“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is the pinnacle of horror movies, permanently stored in the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York.

The beginning of American new cinema

Director Tobe Hooper was born and raised in Austin, Texas. He had been interested in film since he was a child, and during his student years he made short films and documentaries, searching for a way into the film industry. At that time in America, it was the 1960s, and hippie culture was at its peak. Counter culture was in full swing, and Easy Rider was released in 1969. The American New Cinema movement was in full swing, and resistance to values ​​that had been considered common sense until then, such as anti-establishment, violence, tragedy, and absurdity, began to take shape.

"Easy Rider" preview

It was also a time when horror films that focused on location rather than set-based scenes began to be made in reaction to the occult horror films that had been made up until then. Director Tobe Hooper was one of them, and he decided to compete with a horror film that was easy to make even on a low budget. After learning the common sense and patterns of horror movies, he must have had the enthusiasm to break them and restart the history of horror movies.

The story is quite simple. Five young men and women are traveling in a van through the Texas countryside. Grave robberies are a problem in that area, and they were trying to check if their relatives' graves had been vandalized. They stop at a gas station along the way, but the store doesn't have any gasoline, so they have no choice but to ask for help. Eventually, they wash up at a house, and the moment they step foot in it, a nightmare tragedy begins...

When I write this, I'm sure some people will complain that it's a common story, but no, it's not like the story of young people losing their lives in the countryside or camping, as seen in other works produced in later years. This work is the original.

Although the film, which was produced independently on a low budget, was somehow completed, no distribution destination had been decided yet. The movie was about to be shelved, but it was saved by a company connected to the mafia, and despite the terrible contract terms, it was released successfully. None of the staff and actors involved had any idea that it would ever be released, and thought it would just be shown at the drive-in theaters that were popular at the time. However, upon opening the lid, it received enthusiastic support from both critics and audiences, and became an instant hit. Ratings varied depending on the country, and the film was banned in many countries, which created rumors and created the conditions for the film to become a cult.

Between fiction and realism.