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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/texas-chainsaw-massacre.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:300:''[[{{Tagline}} Who will survive and what will be left of them?]]'']]
3%%
4->''"The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."''
5-->-- '''Narrator (Creator/JohnLarroquette)'''
6
7''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a seminal [[SlasherMovie slasher film]] directed and co-written by Creator/TobeHooper, based on the "true" story of a group of teenagers [[DeadlyRoadTrip traveling]] through rural Texas who happen upon a secluded old house inhabited by the world's most horrifying family -- in particular a disturbed young man with an interest in leather masks and amateur butchery. The film was completed in 1973 and released on October 1st, 1974.
8
9While the film was marketed as based on actual events, [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie this was in large part a deliberate conceit to attract a wider audience]], although it was also a subtle commentary on the political climate surrounding its release, as Hooper believed similar lies-presented-as-fact were being pushed by the government on a regular basis (on subjects like [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon Watergate]] and UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar). Hooper did, however, take inspiration for the film from the real-life murderer UsefulNotes/EdGein (who was also the inspiration for ''Film/{{Psycho}}'''s Norman Bates, and later for Buffalo Bill of ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs''), and based the character Leatherface on him.
10
11The film was produced on a budget of $140,000[[note]]$876,000 in late 2021[[/note]], and Hooper cast mainly unknown actors from the local Texan population. When it was completed, Hooper struggled to find a distributor due to the graphic depictions of violence (although the film is not ''nearly'' as bloody as its reputation suggests, prioritizing suspense and atmosphere over explicit gore, and [[GoryDiscretionShot largely keeping depictions of it off-screen]] [[NothingIsScarier and in the viewer's mind]]). While Hooper had intended for the movie to get a PG rating, it was originally rated X; an edited resubmission was then rated R.
12
13Controversial upon release, with several countries banning it outright, the film was a great commercial success despite being critically divisive, and has gone on to be hailed as one of the greatest, scariest and most influential horror films ever made. The film has since spawned [[Franchise/TheTexasChainsawMassacre a franchise]] with [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2 three]] [[Film/TexasChainsaw3D direct]] [[Film/TexasChainsawMassacre2022 sequels]] (none of which are connected to each other), a [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2003 remake]], and a direct [[Film/{{Leatherface}} prequel]], the lattermost loosely in-continuity with the second sequel (''Texas Chainsaw 3D'') as well.
14
15----
16!!The Texas Trope Massacre:
17
18* AbusiveParents: The Old Man is the parental figure to Nubbins and Leatherface and he beats both of them. When Leatherface assures him [[spoiler: that all the teenagers are dead and can’t go to the police]], he beats Leatherface anyway for ruining the door.
19* {{Acrofatic}}:
20** Leatherface keeps up with Sally (who is sprinting as fast as she can) despite being 6'7, well over 300 pounds, and carrying a chainsaw. In the Pioneer Special Edition DVD Commentary, Creator/GunnarHansen, Leatherface's actor, revealed that he had to intentionally slow himself and provide distractions such as sawing tree branches because of how slow Sally's actress ran. Multiple reshoots were required because he kept catching her.
21** A downplayed case with the truck driver. He may not be graceful about it, but he (wisely) ''hauls ass'' when Leatherface gets back up again after taking a wrench to the head and a chainsaw to the leg.
22* AlterEgoActing: Leatherface has 3 personalities depending on which outfit he’s wearing. There’s his normal mask and apron which he uses while cutting meat and chasing people. There’s his old lady and dress outfit which he wears while cleaning up and greeting his returning family. Finally there’s his pretty woman mask and suit that he wears for dinner with the family.
23* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Nubbins gets killed by a truck but due to the torture he did to Sally, its hard to sympathise with him.]]
24* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: Inverted. Apparently, the reason why there was little bloodshed in the film was because director Tobe Hooper wanted it to have a PG rating, but the violence itself and overall frightening imagery were initially enough to land the film an ''X'' rating. Hooper cut out several minutes of footage just so it could get rated R.
