Described as a "grisly little item" by Roger Ebert upon its controversial 1974 release, and deemed too extreme to be screened in Australia for 10 years, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the unlikeliest films to have become a household name. Fifty years on, the film's premise remains the stuff of nightmares: while travelling through the sweltering American South, a group of hippies are brusquely slaughtered by Leatherface (played by Gunnar Hansen and inspired by Ed Gein), a hulking, brutish butcher who provides for his family of cannibals.
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