Number 5 of My Top 31 Horror Movies : The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a bunch of psychopaths whilst travelling to visit a family grave : The very first adult horror movie I watched was Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE : I was twelve years of age and I remember sneaking over a friends house, inserting this battered video tape and being terrorised by these cannibalistic serial killers led by Gunnar Hansen’s terrifying Leatherface and the house of horrors he lived in : I’ve since watched Texas pretty much every year since and although it’s suprisingly not that bloody it’s the look of authenticity of what takes place in that farm house, especially the infamous dinner scene that really did a number on me : watching Marilyn Burn’s Sally tied to that chair screaming hysterically, the extreme close up of her twitching eyeball, the manic laughing of the depraved family sat around the table and the total insanity of what’s happening is incredibly unsettling : it’s the only horror movie on the list that makes me feel queasy, uneasy & downright afraid right from the gecko, from the creepy hitchhiker & his antics, the bringing down of Grandpa played by John Dugan and that hammer scene to Pam played by the brilliant Teri McMinn who stumbles into the room full of feathers & bones mostly human but some are animal, the camera taking us on a tour of the carnage that Pam sees before her, the big chicken housed in the smallest of cages, the skulls & tools that were used to mutilate it’s victims, this is nasty, unflinching horror at it’s sweet mercy best : due it’s very low budget the cast was mainly unknown and Gunnar Hansen wore the same Leatherface outfit for the film’s four week shoot, the lack of a score as such and Daniel Pearl’s low angle, handheld at times raw photography gives The Texas Chain Saw Massacre it’s realism and makes Tobe Hooper’s influential horror one of the fines low-budget exploitation movies that’s ever been ★★★★★
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