The Frida Cinema

Orange County's Year-Round Film Festival

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — Volunteer Pick of the Month

May’s Volunteer of the Month is Chloe Lambaren, who picked to screen Tobe Hooper’s timeless horror masterpiece, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. When Chloe first saw this movie with her dad, he helped her see that you don’t need lots of money or fancy effects to make a great movie, inspiring her to start studying to be a filmmaker herself.

Sally (Marilyn Burns) is on the road with her friends and brother, (Allen Danziger, WIlliam Vail, Teri McMinn, and Paul A. Partain), when they stop at the wrong country farmhouse. One by one, the group discovers what horrors hide down dusty backwoods roads when they meet Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), and a chain of events so disturbing that this movie just narrowly avoided an X rating in the US, was refused a home video release in the UK and Australia, and outright banned in 10 other countries.

The avalanche of disturbing imagery and sadism displayed earned this movie its notoriety. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre not only kick started the slasher genre of horror movies, but also paved the way for the likes of Eli Roth and the Saw franchise. As terrifying today as it was when it premiered 45 years ago, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a true classic.  Come see what all the fuss is about for yourself, if you think you can handle it.

“No matter how many filmmakers have attempted to recreate the all-out insanity of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, very few have even come close.” — Cole Smithey,

“The movie is some kind of weird, off-the-wall achievement.  I can’t imagine why anyone would want to make a movie like this, and yet it’s well-made, well-acted, and all too effective.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Tobe Hooper’s grindhouse masterpiece abounds in snuff ambience and cacophonous trauma.” — Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion