1428 Elm: The Movies That Introduced Us to Horror

Joey Click – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The thing that scares me to the core about Tobe Hooper’s iconic 1974 film is the absolute rawness of the piece. Being in an exclusive club of films so raw you would think they were real, such as the late Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left and Dario Argento’s Suspiria, the film feels like a documented account instead of a fictionalized photographed narrative. Not only could the events of the film actually happen, but the head space of someone like a member of the Sawyer family is terrifying. Like the Joker, there is no reasoning with them. They do and take what they want; your body is their ultimate desire. The way in which Leatherface slams the door, after dispatching the ill-fated Kirk, with that music is one of the most visceral scenes in cinema history.