a review of 德州电锯杀人狂

The thing that stuck out to me the most on this rewatch was the editing on the dinner-table scene. There's not really any onscreen depicted violence until the end, but Hooper keeps intercutting between the screaming girl (with extreme closeups of her eyes, tiny bloodshot veins and all) and the Leatherface family tormenting her across the table and egging her on. This part of the sequence lasts maybe only a minute or two, but it feels like the entire movie just sort of freezes in that terrifying moment, letting the audience loop through their own fight-or-flight response just like the character. And even when that initial tension gives way to physical comedy (the mallet gag with the grandfather), it never stops being frightening, and it rides that wave of terror all the way to the very end of the film.