25* AxeBeforeEntering: Leatherface cuts his way through a door to get Sally -- his ''own'' door. Drayton (The Cook) is not pleased at all and beats him for it.
26* BadassBystander: [[spoiler: The two men at the end of the film who help rescue Sally.]]
27* BadSamaritan: When it seems that Sally has made it into safety from Leatherface in the gas station, its owner [[BoundAndGagged binds and gags her]], [[BagOfKidnapping stuffs her in a bag]] and brings her to his family's house.
28* BigBad: Drayton Sawyer.
29* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Sally makes it out alive and the killers will probably be caught, but everyone else is dead and there's no way she'll be mentally well after all she's been through.]]
30* BloodlessCarnage: While not exactly bloodless, the film is light on gore for the most part, exceptions being the harm done to hands and Hitchhiker's death.
31* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler:Inverted in every way. Not only does the Truck Driver not die onscreen, but he also managed to kill Nubbins and incapacitate Leatherface, and with less than a minute of screentime.]]
32* BlowingARaspberry: Quite a bit of it:
33** Nubbins (The Hitchhiker) does it several times to taunt the kids as the van speeds away. He also keeps blowing them to The Old Man who keeps barking orders at him when they're all together.
34** Franklin does it many times to the other kids upstairs while he's stuck on the first floor.
35* BoundAndGagged: In addition to the gas station scene noted above, Sally is in this position during the dinner scene. Marilyn Burns does a tremendous job selling the horror around her despite being unable to speak.
36* BuryYourDisabled: The wheelchair-using Franklin gets a chainsaw into his guts. And if [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2 the sequel]] says anything, looks like he also got it to the face too.
37* ButtMonkey: Poor Franklin just can’t catch a break, besides using a wheelchair he also rolls down a hill while trying to pee, then he gets his arm sliced by the hitchhiker’s straight razor, then he is taunted by his friends about the hitchhiker coming to get him, he also gets stuck while trying to move around the house and finally [[spoiler: he is sliced and diced while stuck in his chair and becomes the only person killed by Chainsaw in the movie]].
38--> '''Franklin:''' If I have any more fun today I don't think I can take it!
39* CannibalClan: The family turning people into meat products.
40* CannibalLarder: Probably the TropeCodifier.
41* CarFu: [[spoiler:Nubbins gets driven over by a truck.]]
42* ChainsawGood: Leatherface's weapon of choice, which he uses in the [[ChaseScene chase scenes]] and cutting up the captured meat. However, he actually has a higher body count with the sledgehammer.
43* CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: Averted, compared to later slasher films as only 5 characters including villains explicitly die. It is played straight in a different sense, however, as four of the five leads all die within 15 minutes of each other, leaving [[FinalGirl Sally]] alone for an entire third of the film.
44* CrapsackWorld: The setting of the original film feels post-apocalyptic or very near to it. The opening act of the film displays long stretches of abandoned buildings and factories, gas stations closed or non-functional due to fuel shortages, desecrated graves, almost no signs of civilization short of truckers huddled by the road, and a narration on the car radio giving an endless stream of terrifying and disturbing news. The main characters gleefully explore and laugh about the memories they had playing in their grandparent's home just a few years earlier, but the house has clearly been abandoned for decades, with massive structural decay they don't even seem to notice, and their favorite swimming hole is scarcely more than a dried-up ditch. The cannibal family themselves seem to have fallen upon their madness and unravelling partially because of the collapse of the slaughterhouse which kept them employed.
45* CreepyGasStationAttendant: The Old Man. Probable TropeMaker, by the way. Encountered early on by the protagonists, he appears normal enough, but when Sally goes to him seeking aid after her friends are killed, he is revealed to be the head of Leatherface's family and captures the girl to take home for dinner.
46* CuriosityKilledTheCast: Played as straight as possible, as three of the protagonists meet their end by wandering into the maniacs' house.
47* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: Grandpa Sawyer's so old and decrepit he's mistaken for a mummified corpse at first.
48* DecoyAntagonist: The first scene makes it seem like Nubbins is going to be the BigBad.
49* DeusExMachina: [[spoiler:Sally is saved from certain doom by ''two'' passing motorists: the 18 wheeler driver gets The Hitchhiker off her back and the pickup truck driver saves her from Leatherface.]]
50* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: Sort of inverted. At the start of the film the dialogue sets up the themes of the film pretty well, and Franklin looks like he's going to be a pretty interesting lead character. But as soon as they leave the van he becomes a bitter crybaby and everyone else shamelessly treats him like shit. Aside from Jerry, who is shown to be far more articulate and intelligent than his friends, no other characters have their personalities explored at all.
51* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: There are very strong parallels to the meat industry. Sally and her friends are livestock, they are led into the slaughterhouse (with the other four following after the first), they are treated with unnecessary cruelty and they are eaten. The three maniacs represent different positions in the process. The hitchhiker is the farmer who brands them (the blood on the van), Leatherface is the slaughterhouse worker who kills and butchers them and the cook only works with the final product and dislikes the killing process.
52%%* TheDragon: Leatherface.
53* DroneOfDread: The entire score.
54* DumbMuscle: Leatherface is not very bright and implied to have a developmental disablity.
55* DwindlingParty: In something of a subversion, four fifths of the group are killed off really quickly, with the remainder of the film focusing on the ordeal of FinalGirl Sally.
56* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
57** The relative lack of {{Gorn}} arguably counts, as every other film in the franchise would live up to the bloody sounding name.
58** Leatherface wearing multiple masks, as Creator/GunnarHansen and Creator/TobeHooper claimed in interviews this was done as a means of expression due to his lack of personality. Later films seemed to imply he wore masks as a means of covering a facial deformity.
59** To both the franchise and to slasher movies as a whole: it makes perfect sense that even a freakishly big and strong man like Leatherface would be knocked down by a thrown wrench to the head and scream in pain when he accidentally chainsawed his leg. The fact that he gets back up and keeps attacking means he still qualifies for MadeOfIron. Even so, such signs of human vulnerability would never be shown by the supernatural killing machines of the post-''Halloween'' slasher genre.
60** The slasher genre had not yet developed the concept of the silent, unstoppable killing machine that would become the norm after ''Film/Halloween1978'', so when Leatherface takes a thrown wrench to the head, he's knocked down. And having fallen with a running chainsaw in his hands, he accidentally cuts himself, which quite reasonably causes him to scream in pain and walk with a limp afterwards.
61* EvilGloating: Drayton, Nubbins, and to a lesser extent Leatherface do this during the dinner scene.
62* EvilIsHammy: Drayton and Nubbins are extremely animated people. Nubbins especially spends nearly all his screentime either screaming or giggling.
63* EvilLaugh: A sequence in the film just has the family laughing maniacally at the bound Sally's expense.
64* ExtremelyShortTimeSpan: The whole movie takes place in just under twenty-four hours, as it seems to be mid-morning or early afternoon when we first meet the party going to the graveyard, and the conclusion takes place at dawn the next morning.
65* EyeTake: The dinner scene features some ''extreme'' closeups of Sally's eyes as she looks around in terror.
66* {{Fainting}}: Sally faints when she sees Grandpa sucking blood from her fingertip.
67* {{Fanservice}}:
68** A third through the film, Kirk unbuttons his shirt down to his navel exposing his sweaty chest.
69** There is also an early shot at the gas station of Pam's legs from a very low angle.
70** The film has at least one long tracking shot of Pam in those red shorts before her death.
71* FatIdiot: Leatherface is a 300 pound killer who is developmentally disabled.
