085 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Retro Grade Podcast

“MY FAMILY HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN MEAT.”

We hope you had a great Halloween! We know we are late, but over spooky season Jorge and Austin figured it was time to return to the horror genre, with one of the films that started it all! The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, directed by Tobe Hooper, released in 1974.

While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn’t the first horror film, it certainly laid the blueprint out for modern horror cinema to copy from. From low budget to big profit, makes killers, found footage-esque grimy texture, “based on a true story” opening crawl, the final girl.. it all came from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Given that so many horror films borrowed from this film, how well does it hold up if you seen all of those other films first? This will be Austin’s experience, as despite 34 years on this earth as a film fan, he’s never seen it.

Even though this film came out 50 years ago, during our watch for the episode we found a lot of things to talk about how it relates to our world today. Ideas of how divided the country is, the threat of capitalism and automation on the working class, the ethics of the meat industry, and the futile adherence to societal norms in a world that’s crumbling apart.

We also get into some of the behind the scenes on how the movie was made. Yes, no one actually got chainsawed while making the film.. but by the end of filming some may have wanted to chainsaw Tobe Hooper.

We hope you enjoy this episode, and that you are excited for the next film we cover: Beetlejuice!

Music is from Triune Digital and audio clips pulled from movies we will be reviewing in other episodes.

Artwork by @jannelle_o