'Texas' gets freaky with a chainsaw

WILL RENICK
DM A & E Editor

Director Tobe Hooper created a portrait of the American family so chilling that many people can't make it though the 83 minutes of gut-wrenching horror that is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Upon hearing that vandals desecrated a graveyard where her grandfather is buried, Sally (Marilyn Burns) recruits her boyfriend Jerry (Allen Danziger), her brother Franklyn (Paul Partain), and her friends Pam (Terri McMinn) and Kirk (William Vail) to investigate. On a trip to the grandfather's deserted farm in a vehicle strangely reminiscent of Scooby Doo's "Mystery Machine", the travelers pick up a hitchhiker who slashes Franklyn.

After arriving at the farm, Pam and Kirk search for an old swimming hole, and Kirk hears a generator (horrible, ominous sound that haunts viewers for weeks afterwards) They're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals and Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), who makes up in power tools what they lack in social skills.

While you watch this film, you cannot help but feel the realism. It is almost like watching a documentary. It is relentless and very psychological. Now the sequels are far inferior to this film, please remember that. The original has to be viewed with an open mind.

That is what the film does, it opens your mind. It shows a different moral structure than that which we are accustomed. It shows what happens when the rules change, the unedited horrors of an anomic society. It's about family values, and shows that the door swings both ways. There is no fluff here. It comes right out at you and never lets up, unyielding like the weapon that Leatherface wields. It is not a very kind film, but instead it is a wake-up call to reality.