72* FauxAffablyEvil: Drayton (The Cook) Sawyer tries to somewhat comfort Sally a few times, but still fully intends to kill her that evening. Since the film can be interpreted as an allegory of the workings of a slaughterhouse, Drayton may be the "compassionate" kind of slaughterhouse worker who wants to treat the cattle kindly before killing them.
73* FinalGirl: Sally ends up being the sole survivor to confront the family. She's often considered the first-ever final girl, with the heroines of the later [[SlasherMovie slasher genre]] following in her footsteps. Also a bit of an UnbuiltTrope, as Pam is just as much a "good girl" as Sally is, and Sally never TookALevelInBadass. She never even gets into a fight or confrontation with Leatherface. She's just a normal girl who happens to survive over her friends.
74* {{Fingore}}: The finger slicing scene, which was actually done for real, after the blood pumping machine broke.
75* {{Foreshadowing}}: Several examples:
76** The Hitchhiker talks about how the sledgehammer is a better method of killing the animals in the slaughterhouse. The first member of the group to die gets killed with a sledgehammer and it is ''not'' pretty.
77** The gas station attendant also mentions that it's a bad idea to just go into people's houses, especially since the owner might not take kindly to it. [[spoiler: This is exactly how and why the first two deaths happen, even though the conversation was about a different house.]]
78** Franklin describes (in hideous detail) how some of the slaughterhouse cattle would twitch and convulse after being hit with the sledgehammer. [[spoiler:Exactly how Kirk dies when Leatherface cracks his head open with a hammer.]]
79* GasStationOfDoom: The gas station [[spoiler:unfortunately turns out not to be the sanctuary for Sally as the proprietor ties her up, gags her, and forces her into his truck. It also turns out to be the place where [[ImAHumanitarian human meats are barbecued]]]].
80* GirlyRun: Sally runs like this throughout the film, much too terrified to adopt a more efficient running stance.
81* GoodSamaritan:
82** An unnamed trucker plows down Nubbins to save Sally as he begins to slash her. He then knocks Leatherface down with a pipe wrench before fleeing.
83** Another one appears within minutes: a young man driving a pickup truck comes across the melee, and has the presence of mind to whip around, slow down so Sally can jump into the bed of his truck, and then speed away to escape.
84* {{Gorn}}: Famously averted despite what old reviews would have you believe. While not bloodless, it is fairly light on blood in contrast to most slasher films.
85* GoryDiscretionShot: Implemented with most every kill in the film [[spoiler:except for the explicit depiction of Nubbins getting obliterated by a passing truck]]. Also purposefully invoked when [[spoiler:Pam is hung on the meathook]]. Hooper was seeking to cut down violent content to try to get a better rating, so he opted not to show [[spoiler:the impalement]]. Instead, [[spoiler:he established her wearing a shirt with no back, emphasized the hook and showed splatters of blood in the room]]. As he said, "The mind fills in the gaps for you."
86* GoryDeadlyOverkillTitleOfFatalDeath: [[TropeCodifier The original.]] That said, despite its infamous reputation, [[SubvertedTrope this one is actually not nearly as gruesome as the sequels would lead you to believe]]. Only ''[[NonIndicativeName one]]'' person is actually killed by chainsaw in the movie, and the murder is shot in the darkness and at a distance so you [[GoryDiscretionShot can't see much of the gruesome details.]])
87* GraveRobbing: Hitchhiker's hobbies include unearthing corpses and making grisly art, trinkets and furniture from them.
88* GrossUpCloseUp: The first shots in the film focus extremely close on decomposed corpses.
89* HarmlessVillain: Lampshaded with Nubbins. [[spoiler:Apart from cutting Franklin, he's not a very good villain. His kill count is virtually zero. Drayton scolds him for grave robbing and leaving Leatherface alone. It is thanks to him that Sally escapes. And when he manages to catch up to her in the final chase scene, he doesn't really do anything to slow her down. And in the end, [[TheDitz it's kind of his own stupidity that leads to his downfall]].]]
90* HellIsThatNoise:
91** The flashbulb of a camera never sounded so horrifying.
