From the inside flap
“When Tobe Hooper’s low-budget slasher film, TheTexas Chain Saw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal
measure with disgust and reverence. The film─in which a group of teenagers meet
a gruesome fate when they stumble upon a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic
killers─was banned in several countries and was pulled from many American theaters
after complaints of its violence. Despite 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. In The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Rattled a Terrified Nation, cultural
critic Joseph Lanza turns his attentions to the productions, reception, social
climate, and impact of this controversial movie that terrified an
already-rattled America.
“Joseph Lanza transports the reader back to the
tumultuous era of the early-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, and mounting racial and
sexual tensions. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Rattled a Terrified
Nation sets the themes of the film against the backdrop of America’s
political and social climate to understand why the brutal slasher flick
connected with so many viewers.”
Review
Texas is
one of my favorite 2019 reads. It immediately absorbed me into its time
early-Seventies period, with its mix of cinematic influences, intentions and
reactions, as well as the often-iconic events and cultural players who were part
of them. These artists, politicians, criminals, religionists, and other citizens
of the milieu─as shown in Lanza’s entertaining, waste-no-time and informative book─are
given their proper due, while the author keeps the pace lively, clever and
worthwhile. This is a rare read for me, one that I hope to revisit again. Or,
to put it another way: it is worth owning, and re-reading, whether you are interested in the 1974 film, the Vietnam era, or the early 1970s in general.
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