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Directed by: Tobe HooperRATED R
Cast:
He tells them that he needs to get a little bit further up the road and they agree to take him. After beginning to talk for a while he then offers to take Franklin's picture and after doing so tries to charge him for it,after Franklin refusing to pay for it,he then burns the picture,and starts to cut his own hand.When they go to make him get out he slashes Franklin on the arm and is quickly thrown out of the van and as they pull off he runs beside the van drawing a symbol with his own blood. After arriving at the house two of the friends,one male and one female,decide to go look for the old swimming hole Franklin told them about and stumble upon a small dry hill which the male bets is the old swimming whole. After sitting there for a minute still recovering from their kinky giggles one of them notices a house and decide to go check it out and see if they have any gas.Upon arrival the male tells her that he can give them his guitar and a few bucks for some needed gas,the female argues, but she finally settles down and agrees.
The female then undoubtably says to herself(I think hes been gone a little too long,maybe I should go check things out)which is the kind of thing we see in almost every Mainstream Horror Movie out there,most think it is cheesy,but at the time this film was made,this was one of the most popular things about a horror film that fans looked for,almost every fan wanted to find out who the dumb person would be and act out that common theme,but I think this is one of the films that revolutionized it(Along with Psycho,Halloween,and Friday the 13th),and has been used in many if not all of the Hollywood films today.
Before seeing the film,and before I really knew anything about it,my stepfather rented The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4:The Next Generation. I didn't like the movie at all but I liked the character of Leatherface.I then looked around for the first 3 films and found The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2,and thought it was a great movie,and went on to buy the 3rd installment next,loved it,and finally got the original and liked it. The reason I was a bit disappointed by this film is I thought it was gonna be very gory and gruesome,with lots of killings and bloodshed.It turned out that it had one scene of gore,which wasn't all that much gore,and not very much bloodshed. After finding out that Tobe Hooper originally wanted a PG Rating for the film,I was a bit down,but that wasn't for long. After watching the film with commentary and learning a little about Director Tobe Hooper,Photography Director Daniel Pearl,and in my opinion,the star of the movie Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface, I learned the film was not supposed to be gory and didn't need gore to frighten people the way it did when it was first released.
I give this movie full respect and attention. I particularly like the Pioneer Release of the film and recommend it. For its great cast selection that would start a brilliant career for some of the people in this film,re-inventing the use for a chainsaw,and "doing for cannibalism,what Hitchcock did for shower taking." I give this masterpiece 10 chickens.
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The opening scene was quite hard to tell what was going on when I first saw this film but quickly caught on as I heard the radio voice explaining that several bodies have been dug out of their graves in local cemetaries in Texas and only certain parts of the bodies,that they are using to make BBQ and Chili. This causes Sally Hardesty,her brother Franklin,and 3 other friends to go out there to check the cemetary where their grandfather is buried in fear that his grave may have been dug up. After learning it isn't they go out to visit the house where Sally and Franklin grew up and they pick up a creepy hitchhiker.
He then goes up on the porch, while the girl waits on a swing,and knocks on the screen(I cannot remember if there was a wooden door and it was just opened or not),but after getting no answer walks in and asks if anyone is there. He then starts to go back outside but hears a noise and once again repeats and asks if anyone is home and once again turns to go outside but hears it once more so runs down the hall towards a room and trips over a small wooden ramp and that's when we first see Leatherface. He looks up to see the 6'3,300 Pound Male,wearing a apron with his mask made of human skin,holding a sledgehammer. After Bubba"Leatherface"Sawyer nails him in the head with the sledge and continues to beat on his body to the point where he goes into shock and has body spasms,he drags him into the room at the end of the hall and slams the door shut.
Before I saw this film I continued to tell myself this movie is gonna be the best horror film ever. Although I was very satisfied after seeing it,I was a bit let down.I never owned or saw a VHS copy of it.The first time I ever seen any of this film was believe it or not on television in 1995 and I only saw about 5 minutes of it,the opening scene,I got to about the image of the corpse tied to the gravestone and thats it. I then saw the "Escaping From A Window In Hell"scene in 2001 when I bought the Boogeymen VHS and then later on that month bought the DVD. I then told myself I have to see the entire movie and got my mother to buy me the Pioneer Special Edition Release of the DVD along with City of the Living Dead. The DVD remains one of my favorite in my collection and one of the best I have seen.
Since people had not really seen anything like this back then other than films like Psycho and The Exorcist,most found it really disturbing. I didn't really find it to be a horror movie that would be aimed at frightening people,I saw it to be a horror movie that would create an undying franchise,something that would later give Friday the 13th,Halloween,and A Nightmare on Elm Street a run for their money. A new branch extension of movie that would show people something new and that it did.