Slaughterhouses as a horror setting; grave robbing as a premise; the graveyard scene; seatless 70s vans; the We Slaughter BBQ sign; chainsaws; the dad and his hitchhiker son; fear of the wrong hitchhiker; the poster; the one-chainsaw budget and 868 edits; its influence on Alien and other filmmakers; Daniel Pearl's cinematography; Marilyn Burns' screams; the helper who turns on you; Leatherface's masks; the film as a rich text
Slaughterhouses make a great horror location, tying human violence to a murderous bent of society, and grave robbing creates dread through the radio report and the opening shot of the statue of bones in the graveyard.
The graveyard scene, with the old drunk and the people leering at the women, is low-key creepy; every stop is meant to be small-town America backbone, a gas station or a graveyard, shown in its most demonic version.
Seventies vans with no seats or seatbelts and everyone piled in the back, and the We Slaughter BBQ sign, which promises the freshest possible barbecue.
Chainsaws are still underrated, Scarface has a great one, and seeing one makes you want to grab it and do the Leatherface.
The dad and his hitchhiker son, with lines like 'come here, you nap-haired idiot'; the fear of picking up the wrong hitchhiker; and the poster.
They had only one chainsaw and one Leatherface outfit for the whole movie, there are 868 edits in an 83-minute movie, and the film inspired Ridley Scott to make Alien.
It was hugely influential, loved by Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino and Friedkin; Daniel Pearl's cinematography is called easily the best aspect, a precursor to Paris, Texas vistas mixed with handheld documentary style, looking far better than the shoestring budget allows.
Marilyn Burns' screaming, the trope of the person you think will help turning on you, and the masks: Gunnar Hansen described a killing mask, an old lady mask and a pretty woman mask, the last worn at dinner with a wig and black suit because in Texas you dress up for dinner.
The film is a rich text, with countless books and analysis from gender studies to anthropology about its relevance to Texas and American history in the Nixon era; the best horror says something about its time.
The last shot was already covered; a different pick is the shot under the swing of Pam walking toward the house, defended with a joke about her figure, and the film has a couple of random, very long shots.
The human sausage is the obvious pick, with the discussion of head cheese also mentioned; head cheese is looked up as ground cow head turned not into cheese but a jelly.
Whether Franklin was eating human meat or plain barbecue from the gas station is debated: he seems puzzled by the first bite of the sausage but finishes it.
It has to be Leatherface; his brother calls him Leatherface once, probably the only way to tell the audience his name, prompting a joke about a Kevin Durant-style objection to the nickname.
They worked on Saturn's Return and also considered Leatherface and Headcheese; Headcheese is not a bad title, though under it the movie makes a dollar.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is called one of the better titles of the last 55 years because it tells you what the movie is going to do.
Franklin is the pick, with full understanding that he is supposed to be the weak link; there is no worse hang, and you want him to die.
Texas Monthly is quoted on his constant demand for attention, high-pitched cries of Sally and anger at everyone, making him one of the most despicable handicapped people in film history and the only one who almost seems to deserve his death, which is the point.
His key moment is when everybody pairs off at the first house and he is the fifth wheel, which explains why he engages the hitchhiker: lonely, longing for connection, he finds the worst possible one.
Jokes imagine him today with a lot of Reddit posts and 82,000 Letterboxd reviews.
Paul Partee (as transcribed) was reportedly a pain-in-the-ass method actor, and the hosts cannot imagine being a method actor on a $60,000 movie.
No nude scene despite horror expectations; Sally's 'I'll do whatever you want' plea; only one chainsaw death; the beating the actors took; the sound of the hammer on Kirk's skull
A participant's wife was surprised there was no nude scene shoehorned in as in every horror movie; at the watering hole the hosts expected one, and the family shows no interest in Sally as a pretty young woman, in it for the love of the game.
The victims are not killed because they are having sex but because they go looking for gasoline.
Sally's plea at the dinner table that she will do whatever they want is flagged, though one host counters that she is trying to live.
There is only one chainsaw death, Franklin's, with more hammer than chainsaw, and the actors got beaten up, Marilyn Burns above all, hit in the head with a rubber hammer, landing from windows and running through branches; according to Hooper, everyone hated his guts by the wrap party.
The sound of the hammer hitting Kirk's skull returns whenever the participant cracks a shoulder.
There are a lot of possibilities; the hitchhiker is the probable choice, with the gas station guy at dinner also named, and one of them was apparently the only SAG actor, whom the production needed.
One participant dies when the grandfather is sucking the bloody finger, by swallowing their tongue or dying afraid; another would roll out of the van at 45 miles per hour when the hitchhiker starts going off.
As Franklin, getting knocked off the road by a truck while urinating into a coffee can, a bad omen early in the film, would be the end, and not making it through the hitchhiking is also offered.
This is the scariest movie ever made; film shoots should go back to being nightmare shoots; Leatherface was the victim; the hitchhiker is scarier than Leatherface
One take is that this is the scariest movie ever made: the participant first saw it at 18 or 19 on VHS after moving into a run-down house in Mission Hill, was up the rest of the night, and, as with Blair Witch, wondered whether it was real; no movie has disturbed them like it.
Another calls it about as unsettling as it gets because it is not supernatural like The Exorcist or Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers; these people could really exist.
Asked for a hottest take, a participant argues movie shoots should go back to being nightmare shoots, 100 degrees and the same outfit, with a waiver like climbing Everest, because it gets the best performance.
None of the actors participated in the profits after the film became a hit, which recalls complaints from the Obsession set; today people on set would post stories about inhumane working conditions.
The take is that Leatherface was the victim. — Bill Simmons
The take is called a really good one, with the defense that multiple people came into his house, he was defending his property, and taxidermy is his hobby.
During the scene discussion, offered as one of a participant's hottest takes, the hitchhiker is called scarier than Leatherface because everybody has had an interaction with someone fully gone.
