The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Barbecue, road trips, and… cannibalism? This week, we’re diving straight into the sweaty, sun-baked nightmare that changed horror forever: Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We’re talking:

• 🔪 The chaos of filming — unbearable heat, unwashed costumes, and a dinner scene so rancid it made actors sick.
• 🎥 The art of grit — how a shoestring budget, 16mm film, and Daniel Pearl’s raw cinematography gave the movie its iconic “too real” documentary vibe.
• 🎧 Sound as terror — from buzzing chainsaws to pig squeals layered over screams, the film weaponized noise in ways that still rattle audiences today.
• 👹 The Sawyer family — Leatherface, the Hitchhiker, the Cook, and Grandpa, all working together to redefine what “family dinner” means.
• 🩸 Myth vs. reality — why everyone remembers it as gorier than it actually is, and how implication made it even scarier.

Along the way, we unpack the physical and psychological toll on the cast, the blurred line between method acting and straight-up suffering, and why Leatherface remains one of horror’s most complex monsters.

So grab your headphones (and maybe skip the barbecue tonight), because this isn’t just a movie—it’s an experience.

👉 Drop your thoughts in the comments: Is silence scarier than jump-scare music? Did Chainsaw scar you the first time you saw it?