![]() ![]() However, the author of this book makes a valiant effort to find one. I don’t think it’s the kind of movie one should bother scrutinizing for some hidden message or meaning. While one might manage to squeeze out some tepid arguments for alleged allegory or symbolism, it pretty much is what it is. Let’s face it, the film is very straight forward. ![]() The seventies and early eighties had the most chilling horror movies of any decade, IMHO. That’s really saying something considering the era I grew up in. To this day, no matter how low budget or how old the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is, every time I think about it, I get a chill down my spine. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and It’s Terrifying Times: A Cultural History, by Joseph Lanza is a 2019 Skyhorse publication. ![]() Joseph Lanza has created an engaging and nuanced work that grapples with the complications of the American experience. As much a book about the movie as the moment, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Its Terrifying Times sets the themes of the film against the backdrop of the political and social American climate to understand why the brutal slasher flick connected with so many viewers. Joseph Lanza transports the reader back to the tumultuous era of the 1970s defined by political upheaval, cultural disillusionment, and the perceived decay of the nuclear family in the wake of Watergate, the onslaught of serial killers in the US, as well as mounting racial and sexual tensions. The film-in which a group of teenagers meet a gruesome end when they stumble upon a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers-was outright banned in several countries and was pulled from many American theaters after complaints of its violence.ĭespite the mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable at the domestic box office and has since secured its place as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. When Tobe Hooper’s low-budget slasher film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal measure with disgust and reverence. Lanza turns his attentions to the production, reception, social climate, and impact of a movie that rattled the American psyche in the wake of Nixon, Watergate, and Vietnam. ![]()
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