I watched the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Netflix, and it awakened something in me. I rewatched the original, then decided I would rewatch every film in the series. My original goal was to just rank all of them in a single article, but as my marathon of Massacre dragged on, I decided a single article was not worth this much time. So I’m going to write about every single one of these fucking movies, and then I will do my ranking. Because of that, these articles will be on the shorter side, much like most of the films in this series, thankfully.
It’s always easy to appreciate the first film in a horror franchise. It’s usually the best actual movie in the series since horror sequels are notoriously all over the place. But it’s also about respecting the origins of an iconic character or style. For me, it ends up being a feeling of respect, but not much true enjoyment. For example, I can respect what Friday the 13th did by starting the franchise, but I’m not sure I’ll ever watch it again because it’s not nearly as enjoyable to me as, say, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. This is not the case with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. (Yes, the space between “Chain” and “Saw” is correct. I’ll vent about the titling in this series in my ranking.)
This movie messes with me each time I watch it, and it makes me wish they never made another one. Since I was born a decade after this came out, I can’t appreciate what it did for the horror genre in general without doing research. But no matter what age you are, you can appreciate how fucked up this movie is.
The first two-thirds of the film are fairly standard for anyone who’s ever seen a modern scary movie, but that final third in that house is masterful in its ability to unnerve the viewer. I find myself much more unsettled by imagining what day to day life is like in the Sawyer house. Leatherface is creepy, and I can’t think of a scarier man to chase me with a chainsaw, but it makes my head hurt trying to imagine what he does all day in that house.
In fact, I find Leatherface to be the least frightening Sawyer in the long run. Yes, he’s the one with the hammer, the chainsaw, and those fucking meat hooks, but he’s also the simplest character. He’s very much the child of the family, and it’s easy to see that he kills out of fear and out of duty to his family. (This is not a defense of him, by the way. I’m trying to turn him into a fucking anti-hero like that horrible 2013 movie.) He’s still scary and insane, but he’s almost understandable, despite his inability to talk.
Now Grandpa, Old Man (Drayton), and the Hitchhiker (Nubbins), those guys scare me. Grandpa is the most traditionally creepy, and his life makes my head hurt: just sitting there staring at the corpse of his wife, wheeled downstairs occasionally to relive his glory days as the kill man at the slaughterhouse.
Nubbins is perhaps the most traditional horror film character since he seems to be in charge of getting the victims to the house. But it’s his insanity, which hits its peak during the infamous dinner scene, bothers me the most. The arguing between him and Drayton is equally annoying and frightening.
Speaking of Drayton, he ends up being the most interesting since he’s okay with killing and even eating the victims, but he hates the killing. There’s something to be said here about the modern meat-eater, and how we’re all okay eating burgers and chicken all day but few of us could handle the slaughterhouse. But what’s more interesting to me is his actions in the car as he drives Sally to the house. He simultaneously comforts her and smiles while also beating her and clearly getting some joy out of it. It’s the constant change in his face that gets to me. This is a man who seems to have a little bit of remorse about what his family has become, but ultimately doesn’t care.
These characters alone all work in their individual scenes, but when they’re all together something else happens. That dinner scene is so iconic because director Tobe Hooper does such an amazing job of placing the audience at that table with those people. If you’re in the chair, there’s nowhere to look to escape the chaos. This is what gets to me the most. I imagine daily life with these maniacs, and the incessant arguing that must go on, and it makes my head hurt.
I hate nonsensical arguing when it seems like each character is talking to themselves while also arguing with each other. It’s like the gang from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but more annoying and not funny at all. Because of that, the dinner scene makes my skin crawl, and imagining that happening all day every day in that house makes me physically uncomfortable while I watch.
That is why I love this film so much. The scene of Leatherface dancing with the chainsaw at the end may be the most iconic moment of the series, but that dinner scene is what truly made this movie stick with me for years.
Random Thoughts
I’m not doing the kind of written live commentary that I usually do for my articles, but there are still a few things I want to bring up that didn’t gel with my main article.
The quietness of the movie is fantastic. Well, not quietness exactly, but general lack of jump scare noise, I guess. When Leatherface first shows up, there is no violin shriek to announce him. He’s just there…killing. It’s real and scary. There is a foreboding note in the score after the first couple kills, but overall the film is oddly quiet compared to future films in the series and horror films in general.
I hate how the newer movies turned Leatherface into a Jason-type character. He’s part of an ensemble, and he’s not even close to being in charge. Yes, he kills on his own here, but then he sits there like a kid who knows he fucked up, worried about some future scolding.
I also hate that future films felt the need to expand on this family. I don’t care how Leatherface ended up this way. I don’t care how the family in general ended up this way. Not knowing makes things more effective, but I’ll get into that in much more heated detail when I get to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Leatherface.