The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: 50 Years On

Why I admire but cannot bring myself to like Tobe Hooper’s horror masterpiece

Credit: Bryanston Distributing

Regular readers will know I’m an ardent horror apologist, both as a Christian and to those who believe horror desensitises viewers. I have many favourite horror films and also write horror myself. Therefore, it might come as a surprise to learn there is one classic horror film that I really cannot bring myself to like. I admire it, certainly, but I derive no pleasure from repeat viewings of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 exploitation masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I first became aware of the film via the hushed tones with which it was referenced in the school playground. After all, the film had been banned by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in cinemas and subsequently on video, following the UK’s “video nasties” moral panic of the early 1980s. Pirate VHS copies occasionally exchanged hands, but I didn’t get to lay my insatiably curious eyes on the full film until I was a university student.