Texas Chainsaw Massacre [SteelBook] [Blu-ray]

Overview

Tobe Hooper's influential cult classic continues the subgenre of horror films based on the life and "career" of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, which began with Alfred Hitchcock's own influential cult classic Psycho. When Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) hears that the Texas cemetery where her grandfather is buried has been vandalized, she gathers her wheelchair-bound brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) and several other friends together to see if grandpa's remains are still in one piece. While in the area, Sally and her friends decide to visit grandfather's old farmhouse. Unfortunately, a family of homicidal slaughterhouse workers who take their job home with them have taken over the house next door. Included amongst the brood is Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), a chainsaw-wielding human horror show who wears a face mask made out of human skin. Sally's friends are rapidly exterminated one-by-one by the next-door neighbors, leaving only Sally left to fight off Leatherface and his clan.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/05/2018
UPC:	0030306199696
Original Release:	1974
Source:	MALJACK PRODUCTIONS INC
Language:	English
Sales rank:	10,001

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gunnar Hansen	Leatherface
Marilyn Burns	Sally
Allen Danziger	Jerry
Teri McMinn	Pam
William Vail	Kirk
Paul A. Partain	Franklin
Edwin Neal	Hitchhiker
Jim Siedow	Old Man
John Dugan	Grandfather
Jerry Lorenz	Pickup Driver
William Creamer	Bearded Man
John Henry Faulk	Storyteller
John Larroquette	Narrator/Narration,Narrator
Wayne Bell	Composer
Tobe Hooper	Composer

Technical Credits

Tobe Hooper

Kim Henkel

Tobe Hooper	Director,Producer,Screenwriter
Jay Parsley	Executive Producer,Producer
Kim Henkel	Screenwriter,Producer
Wayne Bell	Sound Effects
Jay M. Harding	Sound Effects
Robert Knudson	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Ted Nicolaou	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

The granddaddy of "splatter" movies, this 1974 shocker transcended its low-budget, drive-in origins to become a milestone in horror-movie history. Even today, 30 years later, Texas Chainsaw Massacre retains the visceral force that gripped Watergate-era moviegoers and left them quaking in their seats. While not the first film directed by Tobe Hooper, it was far and away his best up to that time; he followed it with such worthwhile genre entries as Eaten Alive, The Funhouse, and Poltergeist (that last with assistance from Steven Spielberg), but even the director's most fervent acolytes agree that Massacre remains his magnum opus. Based loosely on the case of real-life serial killer Ed Gein (which also inspired Psycho and, for that matter, Ed Gein), this gritty chiller pits a group of young revelers against a deranged, rural Texas family practicing cannibalism in their remote, ramshackle home. Hooper's perverse vision suffuses every frame, and his "Leatherface," played by Gunnar Hansen, is the epitome of the American hunter gone insane. Of the other cast members -- all unknowns -- only leading lady Marilyn Burns stands out, but she is unforgettable as the lone survivor of this bloody rampage, brutalized almost beyond belief and propelled only by her will to live. Although Massacre isn't nearly as gory as many of the subsequent films it helped spawn, it has a surfeit of graphic, disturbing images that remain indelibly etched on the American pop-culture psyche: who can forget the suit-and-tie-clad "Leatherface," wearing a mask stitched quilt-like from the skinned flesh of his victims, racing through the house and yard with chainsaw in hand? Macabre and unrelenting, but not without memorable moments of black humor, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre habitually places high on lists of the Top Ten Horror Movies, and once you've seen it you'll know why!

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Fans of today's gore-and-guts shockers may be surprised to learn that this notorious shocker is among the least bloody of modern horror films. But looks can be deceiving. It still packs quite a punch, and may well be the scariest film ever made. Director Tobe Hooper adopts a documentary-like style using static set-pieces, grainy film and a no-nonsense technique. This method was necessitated by budget, of course -- the film was made for next-to-nothing, using drama students from the University of Texas -- but for some odd reason, it works. It's not really a movie. As it unfolds, it comes across as a filmed nightmare, and it gets under the viewer's skin like no horror movie before or since. The scene in which Marilyn Burns is held captive at the cannibal family's dinner-table is almost surrealistic in its relentless depiction of insanity and horror. By the time they wheel down Grandpa (John Dugan), it's nearly unbearable. Suffice it to say that fans of relentless horror should make this film their first priority.

All Movie Guide - Robert Firsching