92** A case could also be made for the noise the steel door to the abattoir room makes when Leatherface slams it shut.
93** Just before that, the ''hideous'' metal-on-meat-and-bone ''thwack'' a mallet slamming into someone's forehead makes.
94** Then there's the chainsaw itself.
95* HiddenHeartOfGold: Leatherface seems to have a subtle bond with Great Grandpa Sawyer and how willing he is to help him in his old age. Adding to the theory that Leatherface is simply a manchild who falls victim to abuse, it's a subtle touch that shows he's still human.
96* HooksAndCrooks: One of the most famous kills is of [[spoiler:Leatherface hanging Pam on a giant meathook while she's still alive and screaming.]]
97* HopeSpot: During the first chase scene, Sally makes it to the barbecue joint and thinks the owner can help her. Unfortunately, the owner is actually the patriarch of Leatherface’s family, and he’s none too willing to let her escape.
98* HostileHitchhiker: The hitchhiker travels with the group for a bit and start talking about his family who worked at the old slaughterhouse. He borrows Franklin's pocket-knife and cuts himself, then takes a Polaroid picture of Franklin and demands money for it. When the group refuses to pay, he burns the photo and slashes Franklin's arm with a straight razor. They force him out of the van and drive on. It gets worse later when it’s revealed that he’s another member of the Sawyer family and is just as depraved.
99* IfItBleedsItLeads: In addition to the news about the cemetery robberies, the first act is full of background radio chatter of nerve-wracking events happening around the world such as disease and violence.
100* IronicEcho: Sally tells The Hitchhiker that they can't drive him all the way home because they're in a hurry. Later, when she is tied up in his house, he taunts her and says, "I thought you was in a hurry!"
101* JumpScare: [[spoiler:Leatherface's first appearance just before killing Kirk; Pam springing out of Leatherface's freezer when Jerry opens it; and Leatherface suddenly appearing before Franklin and Sally in the dark woods.]]
102* KickTheDog:
103** Nubbins' habit of GraveRobbing has absolutely nothing to do with his family's eating habits. He's just cruel like that. In fact, Drayton calls him out on the whole thing being stupid and pointless.
104** The Sawyers as a whole [[spoiler:tying Sally to a chair while they eat, mocking her screams the whole time]].
105* LaughingMad: Sally at the end when she makes her escape.
106* LosingAShoeInTheStruggle: [[spoiler:When Pam attempts to escape the house, she is caught by Leatherface right after she leaves the exit. He catches by her hugging her body which leads to her flailing her legs and lose her flip-flops during the process.]]
107* MadeOfIron: On top of being huge, strong and psychotic, Leatherface is ''extremely'' resilient. A pipe wrench to the face, followed by a deep chainsaw wound, only slows him down for a moment. He's soon up and twirling around on a chainsawed leg.
108* MaleGaze: Pam's red shorts get a lot of camera shots, many of them from behind including a famous low-angle shot.
109* ManChild:
110** Nubbins. From blowing raspberries, to howling at the dinner table, to poking Sally (in a "is this bugging you?" childlike way).
111** Leatherface seems to have the mental capacity of a very small child. He is bullied by family members whom he dwarfs, and actually seems to be freaked out by the presence of intruders in his house, as if he was a scared kid instead of a large, powerful man who is much more dangerous than they are.
112* MeaningfulName:
113** The family of cannibals are named Sawyer; a ''sawyer'' is a person who uses a chainsaw.
114** The film is set in the fictional location of Muerto County, Texas- "muerto" is Spanish for "dead".
115* MiddleOfNowhereStreet: The film takes place in a desolate place in the middle of nowhere. This is highly emphasized when the main characters pick up the Hitchhiker near the slaughterhouse. It is shown as a long shot with deafening silence from the outside world.
116* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Vandalism and grave robbery → a CannibalClan murdering and eating people.
117* MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: When Sally enters the second floor room, she finds an elderly male and female sitting on chairs. The male (Grandpa) is later revealed to be alive, but the female (presumably, Grandma) is very obviously dead.
118* MsFanservice: Pam is an attractive young woman who wears a {{Stripperific}} outfit during the summer, which contains of a completely backless tank top, red hotpants and black flip-flops. She gets a lot of fanservice shots during the movie.
119* NeverTrustATitle: Only ''one'' person in the entire movie is killed with a chainsaw. The most commonly used weapon is actually a hammer.
120* NoEnding: [[spoiler:Sally jumps into the back of a pickup truck driven by a GoodSamaritan, and he drives away with her. As her screaming turns into delirious laughter, Leatherface has a tantrum and wildly flails his chainsaw -- during which the film abruptly cuts to black and rolls credits. It's incredibly abrupt, cutting from ten consecutive minutes of pure terror...to just black and silence.]]
121* NonActionBigBad: Drayton never kills anyone himself. He's "just the cook", in Nubbins' words.
122* NonIndicativeName: Would it surprise you to learn that only one person is murdered ''by chainsaw'' in this movie? And the scene in question [[GoryDiscretionShot isn't that gruesome]], either.
123* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: Instead of instantly killing Sally, the Sawyers ''invite her to dinner'' (albeit while mercilessly mocking her).
124* NothingIsScarier: Legendarily so. When James Furman, the Director of the British Board of Film Classification at the time, tried to cut the movie, he found that he ''couldn't'' - all the most horrendous violence takes place offscreen, making the film seem far scarier and more disturbing than if they just showed all the gore.
125* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Two of the murderers are just listed as "Hitchhiker" and "The Proprietor" in the credits, and as for the third, "Leatherface" is obviously not his real name. The sequel established that their names are Nubbins, Drayton, and Bubba, respectively.
126* OpeningScroll: The film begins like an old documentary with talks about the gruesomeness of the film they are about to show. This actually caused a lot of people to mistake this film for being a true story.
127* ThePatriarch: Grandpa Sawyer is treated as one, even if his best days are far over.
128* PleaseIWillDoAnything: Sally says this almost verbatim at the dinner scene, presumably offering sex as a way to avoid being killed; the Sawyers laugh in her face. To quote Carol J. Clover's discussion of the scene in her 1992 book ''Men, Women, And Chain Saws: Gender In The Modern Horror Film'', she has misunderstood the psychology -- [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil they just want to eat her.]]
129* PromotionToParent: The Old Man is not Nubbins and Leatherface’s father but he acts like it, holding a steady job, and beating them when they mess up.
130* SexyBacklessOutfit: Pam wears a completely backless tank top. [[spoiler:Due to that, it's made clear that Leatherface hooked her up on a meathook by impaling her back with it.]]
131* ScreamingWoman: Sally spends the final third of the film screaming her head off.
132%%* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: Jerry. Perfectly understandable, given what Leatherface is about to do.
133* SeriousWorkComedicScene. This film is a serious and often bleak horror movie, but it has some subtle black comedy eagle-eyed viewers often notice, like in the climax when [[spoiler: [[EvilOldFolks Grandpa]], who is said to be the best at killing, fails multiple times to hit [[FinalGirl Sally]] in the head with a hammer.]]
134* SickeningCrunch: [[spoiler:Kirk]]'s death by sledgehammer.
135* SlasherSmile:
136** Leatherface pulls these a few times. It's a little hard to see thanks to the mask, but if you look closely when he licks his teeth, you can see that he smirks while doing it.
137** Nubbins pulls off a few doozies, too.
138* SoundtrackDissonance: In the Hitchhiker's first scene, an upbeat showtune ("Fool For A Blonde" by Roger Barlett) plays on the radio. The music is very emphasized when the Hitchhiker starts slitting into his palms. Since this song is now known for being from this film, it's clear that it left that kind of impact of the audience.
139* SpidersAreScary: Kirk notices a cluster of Daddy Long-Legs' in a corner of a room, and is spooked.
