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The Rewatchables ·

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

year 1974decade 70sdirector Tobe Hoopergenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryan
All 39 categories

The Stephen A. Smith Hottest Take Award · 1:05:08

This is the scariest movie ever made

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.

The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson · 1:32:37

Don't pick up hitchhikers

The gas station guy's line that there are things you do even if you don't have to like it is cited, but the real lesson is not to pick up hitchhikers and to always have a full tank.

The film

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Directed by Tobe Hooper · Drama

83 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Marilyn Burns Sally Hardesty
Paul A. Partain Franklin Hardesty
Edwin Neal The Hitchhiker
Jim Siedow Drayton Sawyer
Gunnar Hansen Leatherface
John Dugan Grandpa Sawyer
Robert Courtin window washer
William Creamer bearded man
John Henry Faulk storyteller
Jerry Green cowboy
Ed Guinn cattle truck driver
Perry Lorenz pick up driver
John Larroquette narrator

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

32:15

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:15Read transcript
  • Ebert gave it two stars: without apparent purpose unless disgust and fright are a purpose, yet a weird, off-the-wall achievement, well made, well acted and all too effective, belonging with Night of the Living Dead and Last House on the Left.
  • A second excerpt contrasts it with In Cold Blood: no motivation, background or speculation on causes, simply an exercise in terror; the hosts answer that terror is the point, and that Ebert loved story and character, of which the film has little.
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1:09:48

Casting What-Ifs

No casting what-ifs

No casting what-ifs

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:09:48Read transcript
  • There aren't really any what-ifs because none of the actors were known; Gunnar Hansen regarded Leatherface as having an intellectual disability and performed him that way, and John Larrakat (as transcribed) narrated the opening credits, was paid in marijuana and, per an interview, had not seen the movie as of about 2008.
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1:10:49

Recasting Couch

Jeff Bridges; Rob Reiner; Ron Howard; Penny Marshall; Goldie Hawn as the final girl

Jeff Bridges; Rob Reiner; Ron Howard; Penny Marshall; Goldie Hawn as the final girl

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:49Read transcript
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1:12:27

Half-Assed Internet Research

Filmed mostly at a 1900s farmhouse near Round Rock; art director Robert A. Burns collected the remains; Gunnar Hansen...

Filmed mostly at a 1900s farmhouse near Round Rock; art director Robert A. Burns collected the remains; Gunnar Hansen cut Marilyn Burns' finger for real; the gas station is now a horror-themed barbecue attraction; mob and Deep Throat money financed the film and the cast lost its share

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:27Read transcript
  • They filmed mostly at a 1900s farmhouse near Round Rock, Texas, and the art director who drove around picking up the cattle remains was Robert A. Burns.
  • In his book Chainsaw Confidential, Gunnar Hansen admitted that after several failed attempts he secretly removed the protective tape from the knife and cut Marilyn Burns' finger for real, which the hosts call an OSHA violation.
  • The gas station featured in several scenes is now a horror-themed attraction at a Texas barbecue restaurant and motel, closer to Austin, still with the vintage We Slaughter Barbecue sign; a live show there is floated.
  • Short of money to finish, the production got financing from basically the mob and the company behind Deep Throat, which needed to wash money; the cast was promised a piece, got only half of what was claimed, signed it away, and the owners lied about how much it made.
  • Nobody from the film slingshot into an acting career, unlike the Obsession argument that you get paid on your next job; the company that owed the money had gone bankrupt and New Line Cinema belatedly gave them some money.
  • A recurring theme is that nearly everyone involved made no money, was emotionally scarred and stayed bitter, except Gunnar Hansen; they had to make it their crowning achievement, giving interviews in rooms of memorabilia and signing chainsaws at conventions.
  • Earlier, the hosts read that the finger cut was real and it was her actual blood because they could not pull off the cut with fake blood.
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1:22:10

Picking Nits

Picking up a hitchhiker by a slaughterhouse; surviving a meat hook; leaving the van's lights on; continuing the trip ...

Picking up a hitchhiker by a slaughterhouse; surviving a meat hook; leaving the van's lights on; continuing the trip after the hitchhiker; the road-trip itinerary; Pam reading the Zodiac book; the chainsaw's power source; sudden traffic on the dirt road; Leatherface never running straight

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:22:10Read transcript
  • Passing a slaughterhouse, nobody should pick up that hitchhiker; would someone lifted onto a metal hook die right away or slide down, depending on where it hits, and the actress could only hang there in a harness for a couple of minutes.
  • They leave the van's lights on to run down the battery, have no gas, and keep going after the hitchhiker cuts himself and Franklin, takes their picture, lights it on fire and smears blood on the van; the trip should be over.
  • The itinerary makes no sense: visit their father's old place and make sure grandpa wasn't grave robbed, down a desolate highway in 100-degree heat, bringing Franklin; one host answers Craig that 70s road trips with three channels and no phones were like this.
  • The biggest nitpick: right after all this, Pam starts reading the Zodiac book instead of talking about the hitchhiker.
  • How the chainsaw runs with no extension cord, battery or gas, and whether Leatherface would remember to charge or refuel it.
  • At the end there is suddenly traffic on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, a giant truck and then a pickup, so she got very lucky; Leatherface never runs in a straight line, so Sally could have put more evasive moves on him.
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1:29:18

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Where did the truck driver go? What were Leatherface's next couple of days like? Did this movie end hitchhiking? What...

Where did the truck driver go? What were Leatherface's next couple of days like? Did this movie end hitchhiking? What happened to Marilyn Burns? Whose death would you want? Were the kids marked for death?

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:29:18Read transcript
  • Where did the truck driver go: he just runs off away from his truck, the next 15 minutes with him could be its own movie, and he probably runs to the gas station, the worst possible place.
  • Leatherface's next couple of days after losing his brother are imagined as tape study with Sean Payton: thicker windows, a second chainsaw, maybe going electric.
  • The impact on hitchhiking: according to Ed Neal, Texas State Troopers thanked him because there were no more hitchhikers, though statistically it lasted a couple more years.
  • Read verbatim from the internet: on August 5th, 2014, at 65, Marilyn Burns was found dead by her brother at her home in Houston with no cause of death specified; the question of what happened is handed to Concepcion and Tyler for a deep dive.
  • Whose death would you want: Kirk's, because he does not see it coming and is dead before the sawing; the wheelchair guy's chainsaw death would be tough.
  • The least wanted is Pam's: a slow death on the meat hook with a gaping hole in her back, watching somebody else get killed and knowing she is next.
  • Earlier, one participant's unanswerable question is whether this movie ended hitchhiking.
  • Were the kids cursed or marked for death by the burning photo and the blood on the van and pushed toward the house, or was it random; one sees some voodoo in the burned picture, another finds it scarier if random.
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1:32:37

Best Double Feature

Last House on the Left; Halloween; Deliverance

Last House on the Left; Halloween; Deliverance

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:32:37Read transcript
  • Last House on the Left is equally disturbing, not a good night but an interesting snapshot in movie history; The Help is offered as a joke before Halloween, chosen to compare how much it drew from this film; Deliverance, a road trip gone wrong, is the third pick.
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