Tragic Reviews The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or
Meat - it's what's for dinner
October 16th, 2003

If you know someone who's thinking about adopting a vegetarian diet and want to tip them that direction, TCM is the film to go with. Austensibly based on a true story, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the story of five friends who are stranded out in the backwaters of Texas, and literally like cattle to the slaughter, fall prey to a grisly family of cannibals.

What I found disturbing of this film is the cold, quick and brutal way in which the victims are dispatched. There's no quips from the killer or creative means of dispatching the victims. There's no cat and mouse between the oh so clever villain and equally brilliant protaganist. 'Man as meat' is the prevailing message of this film. In this film, when someone dies, they die quick and they die hard. Bash to the skull with a sledge. Splortch across the chest with a chainsaw. Krunch onto a meat hook. With the efficiency of an abbatoir, the killer dispatches the For a film with little onscreen blood that is close to 30 years old, it still packs quite a punch.

My one complaint would be a lack of characters that I could actually like or care about. Maybe it's bad acting. Maybe it's poor dialogue. But I didn't really care for any of the victims when they shuffled off this mortal coil to the great sausage grinder in the sky. Had there been more compelling characters, this film would rank as a favourite horror flick. Perhaps this problem has been corrected in the remake that's being released this week.

As it stands now, the film is a must-see for anyone who considers themselves to be a horror fan. A true Drive-In Classic, it's the perfect film to MSTie with a room full of friends or to watch late at night with a warm bowl of popcorn and all the doors locked.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- Tragic gives this film 6 out of 10 buckets of blood.