Released on this day 50 years ago, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Golden Horrorversary Dept. - Fifty years ago on this date--on 1 Oc., 1974--Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE first hit the screen. A group of travelers in Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas learn to their chagrin that the pioneers who built America have been mechanized into obsolescence and have devolved into a clan of inbred mutants who now feed on the country they'd built, wielding a symbol of the progress that made them unnecessary. As thematically rich as it is designedly crude and nightmarish, TCM is one of those movies people have, for decades, watched and later insisted is a relentless bloodbath, when, in reality, the movie itself features very little gore. When a filmmaker can pull that off, they've definitely succeeded. An unflinching, documentary-style vision of the dust-and-rust-encrusted apocalyptic end of America and one of the greatest and most influential horror movies ever made.