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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

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This article is about the 1974 movie. For the other movies named Texas Chainsaw Massacre, see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (film series).
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
File:Texchmass.jpg
Directed byTobe Hooper
Written byKim Henkel,
Tobe Hooper
Produced byTobe Hooper,
Lou Peraino
StarringMarilyn Burns,
Gunnar Hansen,
Edwin Neal,
Allen Danzinger,
Paul A. Partain,
Jim Siedow
Music byWayne Bell,
Tobe Hooper
Distributed byBryanston Distributing Company
Release dates
October 1, 1974
Running time
83 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$140,000

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a low-budget horror film classic made in 1973 (released in 1974) by director Tobe Hooper. It concerns a family of cannibals in Texas, who abduct customers from their gas station. One of the main characters — Leatherface — is one of the most well known villains in horror cinema, notable for his mask of human skin, his blood-soaked butcher's apron and the chainsaw he wields. Gummo, The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance are among many other films that have similar aspects to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Overview

It is often considered the prototype of the slasher film sub-genre. Despite its grisly and unsettling subject matter, the film — like John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) — does not rely so much on explicit gore to generate terror in the audience, as on pacing, suspense, the deserted location and dramatic tension. Its sequels and the imitations it spawned have been much bloodier and more graphic. The movie is also known for experimenting with boiling hot daylight in horror movies, something that was rarely done before.

The film was banned in the United Kingdom (1974-1999), but was subsequently issued on video and in France (1974-1984), Germany, India, and Romania. It also wasn't released in Australia until the early 1980s, due to distributing delays.

The official title of the original film writes 'Chain Saw' as two words (contrary to some posters and DVD covers), while the sequels and the remake use the compound 'Chainsaw'.

Response

The affecting, and documentary feel the film has helped with the film’s huge success. The film, opened to large amount of controversy, but despite that it became a smash hit all over America. The film is also considered the progenitor of the genre, predating as it did both Halloween, The Exorcist, Psycho, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. It has received much praise from critics, mainly because of its gritty and unsettling background made it seem real, and also. It was also one of the first films of the horror genre to rely on gore to generate terror in the audience.


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Plot

frame

The year is 1973. An unknown vandal has constructed ghoulish sculptures out of human remains from the graveyards in a small Texas town. A group of college students, in their 20s, are heading through the back roads of Texas en route to the grave of Sally Hardesty's grandfather, one of those believed vandalized. The group encounter an unpleasant hitchhiker (Neal) who slashes both himself and Sally's crippled brother Franklin with a straight razor. The others manage to eject the hitchhiker from the vehicle, but shortly afterwards, they are forced to stop and wander over to a small, sinister clapboard house nearby. There they suffer at the hands and sharp tools of a demented family of cannibalistic psychopaths. One at a time, the youths are savagely murdered by "Leatherface," the most unbalanced member of the family. Sally is kidnapped and soon finds herself an involuntary guest in the family home. She flees into the night to escape the demented cannibal and his loudly-buzzing chainsaw.

Connection to actual events

Contrary to popular belief, the film does not depict factual events, but instead was (like the films Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs) loosely inspired by Ed Gein, who, while he did wear human skin, acted alone and did not use a chainsaw. Those who believe the film was based on actual events will try to back up their statements by referring to similar events in Texas, none of which had anything to do with the film. Although the film's opening would have one believe that the events are factual, it is merely a scare tactic, called the false document technique, to frighten the audience. (The opening voice-over is performed by John Larroquette.)

Cultural references

  • The movie Motel Hell (1980) is a parody of this film and other 1970's slashers.
  • The movie Summer School featured two students who were fascinated with this film, and whose fascination was central to the story's climax.
  • White Zombie referenced the film's tagline "Who will survive and what will be left of them?" on their album Astro Creep: 2000.
  • Murder by Death has an album titled "Who will survive and what will be left of them?".
  • The same tagline was used in TV-spots to promote the 2003 film Freddy vs Jason.
  • On their debut album, the Ramones' song "Chain Saw" refers to the film.
  • US death metal band Mortician have made several songs about the movie, including "Chainsaw Dismemberment" and "Hacked up for Barbecue". They also used samples from the movie in these songs.
  • In the film American Psycho, yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman works out while the original 1974 film plays in the background.
  • In the film Freddy Got Fingered, the kids in the foster home are watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
  • Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious both wore badges and t-shirts of the film. Sid wrote lyrics from "Helter Skelter" on his t-shirt, cross referencing the film with the Manson murders of 1969.
  • Experimental metal band Dog Fashion Disco included Leatherface with a jester hat on as a promotional logo/shirt for their band at one point. Gunnar Hansen (who played Leatherface in the original) loved the idea and has been seen wearing the shirt.
  • In an episode of 8 Simple Rules, to cover up something she shouldn't have been doing when her daughter asks her, Katey Sagal states that she's watching some 'tear jerker' film on television, until the narrator states 'we now return to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

Additional films

Sequels:

Remake:

A prequel to the 2003 remake:

