The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
89 %
Reviews Counted: 38 Fresh: 34 Rotten:4 Average Rating: 7.7/10
Consensus:
Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.
Runtime: 84 mins
Synopsis: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is, without a doubt, the granddaddy of all splatter films. Inspired by 1950s mass murderer Ed Gein, Tobe Hooper's debut feature opens with five unsuspecting teenagers driving in a van through sun-scorched rural Texas. After a terrifying exchange with a demented... [More]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Starring: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Gunnar Hansen, Ed Neal, Allen Danzinger
Director: Tobe Hooper
Producer: Tobe Hooper
Screenwriter: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Composer: Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper
Producer: Tobe Hooper
Screenwriter: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Composer: Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper
Pre-order it on DVD
Reviews
It's a masterpiece, pure and simple..a smart young director summing up the basest instincts of his species.
Comment
06/01/08
Seeing this again recently has convinced me that it's quite a bit better than I initially judged.
10/15/07
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre loses none of its intensity as the years go by.
09/19/07
The violence is outdated by today's standards, but the original Chainsaw still packs a punch with its rough look and disturbing overtones.
09/19/07
The picture gets to you more through its intensity than its craft, but Hooper does have a talent.
09/19/07
Top Critic
Despite the heavy doses of gore in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper's pic is well-made for an exploiter of its type.
09/19/07
Top Critic
The film's intense final half achieves its unshakable effect through a combination of things aside from graphic gore.
01/12/07
A profoundly sensitive look at social prejudices and the toll said prejudices take on the human social organism.
11/07/06
An intelligent, absorbing, and deeply disturbing horror film that is nearly bloodless in its depiction of violence.
10/03/06
The movie is some kind of weird, off-the-wall achievement. I can't imagine why anyone would want to make a movie like this, and yet it's well-made, well-acted, and all too effective.
10/03/06
Top Critic
In his laughing-outlaw way, Hooper pointed a new direction for horror cinema. [2-Disc Ultimate Edition Reviewed]
08/15/06
The documentary-style approach is what pushes this flick over the top; it's a grim and glorious classic of modern horror.
04/03/05
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