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[Insomnio]

I decided to make a topic about movies 1970-1979. I haven't watched many of them so far. However, I started to watch old movies so I will post my reviews here. If you really like these films, you can suggest your favourites here. You can also add movies which you don't like them. My first movie is "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is one of the horror movies that I really wanted to watch for a long time. I rarely watch dvds anymore, so it would be difficult for me to watch it at home. However, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was screened as part of the "Athens International Film Festival – Opening Nights" and I finally had the chance to see it with image processing!! The fact that I had seen the 2003 remake, it played an important role since it remains the best horror movie I've watched in cinema. I remember that I had stress and anxiety during the plot, which it doesn't happen to me very often (especially after so many movies). However, the original film didn't excite me and horror fans probably overrated it. By the way, the room was full (after 40 years !!!) and the viewers didn't talk or comment during the film. They were so devoted to the slaughters.
The direction of the film was quite simple and if I didn't know beforehand that it was given to Tobe Hooper, I would believe that an amateur directed it. Hooper wrote the script along with Kim Henkel. The dialogues were very tragic and some characters were quite colourful. They were slaughtered one after another in an short time. This didn't cause us any emotional distress because the characters were so uninteresting that we honestly couldn't feel sorrow for them. This was a major drawback of the film because you always want to indentify with the main characters. You always want the last few of them to be the most mature of the whole lot. It could have a better scenario because the central idea was pretty scary. In the beginning, the performances of the actors were a bit embarrasing because this kept us at a mild pace until the half of its length. However, the plot changed a lot and became unbearable. We constantly hear a prolong howl and the sense of terror was replaced by psychedelia and sadism. Literally, the protagonist made our ears explode (Marilyn Burns). She sounded like a pig before the slaughter house. Additionally, we listened to constantly groans and sobs that resembled more porn than a thriller. However, I don't want to be strict with this movie. It has some memorable scenes in cinema history (the slight opening of the door by Leatherface, a chase through the dense forest) and influenced so many subsequent filmmakers. It was the first horror movie that provoked so much (I guess religious people) and faced many difficulties in being viewed in different countries. That's why the director/writer used some funny/void scenes so as not to make it completely hardcore. The fact that it only cost $ 300,000, but picked up about $30 million was its greatest achievement! The soundtrack fits so perfectly to the movie. Very scary sounds.
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was one of the most commercial films at the Box Office in 1974 (12th)! It has thousands of fans worldwide (maybe millions) and has received a pretty good score on IMDb (7,5). Personally I was not satisfied with the result and expected it to be more daunting. It didn't cause me any stress or fear as it happened with the 2003 remake. However, it remains one of the most popular horror movies that have been filmed and Leatherface still scares many people even in a thought.



This post has been edited by Insomnio: Oct 7 2014, 10:07 PM