"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a vile little piece of sick crap....It is a film with literally nothing to recommend it: nothing but a hysterically paced slapdash, imbecile concoction of cannibalism, voodoo, astrology, sundry hippie-esque cults, and unrelenting sadistic violence as extreme and hideous as a complete lack of imagination can possible make it."

Stephen Koch, Harper's, November 1976.

As a part of a double feature following the Walter Matthau thriller The Taking of the Pelham One, Two Three - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would make world wide headlines. The audience having heard nothing about the low budget second feature responded to this onslaught of horror by throwing up, crying, and in the famed San Francisco Empire Theater, storming the ticket booth throwing punches. Two city officials in the audience threatened to sue as children stood to the side in hysterics. The monstrous retarded chainsaw wielding maniac known as "Leatherface," was soon to be a sinister American icon of sorts.

Composed of basically a group of college students and armed with an ingenious ad campaign (Who will survive and what will be left of them?"), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre went on to huge international success (although most involved didn't seem to make any money, Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansan for example made three grand from a film that made well over 50 million, although promised profit sharing), and went on to change horror history as well as film in general.

The panic this film caused can be viewed by reading the above movie review for Harper's by a man obviously so disturbed by the film, he is reduced to using words such as "crap" to describe his hatred. The grainy quality of the film along with incredibly realistic acting (from a bunch of amateurs no less) makes Chainsaw difficult viewing for sure. Filming with a live chainsaw, the incredible Texas heat and a Marilyn Burns whose bloody body was the result of actual bleeding gives the film an intense feel I believe is impossible to recreate with a high budget Hollywood style production.

The fact that the crew was in physical and mental pain carries through to the viewer, they are not so much acting as trying to finish a brutal production. Gunnar Hansen on filming with a live 'saw: "I'm running at full-speed as if I'm playing football again, tottering on these 3-inch heels with that mask on. When I cut across the path, I just expected those shoes to dig in and hold, but I fell and pitched the chainsaw up into the darkness above the lights. I covered my head and waited for it to hit." As for Leatherface's famous "dance" at the gas station Gunnar Hansen explains, "In fact Marilyn was so slow, I was constantly catching up with her. I had to kill some time..."