THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)
Note: from Oct 2021-June 2022, the podcast was known as 21 Jump Scare and was organized in a slightly different fashion, with different awards.
Background (spoiler-free) 0:00-8:05
Discussion (spoiler-heavy) 8:06-55:44
Awards (spoilers for days) 55:45
Director Tobe Hooper
Screenplay Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper
Featuring Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, Paul A. Pertain, Teri McMinn, Jim Siedow, William Vail
Opened: October 11, 1974
Budget: $300,000
Gross USA: $30,859,000
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $30,860,378
SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS
August 18, 1973. Siblings Sally and Franklin Hardesty are driving though rural Texas in a van with their friends Kirk, Jerry, and Pam, on their way to a graveyard where, it has been reported, someone has been digging up corpses and arranging them like statuary. Sally and Franklin want to make sure that their grandparents’ graves have gone undisturbed. Satisfied that no such event occurred, the gang hits the road and picks up a hitchhiker who talks about his former job at a local slaughterhouse, shows them pictures of his handiwork, and, for fun, cuts his arm and Franklin’s. After kicking the hitchhiker out of the van, the friends find that the van is quickly running out of gas. Stopping by a roadside gas station, they are disappointed to find the station is also out of gas, and politely decline the owner’s offer to stay for a barbecue meal. The gang moves on to an abandoned home where Sally and Franklin once spent time. Kirk and Pam wander down to a swimming hole for some post-road trip nookie. But the swimming hole doesn’t exist, so they decide to head to a nearby house and ask the owner for some gas. No one seems to be home, so Kirk wanders into the empty house, which is filled with strange items like human bones, skulls, feathers, teeth, and various skin-related products. Kirk soon finds himself coming face to face with the house’s primary occupant, a sledgehammer-wielding psychopath the likes of which neither he nor any of the others – including film audiences worldwide – have encountered before.
EPISODE NOTES
Music from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” by Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper.
TRAILER
AWARDS
The Tom Six Award for Most Disturbing Scene
Bradford: The hitchhiker in the van
Eric: Dinner scene, attempted bludgeoning of Sally
The Seth Brundle Award for Most Likable Character
Bradford: Sally
Eric: Leatherface
The Ellen Ripley Award for Character that Most Deserved to Live
Bradford: Franklin
Eric: Franklin
The John Doe Award for Character that Most Deserved to Die (and Does)
Bradford: The old man
Eric: The hitchhiker
The Gaspar Noe Award/Ken Russell Award for Most Gratuitous Screen Moment
Bradford: Pam is hoisted onto the meathook
Eric: Franklin rolls down the hill, tumbling out of his wheelchair