The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) original

Another one that almost single-handedly changed the horror genre. As I mentioned before in my Black Christmas review, 1974 was a big year for horror, Black Christmas redefined the slasher genre making  the birth of movies like Halloween (1978) possible, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made eventually led to the birth of the extremely gory violent and scary horror movie. Texas Chainsaw along with Black Christmas were the first two horror films to create "the lone girl" formula (where a single female always survives)for horror films to come, Chainsaw was also the first film to feature the killer running full speed after his victims instead of walking at a slow pace, and it was also the first horror film to have the majority of it take place in the daytime. Also though you may walk away from the film thinking you've just seen a bloodbath, there's very little actual gore in the film (a lot of it just appears or was already in the background). For those who do not know about the film, the general plot is that five hippies go out for a drive and get lost/find an old house and go exploring, the five friends then run into a chainsaw wielding maniac named Leatherface and his demented cannibalistic family. The movie is not based on a true story despite what the film and advertising says, but it was inspired by the real life crimes of Ed Gein and Charles Manson. Now if you were to just look at the movie for all those reasons alone the film would be great, but that would be disregarding about 90% of the film's greatness. Arguably the real horror and greatness that came from this movie involved/was due to the horrendous infamous conditions of the film's production. The acting in the film was great and one of the reasons why the film was as successful as it was, but a large percent of the performances, were not acted. A lot of the scenes when you see people getting beat with brooms or other objects, those actors were actually beaten full force. The scene where the actress limps away from Leatherface after jumping out of a one story window? That was real too, in order to get a better shot the film crew made about an eight foot tall ramp for the actress to run and jump off of, through the window, and when she landed she hurt her leg badly, but she decided to continue filming anyway. All the animal bones, bodies, and furniture aroundthe house? Those

were all real too and constructed by the film's art director who went out driving around the highways of Texas scouring for roadkill, and then would bring it back to make all the film's "creations" out of it. The crazy hitch-hiker? In the documentary found on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:2-disc Ultimate Collection," titled Flesh Wounds, the actor who plays the Hitch-hiker admits to actually being Schizophrenic. The insane cackling the actress does on the back of the truck at the end? That was real too, she explains that she was having a nervous breakdown at that point in filming due to the fact that she had to re-shoot some of the most difficult scenes to film (including the one where she hurt her leg) because of technical problems. Also in the scene where

 Leatherface hits the guy with a hammer, one of the actors expressed that he was almost struck by the hammer. And the obnoxious Franklin character? He stayed in character even when they weren't filming so as to create real dislike between himself and the other characters. On top of all that the shooting of the film is notorious for the conditions it was filmed under, it was filmed during a record breaking heatwave in Texas history with almost a month of days with the temperature over 100 degrees, plus when filming on the set all the lights added about another 20 degrees of heat, which lead to the animal carcasses rotting and stinking to the point of making several people on the production (including the actor who played Leatherface) vomit multiple times. Most of the Actors and Actresses only had one costume too say during the whole three plus weeks of filming in the severe heat, they couldn't wash their clothes, or even bath so they could retain their character's gritty "look". Also at one point they had more animal carcasses lying around than they knew what to due with, so director Tobe Hooper told the crew to burn them, so the  horrible smell of burning rotting animal flesh was detectable for miles. The most grueling part of the shootthough was agreed upon by everyone involved to be the dinner scene, which was a 27 hour long shoot. The actor who played the hitch-hiker said in Flesh Wounds, that he had personally lead soldiers into combat several times in Vietnam, and that that was not as harrowing of an experience as shooting the dinner scene was.

Also all the blood that was poured in the main actresses hair at the end, permanently stained her hair for life. Also once the film did get successful the actors never got any of the royalties because of the contract they had with the film company that produced the film (which just happened to have ties to the mafia), honestly checkout the documentaries on that 2-disc collection if you're interested in hearing more, they're quite good.But despite all the hardships the film and crew went through, someone could argue the end product was worth it. The director, Makeup artist, and set/art director and cinematographer all went on to successful and award winning careers. The film opens at the beginning by talking about some mutilated bodies that are described as "a grisly display of art," which is exactly how I would describe the film. It is at once extremely disturbing and yet gorgeous. The cinematography, unique camera style, and gorgeous sunsets make the film gorgeous to look at, and the set is so distinct that it is essentially another character in the film. (Fun fact: the set was an actual house, and it is open to the public today as a restaurant in Texas.) And the rest is history, the film became a massive success at Drive-ins and such and spawned several sequels and remakes as well launched the career of Tobe Hooper, one of my all time favorite directors. At this point I think it's pretty obvious what my opinion of the film is, most people will say this is one of the greatest Horror films of all time, if not the greatest, I wouldn't say it's the greatest but I'd say it's probably in the top 5. I give it a 5/5. I've decided not to include the trailer because it shows every single famous/scary scene from the film, so instead here's the segment from Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments where they talk about the film: