The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a low-budget slasher film, made in 1974 by director Tobe Hooper and starring Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, Allen Danzinger, Paul A. Partain, and Jim Siedow.It concerns a family of cannibals in Texas, who abduct customers of their gas station. One of the main characters — Leatherface — kills his victims with a chainsaw. The film was inspired, like the films Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, by serial killer Ed Gein.
It is often considered the prototype of the slasher film sub-genre. Despite its grisly subject matter, the film — like John Carpenter's original Halloween — does not rely so much on explicit gore to generate terror in the audience, as it does pacing, suspense, and dramatic tension. The many sequels and imitators the original film spawned have been much bloodier and more graphic.
The film was banned in the United Kingdom (for a while, but was subsequently issued on video and DVD), Germany, and India.
The film spawned three sequels:
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)
- Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1997)
