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Before Glen Powell’s Remake, Watch One of the Most Horrifying Movies Ever That’s Leaving Netflix
Horror fans have long since debated what the true “birth” of the slasher subgenre was. While the notion of an unstoppable villain of unrelenting strength can be traced to the Universal monster films of the 1930s and ‘40s, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the holiday horror classic Black Christmas were also highly influential. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre may be remembered as the film that kicked off the slasher craze because it felt authentic in a way that previous horrors hadn’t. While part of that was due to the misleading advertising campaign that claimed that it was based on a true story, it was mainly because director Tobe Hooper sensed the anxiety that had shaped the American public in the 1970s. In a period of history where the violence of the Vietnam War and the scandals of the Richard Nixon administration were prominent within viewers’ minds, a bluntly ruthless killer whose existence had been kept secret felt much more plausible.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was subjected to significant controversy; the film narrowly avoided an X-Rating from the MPAA, and still managed to be banned in many parts of the world. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a surprising hit because of its small budget, and divided critics on whether it should be considered exploitation. Even though it came a year after The Exorcist was a major Oscar player, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was grounded in reality, and thus became more traumatizing. While it inspired a franchise that continues to this day, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre captured feelings of fear so primal that its legacy has become impeccable.
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Was Shockingly Brutal and Disturbingly Vivid
Although Hooper was a clever editor who deceived audiences into thinking that they had seen more violence than what was actually onscreen, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre depicted death in an uncinematic way that wasn’t sensationalized or anticipated by obvious musical cues. The brutal butchering and slaughter of the four teenagers who join Sally (Marilyn Burns) on a trip through West Texas is conducted with the same lack of sentiment as a household task, a prospect all the more frightening because of the maternal quality of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) himself. That the character’s face was concealed, and that the backstory was subjected to tall tales and local legends, reflected a fear of the unknown that the rest of the film committed to. The fear that Sally feels is that she and her friends are trapped in the middle of nowhere, and cannot be in contact with the authorities or anyone else who might have been able to help. It’s when humanity is left to itself, freed from the rules of law, that people resort to their most crude behavior.
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The depiction of Leatherface helped to shape characters like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees because it was scarier to have a villain who could not be reasoned with or explained. That Leatherface merely views his victims as flesh to be sliced up didn’t just remove the possibility that Sally could outsmart him, but became a clever analogy to the treatment of animals by the meatpacking industry, as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has been widely celebrated by vegetarians. Sally became the quintessential “final girl,” a trope that horror films continue to emulate, but she was not entirely a toothless hero. The film’s iconic final shot, in which Sally laughs at the sheer absurdity of her survival, nearly suggested that she needed a touch of Leatherface’s madness to protect herself.
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Was a Phenomenon Impossible To Replicate
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre simply didn’t look or feel like any other horror film because of its atmospheric use of daylight, the grimy depiction of slaughterhouses and impoverished communities, the minimal use of music, and the incorporation of radio audio that pointed to a larger history involving the killings. The evil in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came from within society because Leatherface represented a forgotten dark side of the American dream, in which people had been left to fend for themselves and survive amidst the wreckage. There was something shocking about seeing real gas stations and run-down factories that was scarier than anything within a replicated sound stage ever could have been; as is the case with many classic horror films, the restrictions that Hooper was under ended up forcing him to be more creative.
There are countless filmmakers who cite The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as one of the best within the genre, including Zach Creggar, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, and Bill Hader. The original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was so perfect that the franchise it inspired could never fully live up to expectations; Hooper’s sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, is a masterpiece in its own right because it subverted formula by satirizing the derivative nature of slasher films, but every other installment within the series has been disappointing. That being said, it’s not just other slasher films like Halloween and Friday the 13th that drew from what Hooper did; the ‘70s saw a rise in media interest within serial killers, and more films began to focus on the psychology of their unspeakable crimes due to speculation on the connection between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Ed Gein. While many classic horror films should be considered for what they meant during their initial window of release, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre needs no context to be as scary as ever.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.