While driving through rural Texas, Sally, her wheelchair-confined brother, Franklin, and three other late teens (or early twenty year olds) pick up a deranged hitchhiker. After tossing him out, they stop at the abandoned family home and then run into the neighbors, who include the hitchhiker, a chainsaw wielding maniac, and other assorted cannibals.
A direct descendent of Psycho (both claim to be inspired by the story of Ed Gein, but have as much in common with that Wisconsin murder case as they do with Mary Poppins), and parent to Halloween, all the trappings of the standard Slasher are here. The victims are young (and the girls are cute), the killer wears a mask and takes out his victims with hand weapons, and it all comes down to one screaming girl. Its significance to the sub-genre is enough reason to see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, (and yes, in Texas, they can’t spell “chainsaw”). There’s nothing frightening in the film (all sorts of claims of its terrifying nature are tossed around, but usually as part of marketing), but it is a weird film with some gruesome (though not gory) scenes. The sudden hammer attacks and the meat hook (you can guess) have more impact than any Slasher murders outside of Psycho. This is basically a snuff film with filler; if that’s what you are looking for, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre won’t disappoint.
All is not well in this very low budget flick. The grainy 16mm look isn’t a big problem in bright scenes (though the glare is annoying), but in the many dark scenes it is hard to make out any details. The sound is worse, with no depth or separation. The acting is sub-par; that’s OK for the freaks (not exactly difficult roles) who come off as funny, but it makes the early scenes with the soon-to-be-victims a mess. Watching Sally and Franklin talk by the side of their van is painful. Franklin is always a problem; Tobe Hooper keeps changing the character. Sometimes he’s a reasonable adult, sometimes a bratty child, and sometimes he’s mentally retarded. Luckily, he gets killed so that takes care of that problem.