The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) on Netflix
Sally Hardesty and her brother Franklin drive through Texas with three friends to visit their grandfather's grave. They pick up a hitchhiker who turns violent, and the van runs low on gas.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.4/10216,031 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sally Hardesty, her paraplegic brother Franklin, Jerry, Pam and Kirk drive the back roads of Texas in a van. They stop at a cemetery to check on the grave of Sally and Franklin's grandfather. They pick up a hitchhiker, who talks about relatives who worked at the old slaughterhouse. He borrows Franklin's knife, cuts himself, takes a Polaroid of the group and asks for money. They refuse; he burns the photo and slashes Franklin with a razor, and the group pushes him from the van. Low on fuel, they stop at a filling station and then at an empty Hardesty house.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After the investors recouped their money and Skaaren, the lawyers and accountants were paid, only $8,100 was left to divide among the 20 cast and crew members of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; Bozman called the Bryanston contract 'a deal with the devil'.
- Britain's censors banned The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and while the ban was in force the word 'chainsaw' was itself barred from movie titles, forcing imitators to rename their films.
- Gunnar Hansen wore his Leatherface mask 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week for a month in 95-to-100-degree heat, because the low-budget shoot had no second costume and the crew would not wash the only one, fearing the laundry might lose or discolour it.
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is credited with originating slasher staples: the use of power tools as murder weapons, the killer as a large, hulking, masked figure, and the final girl.
- The gas station seen in the film, in Bastrop, Texas, now runs as a horror-themed attraction, Texas barbecue restaurant and motel, with its owners preserving antiques including the vintage 'We Slaughter Barbecue' sign.
- Wes Craven made his 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes as an homage to Hooper's film, and Ridley Scott cited The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as an inspiration for Alien (1979).
- John Larroquette performed the narration heard in the film's opening credits, and his fee for the job was paid in marijuana.
