MovieChat Forums > The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Discussion > Do you consider this to be a slasher fil...

Do you consider this to be a slasher film?

posted 2 years ago by [deleted]
8 replies | jump to latest

I've seen some argue that it isn't and that it's more of a grindhouse/exploitation film. Some group it with films like The Hills Have Eyes (1977) as a 'stumbling upon a group of crazy whackos in the middle of nowehere' flick.

Some say a slasher film has to have a madman, normally a sole killer, actively hunting down a group of people and that TCM due to the family grouping and the fact their motives aren't revenge or bloodlust driven (rather they're batshit crazy and cannibals) that it's not a true slasher.

It has a lot of the slasher tropes;
- Masked madman with a preferred/iconic weapon.
- Group of teens goofing around only to be killed off one-by-one.
- Chase scenes.
- Final girl.

I do feel like some of the later installments, like the 2003 remake, are definitely slashers. That film is considered the beginning of the 'slasher remake' era and is grouped together with Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine.

Many people seem to use the slasher term for Halloween and anything that came after it whilst refering to films like TCM, Black Christmas and Alice, Sweet Alice as 'proto-slashers'.

What do you think?

[–] BrandNewPoster (10996) 2 years ago

Good question. Personally, I would consider it a slasher, but I could see why some might not. It's a great movie, either way.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I've always considered it a slasher film, akin to Black Christmas and Halloween.

The only reason some debate it I think is because of the narrative that Halloween invented the sub-genre in 1978 and thus if a film predates that then it's a 'proto-slasher' which is a redundant term I think because it's basically saying they're slashers before slasher films were a thing which makes no real sense, because their very existance proves that slashers were in fact a thing.

I think if Black Christmas, TCM and Alice, Sweet Alice were released in 1981 everyone would call them slashers.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying here is that Halloween didn't invent the sub-genre and slashers existed pre-1978. It's box office success played a big part in the sub-genre booming in the early 80s but it was already a thing. Films like Psycho and Peeping Tom are slashers too in my opinion and probably deserve the most credit for 'inventing' the sub-genre.

Giallo films in Italy started taking off in the early-mid 1960s (and became big in the early 70s) and most of them could be considered 'slashers'.

[–] hurricane (1963) 2 years ago

I personally credit Halloween as popularising the slasher movie, arguably even starting the craze, but I don't credit it with inventing the slasher movie. It got a lot of it's inspiration from Black Christmas. Which though was a slasher, but without a lot of the tropes finalized yet.

But to answer the question. For me, I count Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a slasher. Most of it is Leatherface doing the slashing. Really, the family come into it for the most part after the rest of the kids have been killed, and Sally has already been chased for a while. Definitely a slasher, for me.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21602) 2 years ago

Giallo films in Italy started taking off in the early-mid 1960s (and became big in the early 70s) and most of them could be considered 'slashers'.

Mario Bava's 1971 giallo film, A Bay of Blood has been said to have influenced the first Friday the 13th movies.

[–] DoctorThirteen (14658) 4 months ago

'Mario Bava's 1971 giallo film, A Bay of Blood has been said to have influenced the first Friday the 13th movies.'

Absolutely, there's an obvious influence there, acknowledged or not.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I do not consider it a slasher. I showed it to a group of people who had very definite ideas about what a slasher is and had never seen it. They were stunned when the "massacre" part was over within about ten minutes of screen time (the first three kills). This movie has quite a bit more going on than the typical slasher (not that there's anything wrong with slashers and their generally more simplistic story lines). It can be interpreted multiples ways (a critique of mechanization of labor, a comment on the economy in general at the time the movie was made, a statement about strangers wandering into places they aren't welcome, a commentary on 'family values,' the list goes on and on--and I'm sure the filmmakers didn't intend all that, but that's just what happens with storytelling and horror specifically, it almost always accidentally reflects the social climate of the time it was made). I think TCM may well have more in common with "hicksploitation" than the slasher.

[–] moviechatterer (16049) 2 years ago

Yes ,
If the main premise of the movie is several people getting murdered by blades of any type . its a slasher.
The wide ranging genre name exists to cover all this type of stuff

[–] DoctorThirteen (14658) 4 months ago

'I've seen some argue that it isn't and that it's more of a grindhouse/exploitation film.'

I will from this point on refer to this film as 'slashploitation'.