The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Followed by: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

	Directed by: Tobe Hooper	COUNTRY USA GENRE Horror NORWEGIAN TITLE Motorsagmassakren RUNNING TIME 83 minutes
	Produced by: Tobe Hooper
	Written by: Kim Henkel Tobe Hooper

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Sally Hardesty	Marilyn Burns
Jerry	Allen Danziger	-
Franklin Hardesty	Paul A. Partain
Kirk	William Vail	-
Pam	Teri McMinn	-
Hitchhiker	Edwin Neal	½
Old Man	Jim Siedow	½
Leatherface	Gunnar Hansen	-
Grandfather	John Dugan	-

Review

Perhaps a little remarkably, Tobe Hooper’s shoestring budget for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, one of horror history’s greatest cult successes, is more apparent during the film's rather conventional first half. When Hooper is setting the stage for his journey into the Texas backcountry and we’re supposed to become acquainted with our group of young adults, the movie looks and feels like the semi-professional product of an autodidact that it arguably was. There is also nothing to suggest the film's eventual cult status in the story per se, but once we start accompanying our cast of characters into the Ed Gein-inspired Victorian house which would become the scene of the crimes, Hooper taps into a very 1970s fascination for (and arguably fear of) kidnappings, torture, murder and inbreeding which resonates through his feverish camerawork and brilliant use of blood and other cheap special effects. For all its obvious shortcomings and limited scope, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre deserves its status for its free-spirited nature in the midst of its genre conventionality. The film turned into a franchise with several sequels plus a reboot in 2003.