There are some movies ingrained with the ability to make you feel downright ill from utterance of their titles alone. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper's low-budget horror classic, is one of those movies. A nightmare in every sense of the world, here's a film that feels so bound to its own, intoxicating atmosphere, that it's hard to believe that what we're watching isn't real - this hellish vision, directed through what feels like a layer of grease, offers up one of cinema's most relentlessly terrifying experiences. And the ending comes like ten bad dreams all at once. Taking its inspiration from the antics of infamous serial killer Ed Gein (as did another incredibly well-known movie featured later in our list), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre abandons its cast of unprepared characters, young twentysomethings, into the wilds of the American outback, and has them facing off against a family of grotesque freaks who want nothing more than to string them up and bleed them to death. The grubby tone makes for chilling viewing, and the subtext - Hooper's own disillusion with America after Watergate and Vietnam - renders it a classic.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
