for dinner as well. During dinner the family decides that grandpa should kill sally. Grandpa is so weak to kill her yet they attempt by putting a hammer in his hand and swinging at her head only being able to strike her once. John Dugan who plays grandpa said that filming the dinner scene was the worst experience in his life. The weather was over 100 degrees and the decayed meat and props were all real and smelled horrible. Sally then gets her finger cut and grandpa begins sucking on it. There was no fake blood available so they actually had to cut Sally’s finger for this scene. She is then able to break free and runs away to a road.

Notice the lamp made of a human face in the above image. That’s sick. Leatherface and the hitchhiker chase after sally and she escapes by a passing truck driver and he lets her into his truck. The hitchhiker gets hit by the truck and Leatherface keeps chasing and attacks the truck with his chainsaw but is unable to keep up with the truck and he stops and waves his chainsaw up in the air in frustration.

 The film ends  here leaving a lot open in the ending for a sequel. I’ve heard so much about this film and I agree that it definitely belongs as a classic. The series of these films are amazing. What I adore is the idea of it not just being a slasher film, but a film with a very good plot and so many questions that are left unanswered. I love the idea of a sick , insane , violent family. We at first are lead to believe that leatherface was working on his own. During this month of October I will be covering as many films as I can. All the classics!! With this said I bet you know what’s next on my list. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. (1986)
- Sycka

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