Close to the bone (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD))

Member Name: IanPaterson

Product:	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (DVD)
Date:	15/08/00 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ages well

Disadvantages: Bad 70's wardrobe!

I have an original old version of this film I got back in the 80's before it was banned. I watched it back then and it was quite a scary film. I watched it again recently, it wasn't so scary but more believable.

Movies these days are crammed full of special effects, computer animation, multi-million budgets and big name casts. I think this has to a large degree killed off a lot of the independent films we saw 10 years ago. The Blair Witch Project broke the death grip for a while but it now seems firmly back inplace.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has none of the finely honed modern horror attributes but has the 'fly-on-the-wall' rough cut quality. This quality is what makes it more effectual on the viewer that it looks more like a 'You've Been Framed' video than a clean cut 32mm Spielberg special. The movie follows a group of teenagers, one wheelchair bound, on a highway stop in the back of beyond. The story develops as they go on a discovery walkabout and find a run down house surrounded by rusty old cars occupied by a family of loonies with big knives and chainsaws and Grandpa a wrinkled old paralysed man in a chair at the dinner table. Needless to say, all but one end up sushi.

I think this is the reason it was banned because it looked like a real scenario, and still does even now if not more so when measured against our well cultured cineamtic eyes these days.

Well worth seeing.

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