Trivia

Production

  • Director Tobe Hooper claims to have got the idea for the film while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.
  • The financing for this film came from the profits of a previous film the production company financed Deep Throat (1972).
  • The film was originally entitled "Headcheese", but was changed at the last minute. Alternate titles included "Leatherface" and "Stalking Leatherface".
  • The soundtrack contains the sounds an animal would hear inside a slaughterhouse.
  • The dead armadillos in the first scene after the title sequence, and the nest of daddy longlegs in the abandoned house, were found by chance when location-scouting. Outtake footage shows the former scene would originally have involved a dead dog by the roadside.
  • The film was shot in chronological order.
  • In the original DVD release, the commentary (with Gunnar Hansen and director Tobe Hooper) mentioned that the actor who played Franklin actually annoyed Marylin Burns, and the two actors disliked each other during the filming.
  • On the DVD commentary Hooper states the skeletons in Leatherface's house were real human skeletons purchased from India. These bones were piled and burnt by a stagehand at the end of filming.
  • The actress whose character was hung up on a meat hook was actually held up by a nylon cord that went between her legs, causing a great deal of pain.
  • When Leatherface is chasing Sally through the bushes, she actually cut herself badly on them, so most of the blood on her was real.
  • During the dinner scene towards the end of the film, when Leatherface cuts the girl's finger, he actually does cut her finger because they couldn't get the fake blood to come out of the tube behind the blade.
  • A Cue Card is showing in the background with the name "Edwin" sketched on it during the Grandpa feeding scene.
  • After getting into the old-age makeup, John Dugan decided that he did not ever want to go through the process again, meaning that all the scenes with him had to be filmed in the same session before he could take the makeup off. This took about 36 hours, during a heat wave where the average temperature was over 100 degrees, with a large portion of it spent filming the dinner scene, sitting in a room filled with dead animals and rotting food.
  • Edwin Neal (who played the hitch-hiker) said of the dinner scene, "Filming that scene was the worst time of my life... and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was." He also said that he might kill director Tobe Hooper if he ever saw him again.
  • Hooper used a stunt double for Sally's leap through the window; all the same, Marilyn Burns actually hurt herself shooting the insert of her falling to the ground.
  • A family was actually living in the house that served as the Sawyer family house in the later half of the movie. They rented out their house to the film crew and continued to stay there during the entire shoot. Since the film was released, the location used as the Sawyer family house has changed completely. The land where the house used to stand on a hill has been cut in two for a major freeway; there is no sign there ever was a house there. The house itself has been relocated and is used as a restaurant in Kingsland, Texas.

Leatherface

  • The creators wanted to make Leatherface talk, but Gunnar Hansen declined, thinking it would make him seem too human. Leatherface was intended to be a subhuman character who only spoke in gibberish, his "lines" in the script having side notes indicating what he was trying to say. Tobe Hooper allowed Gunnar Hansen to develop Leatherface as he saw fit, under his supervision. Hansen decided that Leatherface was mentally retarded and never learned to talk properly, so he went to a school for the mentally challenged and watched how they moved and listened to them talk to get a feel for the character. [1]


  • Leatherface's teeth were prostheses made especially for Gunnar Hansen by his dentist.
  • The chainsaw used in this film was a Poulan 306A, with a piece of black tape covering the Poulan logo in order to avoid a possible lawsuit.
  • Gunnar Hansen hit his head on doorways and other objects several times during the shoot because the Leatherface mask severely limited his peripheral vision and the 3 inch heels made his 6'4" frame too high to clear all obstacles.
  • Gunnar Hansen wore three inch heels so that he was taller than all the cast and had to duck to get through the doorways in the slaughterhouse. However, even in these lift-boots, Gunnar Hansen could run faster than Marilyn Burns, and thus had to do random things when chasing her through the woods in order to avoid catching her up (in one head-on shot he starts slicing up tree branches in the background).
  • Due to the low budget, Gunnar Hansen had only one shirt to wear as Leatherface. The shirt had been dyed, so it could not be washed; Hansen had to wear it for four straight weeks of filming in the Texas summer. By the end of the shoot no one wanted to eat lunch with Hansen because his clothing smelled so bad.
  • The close-up of Leatherface cutting his leg on the chainsaw was the last shot to be filmed; the actor was wearing a metal plate over his leg, which was then covered with a piece of meat and a blood bag.

Release

  • Tobe Hooper intended to make the movie for a "PG" rating, by keeping violence moderate and language mild, but despite cutting and repeated submissions, the American Ratings Board insisted on the "R" rating for the effectiveness of what is onscreen and what is implied offscreen. Hooper had a similar problem with the sequel.
  • People allegedly found the movie so horrifying that they walked out of sneak previews.
  • The movie was banned or delayed in many countries, and where it was released, it was frequently edited. It was not released in Australia until the early 1980s, but it was never banned there.
  • In the United Kingdom the movie was banned, largely on the authority of then-BBFC secretary James Ferman, but saw a limited cinema release thanks to various city councils. Censors attempted to cut it for the purposes of a wider release in 1977 but were unsuccessful. It was released on video in the 1980s by independent distributors, but banned in 1984 during the moral panic surrounding 'video nasties'. In 1999, after the retirement of Ferman, the BBFC passed the movie uncut on cinema and video, with the 18 certificate, almost 25 years after its original release. [2]

Alternate Versions

  • Restored version released in 1998 on DVD includes outtake and alternate footage.
  • The Swedish version removes the scene where Leatherface hangs the woman on a meathook.
  • A scene was filmed but cut in which Pam and Kirk come across a campground outside the slaughterhouse where people were murdered, and Kirk finds a pocket-watch nailed to a tree. A scene was cut that explained one of the film's continuity errors: During the dinner scene, Leatherface gets up, goes into his bedroom, and fixes up his mask with makeup. In the original cut of the film, there was a closeup shot of Hitchhiker after he's hit by the mac-truck.

References

  1. ^ "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Shocking Truth", directed by David Gregory, 2000[1]
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