Tobe Hooper’s horror classic has not lost its devastating power

One of the most notorious aspects of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic The Texas chain saw massacre is that, despite its charming title, premise (five young men encounter a cannibalistic back-country family, one lives to tell the tale), and tagline (“Who will survive and what will remain of them?“), the kills in the iconic proto-slasher are delivered with little or no special effects, blood or gore. In the 50 years since its original release.

Not being bloody doesn’t make it original Texas Chain Saw Massacre Movie feel lacking in any way, even in the wake of modern fully-fixed such as Terrifying 2 Or In a violent nature. For example, when Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) lowers Pam (Terry McMinn) on a meathook, Our imagination is supported by a lot of factors To feel the sharpness of the instrument and the terrible weight of gravity, from her terrible reactions to the unusual way she is rigged to hang in the air to the terrible wait she is forced to endure for what Leatherface does next.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an exercise in pure horror

Every element of the movie is elevated in relentless brutality

While Pam’s death is one of his more powerful moments, The movie is an unrelenting battering ram for almost its entire runtime. While it spawned multiple sequels and remakes in a variety of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Timelines, the original movie from 1974 is content to be careless and simple, hoping in the five main characters – especially nascent last girl Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) – and using every possible aspect of cinema language to emphasize their descent into hell.

Daniel Pearl’s cinematography perfectly captures the tone of the movie. While shots like the iconic moment where Pam is tracked walking into the house belly his skill behind the lens, he captures the goings-on with A rough, tactile aesthetic that gives the onscreen events scale and realism that a more polished movie wouldn’t have. It gives the impression of chance to catch a glimpse of a terrible sight through a dirty window rather than sitting in the theater and watching a movie. However, this is not to say that The Texas chain saw massacre Could ever be mistaken for a documentary.

The sound design and editing often make it feel more like an experimental film, where jarring close-ups, quick cuts, and Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper’s jangling, atonal score Work in tandem to give the movie a frantic, restless energy. This is particularly the case in the iconic third act sequence, where Sally is forced to endure a twisted “family dinner,” where Hooper encourages Burns to put pedal to the metal, thrashing and screaming to the point that it seems her eyes may pop out. Cracks from her skull as sound and images collide around her, putting us directly in Sally’s head.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is well-served by its cast and narrative

Committed performances and strong subtext make it an enduring classic

The Texas chain saw massacre Is a minor miracle of each department working as one to serve the whole, but it would not work at all without the total commitment of its cast. The crop of victims largely avoids the lovelorn acting that would plague later cheap slasher movies and Edwin Neill and Jim Syedow both give gonzo, go-for-broke, unpredictable performances As the unnamed family members Hitchhiker and Old Man respectively. Still, the biggest standouts are the fearless Burns and Hansen’s Leatherface.

While Leatherface is a hulking, chainsaw-wielding killer who wears a mask made of a human face, Hansen’s performance delivers unlimited pathosReminding us that he exists in a state of permanent arrested development due to his neglected family. He is just as scared as his victims are, scared of his family’s wrath, unsure why there are so many intruders in his home, and acting on impulse. The fact that the movie’s iconic villain isn’t really a villain only serves to highlight the amoral nature of the universe Hooper has crafted around the movie.

Hooper, who co-wrote the film with Kim Henkel, turns the film into an early storm, incorporating a melange of the harshest circumstances of the early 1970s into one nightmarish experience. In addition to being an early slasher, Kate saw is a response to growing feelings of insecurity surrounding the violence of the Vietnam War and the economic turmoil of the time (the family turned to cannibalism only after losing their jobs in the massacre). It’s even a powerful exercise in vegetarian messaging, forcing her characters through the same violent system as animals in a slaughterhouse.

The Texas chain saw massacre remains as shocking and propulsive as ever

The movie may be bleak, but it hasn’t lost its exciting power

The nihilistic slaughter-violence of The Texas chain saw massacre Remains effective to this day, both because the kills retain their shocking power, except for some effects like the mask that brings the old grandfather back to life, and because it takes place in a world that already feels hopeless and sad. The implied gore may be a result of a low budget, but it also means The movie has aged more or less perfectly.

Everything about the violence in the Tobe Hooper horror movie feels bitter and gruesome, from the drunken man lounging at the cemetery at the beginning to Sally’s brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain), a wheelchair user, accidentally knocked down a hill while Urinating on the side of the road to Sally found her old family home crumbling to dust and filled with spiders. The production design of the killer family’s home helps emphasize this as wellFilled every corner of a seemingly normal rural house with bones, feathers, and large, beautiful works of art made from various pieces of bodies.

Although it is brutal, The Texas chain saw massacre Remains relentlessly propulsive and exhilarating. Despite its many imitators, there is still no experience that comes quite close to feeling the alchemy of each element racing at top speed to jangle the nerves. Watching it is like being welded onto a roller coaster seatAll the way through to the all-time classic ending, which spends exactly zero time winding down. The second it’s done telling its story, the movie throws us back into the real world without a crash pad, which is its cruelest trick of all.

The Texas chain saw massacre Plays in theaters for its 50th anniversary beginning October 1st.