who know out of what strange game of fate or a if the universe conspire upon it creation and everything that come to pass do so that tobe hooper would make the texas chainsaw massacre . like a blood spatter and low budget orson welles of 70 exploitation and the immensity of his debut will forever haunt him and his career . the task of commit tcm to word be a difficult one and not because the proper word do not exist but merely because they can only describe the surface and never convey the essence and the heart and what can only be felt in one own skin and maybe that of others . sound of animal and howling of beast and the clanking of rustle metal speak tcm language . the dissonant chord that sound in the soundtrack a the movie fade from black to flash of decay flesh be tcm lingo and what define it be disorientation . indeed the first shot proper that open the movie and that of a rotten head and a the camera zoom out we see the whole dead body in a grotuesque posture like some sort of zombified jester sit atop a gravestone and offer no clue and safe grip for the viewer . after the opening credit roll and we be serve an orange sun burning in a blackened sky and that dissolve into the image of a dead armadillo lay on the street . be 5 minute into the movie and be provide no clue of typical genre orientation and no protagonist of any sort . a the eye scan the image for something to cling to and narrative or otherwise and there nothing there save for decay and death . and then tcm start roll and pick up steam and never stop . apart from how original or not the concept be ( crazed backwoods family terrorize city kid ) it the approach that make all the difference . hooper achieve sensory terror and doom by pile on image and sound and each of them spill to the next frame start an avalanche of horror . a close shot of cattle a the van drive in the background and a seedy gas station and a crazed hitch hiker the kid pick up and an abandon house . in the interior shot of the abandon house the black be crush and we only see silhouette move against the texture in the wall and those be juxtapose with exterior shot where the white wash out and like some kind of rural hell and a land of some other order that be come apart under the weight of it own abandonment . even when the sensory chaos be break for a while so that our genre expectation can be fulfil a the crippled guy franklin mutter to a couple that leave the abandon house to make out yeah and see you in an hour or so ( follow by a drone in the score ) and we just know he never gon na see them again and a typically ominous foreshadow common in slasher and that only last for second . then hooper cut back to puzzle image and feather on the ground and some kind of dreamcatcher make of bone ( . ) and weird buzz sound in the score and like otherwordly insect fly unseen . tcm constantly tip it own axis and content to be leave out of balance . the first encounter with notorious chainsaw wield leatherface be as disorienting a anything that come before it . he appear out of nowhere like a beast in a frenzy and the carnage begin . and for a movie of tcm reputation there be surprisingly no ( or at least little ) explicit gore . yet the violence be startle and raw a the image that preceed it outburst spill into it and add their own touch of the morbid . eisenstein must have be clairvoyant when he speak of how powerful montage can be . be also give glimpse to leatherface tortured and crazed soul and bit of characterization like a gesture and a look of his eye . not a psycho killer out of sadistic pleasure perhaps and he look more like a savage beast defend it territory or a wild dog scar of intruder trespass in his nest . like an avalanche of macabre image that be impossible to stop once it start and tcm whizz by in a manic pace . the chase scene where leatherface hunt down marilyn burn and scar out of her wit and howl like a wounded animal and be shoot through branch of tree and a if the landscape be conspire to ensnare the victim and so hunter and hunted run in the field and inside a house and then back outside while the titular chainsaw be buzz away in a constant reminder of gruesome death . even when hooper overplay his hand ( a in the dinner scene ) it all do with deliberation that can not be ignore and like maybe the director be as insane a the character he depict and he take great pleasure in bask in their insanity . tcm simply have to be experience and no critical analysis can do it justice . without bucketloads of gore and without the slick look of high budget and it remain one of the most bleak and atmospheric and aurally violent movie of all time . what happen to tobe hooper career after it be anyone guess and but tcm be good enough to top entire filmographies of other director . it have be imitate countless time and remade and give sequel and prequels to and but there something primeval about the original that can not be recapture .