The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 film from the USA, directed by Tobe Hooper, running 83 minutes. reelscum files it under video nasty, slasher and hicksploitation.
- Year
- 1974 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 83 min
- Director
- Tobe Hooper
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (4/100)
- Also known as
- Headcheese · Leatherface · Stalking Leatherface · Saturn in Retrograde · The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Banned in
- UK · Australia · West Germany · Finland · Norway · Ireland · Singapore
Defined in the glossary: Video nasty, Slasher, Hicksploitation
On the UK Section 3 list and refused a BBFC certificate until 1999, and banned for years in Australia, West Germany, Finland, Norway, Ireland and Singapore.
Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.
There is far less on screen than its reputation implies. The gore is nearly all suggested, and the film would probably pass a modern certificate on content alone.
What it has instead is texture. Shot in genuine 110°F Texas heat on a schedule that broke the cast, on 16mm that makes everything look like evidence. The house is full of real animal remains that the art department collected and let cook. Everyone involved has described the production as miserable, and the misery is the film's entire aesthetic.
The last twenty minutes, the dinner scene and then the chase into the dawn, are the most sustained stretch of pure duress in horror. Hooper shoots it like a documentary crew who can't intervene.
Free of any redeeming feature and completely essential.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- The best exploitation films and what makes a canon
The best exploitation films are picked by censors, restorers and polls before anyone ranks them. What that machinery leaves on the shelf.
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
The cycle in depth
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
On these lists
- Gateway drugs for horror normies
For the friend who liked Hereditary and thinks that is the deep end. Nothing here will make them leave the room.
Filed alongside
The Hills Have Eyes
Craven's meanest. The suburban family turn out to be the better killers.
The Burning
The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.
Maniac
Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.
Rituals
The Canadian Deliverance, and grimmer than the nickname promises.
Friday the 13th
Cynical, derivative, and it industrialised the whole form. Savini's finest hour.
Cannibal Holocaust
A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.
Deliverance
The respectable ancestor of the whole backwoods cycle, and still the best of it.
The Evil Dead
Prosecuted in Britain. Actually a comedy, though it took years to admit it.
Halloween
$325,000 into $70 million, and every slasher after it is a photocopy.
The Last House on the Left
Bergman's Virgin Spring, brutalised. Genuinely unpleasant and knows it. Tonally a mess.
Black Christmas
Predates Halloween and is scarier. The phone calls still work.
I Spit on Your Grave
The most argued-about film on this site. Read the glossary entry before deciding.