Avis Metacritic

A black-humored, unflinching look at the Ugly American at his psychotic worst. And Tobe Hooper is at his best as a writer and director here.

Hooper's vision is horrid yet engrossing... But the worst part about this vision is that despite its sensational aspects, it never seems too far from what could be the truth.

The film has outstanding sound effects, art direction and editing, and a clutch of effective, if necessarily, one-note performances.

What separates Texas Chainsaw Massacre from its predecessors is its anarchic, cynical hysteria—its bizarre and dark-as-hell gallows humor.

The film never loses its intensity from the first moment Leatherface's sledgehammer drops. It's horror without a safety net: Survival isn't guaranteed for anyone, heroism and struggle are often futile, and as the old adage says, you can never come home again.

While nobody could seriously call it a work of art, it was in my opinion a quite formidable piece of directorial artifice, a horror comic brought to the screen with frenetic energy and life.

Like any decent slasher movie, there's something unsettling about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that goes beyond the blood and gore. [4 star rating for DVD only]

But it’s also edited so crisply, and shot with such an overpowering sense of decay, that it’s hard not to look on all the dismemberment and despair and think, “Man, that’s pretty.”

The picture gets to you more through its intensity than its craft, but Hooper does have a talent.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is as violent and gruesome and blood-soaked as the title promises -- a real Grand Guignol of a movie. It’s also without any apparent purpose, unless the creation of disgust and fright is a purpose. And yet in its own way, the movie is some kind of weird, off-the-wall achievement. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to make a movie like this, and yet it’s well-made, well-acted, and all too effective.