The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Year: 1974 Director: Tobe Hopper

Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier, the plot of The Birds centres around wealthy socialite, Melanie Daniels (played by Tippi Hedren). A chance meeting in a pet shop with Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) leads her to pursue him to the coastal town of Bodega Bay, where he spends the weekends with his mother and sister. Whilst Melanie is seeking out Mitch she gets attacked by a gull, and Mitch is on hand to clean up the scratch and Melanie gets to meet the family. Following this the instances of bird attacks on humans increase, but without people themselves witnessing the attacks they are loathed to believe this is possible. Melanie is convinced the birds are making organised attacks on people and tries to warn and rescue them. With the attacks so widespread homes are barricaded against the birds, but they are now organised enough to be able to break through into houses.

The story begins when siblings Sally and Franklin Hardesty are told that their grandfather's grave has been desecrated, and so decide to head down to the graveyard in Texas with three friends (Jerry, Pam and Kirk) to see for themselves. The group decide to head toward his house and on the way pick up a weird hitchhiker who pulls a straight razor and cut himself as well as Franklin, before they can get him out of the car. On arriving at the grandfathers house they hear a generator being used in a nearby house, and being low on fuel, Pam and Kirk head over to the house to ask to borrow some fuel. When Pam and Kirk fail to return after a short time Jerry goes over to the house to see what the delay is. Sally and Franklin head over to the house and come face to face with their worst nightmares.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the most notorious films in cinematic history. Labeled as one of the crop of "Video Nasty's" and banned from release in Britain (and many other countries) for many years, the mystique of the film certainly was in danger of overshadowing the film itself. The film, unlike the title suggests, is by no standards an out and out gore fest, having said that the terror that the film engenders so well comes from the believable and down right nasty violence that happens, or more powerfully, is suggested in the film - for this reason the film is not easy to watch. What has been tremendously well thought out is the way the violence is used to maintain the unrelenting terror. Also where it wins out is the fact that there are no heroes in the film, so the terror-filled somber air of unbearable tension is never allowed to be relieved. I still cannot work out whether the "scariness" of the film is actually due the level of repulsion it makes you feel, but in any case this is an extraordinary piece of powerful low budget cinema. This is a film that you can't look forward to watching without a vast amount of trepidation it is a really, really, scary.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre features in our Interactive Haunted House of Horror guide to horror films and scary movies.

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