8 Horror Movies With Surprising Deeper Meanings

For a movie with “Chain Saw” and “Massacre” in the title, the blood in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is kept to a minimum. However, you can see the characters sweating. You can feel the Texas summer heat. The sun-scorched tone leaves you wanting to take a shower more than a privileged college student after Coachella. The film, despite the lack of gore, is brutal, unforgiving and strangely has a very pro-vegetarian message.

After the gang pulls the mystery machine over to pick up a hitchhiker, he spends the better part of the first act explaining a couple different ways cows are slaughtered. He tells them how smashing cows in the head with a hammer-like device was a better way to kill them, as opposed to using a gun that uses air pressure, because that gun “puts people out of jobs”. The psycho family the hitchhiker belongs to proceeds to murder the gang in the same way cattle are killed. The gang are systematically slaughtered for good eating.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre wants you to know how the sausage is made. It forces the audience to question the morality of meat production, as they see people being treated like cattle. The film's director, Tobe Hooper said he couldn't eat meat while making the movie.

Shape of Water director, Guillermo Del Toro said he was a vegetarian for a few months after seeing Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which isn't suprising considering how pro-sex-with-fish he is.