140* StaggeredZoom:
141** Used to visualize the fear in Sally's eyes as she looks around & screams in terror.
142** Also used to emphasize Pam looking around in the room of feathers & bones.
143* StockSlasher: Leatherface is the TropeMaker, though he's notably only TheHeavy to the rest of the Sawyer family rather than operating alone, and isn't nearly as invulnerable as some later examples would be.
144* StoutStrength:
145** As per FatIdiot, Leatherface is a big guy who clearly enjoys Drayton's food, and he is immensely strong.
146** Also the truck driver, who has clearly had too many diner meals, but can still throw a wrench hard enough to knock Leatherface down.
147* SuperWindowJump: Sally escapes the maniacs' house twice by jumping through a window.
148* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: [[spoiler:Kirk]] and [[spoiler:Franklin]] are both ambushed and killed almost instantly by Leatherface in two of the slasher genre's earliest jump scares.
149%%* TechnicalPacifist: Maybe there's a better trope to describe it but The Old Man participates in beating, kidnapping, and torturing Sally but in his own words he "Just can't take no pleasure in killing, there's just some things you gotta do, don't mean you have to like it."
150* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Leatherface cuts into [[spoiler:Franklin]] with the chainsaw five times, once would have been fine.
151* TooDumbToLive: Arguably subverted, unlike most slasher films; the first of the group to die displays a morbid curiosity about the house, and tentatively enters ''not knowing'' about the killer inside. The rest understandably follow in search of their missing friends as each one disappears.
152* TypoOnTheCover: Calling it a typo is rather harsh, and ironically, it's ''not'' on the cover of the film, but it's within the film itself. The word "chainsaw" is written as a singular word, but the film instead says "Chain Saw" with the words separated. However, this does help differentiate the film and the franchise as a whole.
153* UnbuiltTrope: As this is the very first mainstream classical slasher film, it had no previous slasher films from which to draw inspiration or copy, and it really shows in how different it is when compared to other "conventional" slasher flicks. Despite being the first slasher film, it's actually very unlike the slasher films that succeeded it in later movies.
154** It avoids a ColdOpen where the villain is established.
155** There's also a ''family'' of killers instead of one singular slasher.
156** Said slasher is a normal human who isn't MadeOfIron.
157** There's no SortingAlgorithmOfMortality among the characters, as there's very little DevelopingDoomedCharacters since little about their personalities is fleshed out, and as a result, there are no archetypes among them.
158** The very first kill that reveals Leatherface has no ScareChord, and the carnage is mostly {{bloodless|carnage}}.
159** [[spoiler: FinalGirl Sally Hardesty loses her brother and all her friends before the third act, and she has no final confrontation with them. The film just ends with her escape and that's it.]]
160* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: This story is actually an amalgamation of three different elements. The famed not-quite-SerialKiller Ed Gein, the legendary Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean and his clan (who probably never really existed) and Creator/TobeHooper's fantasies of mowing down shoppers at K-Mart with a chainsaw while he was trapped in the hardware department by the crush of the holiday crowds.
161* VillainousBreakdown: Leatherface twirling around, waving his chainsaw in frustration as he realizes his victim [[spoiler:Sally]] got away.
162* VisualPun: The Sawyer household has a chair with human arms making up part of its structure: an arm chair!
163* WeaponTitle: Take a guess.
164* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
165** Sally is helped by the driver of an 18-wheeler who leaves his vehicle behind, smacks Leatherface with a wrench, and runs down the road, never to be seen again.
166** The Old Man has an employee at his station, a silent, vaguely creepy window washer. He appears in one scene only, and it's never made clear if he's aware of or complicit in what his boss is doing (though there's Wild Mass Guessing that he was supposed to be Leatherface, sans mask and in normal attire).
167* WrenchWhack: A truck driver throws a wrench at Leatherface which knocks him down and makes him cut himself with his chainsaw.

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