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  Richard
  
Attwood
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
USA, 1974
[Tobe Hooper]
Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Gunnar Hansen
Horror / Thriller
  
Everyone's heard of this notorious groundbreaking horror film, but it's reputation as one of the goriest films of it's genre is thoroughly undeserved. What is true however, is that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a truly unsettling experience but this is achieved through a pervading feeling of menace, not the explicit violence more frequently used by it's peers. There are no overwrought set-piece slayings, no decapitations or disem-bowelling. The killings are, in the main, relatively quick and workmanlike. The scenes that produce the most squirming are those involving the meat hook and aside from that the two instances of small knife cuts. Even the meat hook event, which is deeply unnerving, shows no actual gore.

The plot is really quite insignificant, as are the performances of the ubiquitous imperilled teens. The real stars of this movie are the cunning use of sound and the sheer insanity portrayed by the family of butchers. The absence of any score creates a heightened sense of awareness and the discordant use of sound effects are similarly designed to unsettle. The relentless buzz of the chainsaw and the ceaseless sound of the generator are used to similarly good effect.

The film is heavy in mood but light in actual content. The speech in the establishing scenes is occasionally mumbled and unclear, while there is very little character development before the killings begin, removing any empathy. However, this film is extremely effective in what it sets out to achieve and never has ideas above it's station, and so avoids over-reaching itself. It's not the most thoughtful or complex piece of work, but that's probably not what anyone renting a film about a chainsaw massacre is looking for is it?

The villains of the piece are made all the more scary by the sheer lack of motive in their actions. Most celluloid serial killers are out for vengeance or have some similar back story to their crime spree, but these guys just seem to be butchering people for their own enjoyment. The father switches between sadism and misplaced concern with alarming alacrity, while Leatherface and his brother derive great pleasure in the torture of the heroine. This empty feeling is compounded by an ending brave enough not to provide any kind of closure; instead it leaves the viewer pondering exactly what the hell happened there.
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