Modern filmmakers are constantly tripping over themselves to deliver the scariest possible movie through everything from elevating the venerable slasher genre (like the Scream franchise) to covering the screen in buckets of blood (looking at you, Terrifier). Unfortunately, no modern director has been able to top a film that came out over half a century ago, one that remains the scariest movie in Hollywood history. That film is Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and you can now stream this historic horror classic on Prime Video.
The Road Trip From Hell
The premise of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is that a group of road-tripping teens is stuck in a rural Texas town when they run out of gas, and the only nearby station is all out of fuel. They end up checking out a creepy old house (never a good idea in a horror movie) and run afoul of a monstrous man wearing a mask made of human flesh. Incredibly, the only thing scarier than this chainsaw-wielding Leatherface is his creepy family, one dedicated to ensuring that this road trip will be the final voyage for this helpless group of terrified teens.
The cast of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre really adds to the movie’s terror, including Marilyn Burns (best known outside this franchise for the Helter Skelter miniseries) as someone who might be horror’s first final girl if, of course, she can survive this freaky family. Allen Danziger (best known outside this movie for Weedhacker) plays her boyfriend and the wheelman of a group that won’t be going anywhere ever again. Meanwhile, Paul A. Partain (best known outside this movie for Rolling Thunder) has the dubious honor of playing the most annoying character in horror history, one you can only hope gets killed sooner rather than later.
There are other great performances, ranging from Edwin Neal’s skincrawlingly-creepy hitchhiker and John Larroquette’s no-nonsense narrator. But the most memorable performance comes from Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface: going beyond the character’s monstrous makeup, Hansen utilizes everything from his height to weirdly nuanced body language to bring horror’s most grotesque villain to startling life. While this first movie spawned many subsequent films, it’s fair to say no other Leatherface actor channeled pure, white knuckled terror quite as well as Hansen.
Sawing Through the Box Office
Relative to its budget, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most successful movies in horror history. Against a budget of $80,000-$140,000, this proto-slasher earned $30.9 million at the box office, its success a testament to how hungry audiences were for a film so brutally bloody and refreshingly raw. This outsized box office performance led to a series of sequels and reboots, but none of the subsequent films would ever match the violent verve and bloody brilliance of the original (although the 2003 film remains one of the best horror reboots to ever grace the silver scream…er, screen).
When The Texas Chain Saw Massacre cut its way into theaters, it left a bloody trail of seriously impressed critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a score of 84 percent, with critics praising the movie for its smart writing and suspenseful storytelling. They also applauded the documentary-style camerawork, which enhanced the movie’s terror by making every bit of ghoulish gore and freakish frights seem all too real.
As for myself, I’m a big horror fan, and I’ve checked out most of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise, ranging from its flawed-but-fun earliest sequels to its later reboots (complete with branching timelines that even Doc Brown couldn’t easily explain). All of those later movies fall short of the original for many reasons, including the fact that the first franchise entry always leans into the unexpected. Leatherface’s first appearance and last appearance are both genuinely shocking and scary, and this character (not to mention his insane family) never does exactly what you expect them to do.
The Terror of the Unknown
In a way, that’s why the later films mostly failed: they tried to build a big-screen mythos from characters who are designed to be the ultimate chaos agents. They aren’t predictable supervillains but instead a group of wall-eyed murderers whose motivations are known only to themselves. Nothing makes for scarier horror than the unknown, and Leatherface and his entire cannibalistic clan constantly defy explanation or examination, even as they hack, slash, and saw their way through one hapless victim after another.
Will you agree that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the scariest movie ever made, or is this one venerable, violent film you’d like to take a chainsaw to? You won’t know until you pull over to the side of the couch and stream it on Prime Video, Netflix, or Peacock. Just beware showing it to any youngsters in your life unless you want to turn them into traumatized couch potatoes.
Or, even worse, lifelong horror junkies!
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