I truly don't think I can do justice to you guys and myself by trying to come up with any new way of trying to explain how important this film is and was to the horror scene. Namely, the slasher franchises we all know and love basically came from the dark and bizarre happenings that the Sawyer family and Leatherface himself manage to pull others into because they're hungry and they would rather eat people instead of the normal fare like beef or pork. If I made any sort of top 10, 20, 50, 100, whatever horror film list of all time, number 1 is and always will be Tobe Hooper's original from 1974. There's something deep, cerebral and just all around fucked up about the idea that in the way of psychology, this sort of family might actually exist somewhere. Maybe not in Texas per se, but just somewhere out there where everyone least suspects. And I think that's why this film is so heavy and it works so well. Because this sort of thing is physically possible. It's not some satanic bullshit, or a cult, or a ghost, or an alien or any of that nonsense (even though I really believe there have to be other living species out there besides us). It's possible that the family in the house next to you is like this and you would never know the difference. Time to buy a new house.
(My notes are kind of a half ass-ed reprisal. Sorry.)
There really isn't anything about this movie I could possibly say that already hasn't been said. This film changed the world of horror forever and if Tobe Hooper never sought out to do this, horror might have died out a long time ago. Thank the gore gods for the Sawyer family and Leatherface.
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