The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Horror · 1974
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
Movie details
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
“Who will survive and what will be left of them?”
1974 Horror 1h 23m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
7.4 / 10
216.8K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
85 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
92 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
7.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
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After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.
Night of the Living Dead
Horror · 1968
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.
Saw
Horror · 2004
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Mother's Day
Crime · 2010
Crazed members of a sadistic family return to their childhood home to terrorize the new owners.
American Gothic
Horror · 1987
When six friends fly off on a weekend getaway and are suddenly plagued by engine trouble, they're forced to land on a remote island. Looking for shelter, they're grateful to encounter Ma and Pa and their children - an eccentric family living in the island's backwoods. But what begins as simple hospitality turns into a terrifying race for survival as the friends start disappearing one by one ... and turning up dead.
Freddy vs. Jason
Horror · 2003
Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenagers of Elm Street. Only this time, they're out to get each other, too.
The Hills Have Eyes
Horror · 2006
Based on Wes Craven's 1977 suspenseful cult classic, The Hills Have Eyes is the story of a family road trip that goes terrifyingly awry when the travelers become stranded in a government atomic zone. Miles from nowhere, the Carter family soon realizes the seemingly uninhabited wasteland is actually the breeding ground of a blood-thirsty mutant family...and they are the prey.
Where it lives
Watch in your region.
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Tobe Hooper
Written by
Kim Henkel · Tobe Hooper
Marilyn Burns
Sally
Allen Danziger
Jerry
Paul A. Partain
Franklin
William Vail
Kirk
Teri McMinn
Pam
Edwin Neal
Hitchhiker
Jim Siedow
Old Man
Court is in session
Put The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.