The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Documentary Lie That Still Works

Thu, 23 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Here is the trick that has kept The Texas Chain Saw Massacre frightening for fifty years, and almost nobody who fears the film could tell you it is a trick: it shows you hardly any gore at all. The reputation is monstrous — the title alone got it banned in country after country, and for decades it sat on the UK’s video-nasty list like a live grenade. Sit down and actually count the on-screen violence and you will be startled. There is one hammer blow, a body dropped onto a meat hook (the wound itself never shown), a chainsaw that mostly misses. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 debut is one of the least explicit famous horror films ever made. Its power comes from somewhere else entirely, and understanding where is a lesson in what horror actually is.

1970s Horror - vo.rs

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Documentary Lie That Still Works