At the time of its release in 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre provoked outrage and condemnation with its extreme and surreal images sharply dividing critical opinion. The film depicted a group of youngsters who stumble across a cannibal family during a road trip to rural Texas. As a result, these innocent characters are dispatched in various gruesome ways. The film's finale finds the heroine Sally Hardesty (played by actress Marilyn Burns) as the only remaining survivor of the group. Having witnessed the slaughter of her wheelchair-bound brother Franklin, Sally is subjected to a psychotic version of a family meal at the cannibal home. She finally escapes (in a clearly deranged state) along the Texas highway. Here, the film suddenly ends with the killer Leatherface swinging his chainsaw triumphantly against the sunrise as the narrative abruptly cuts out to a black masked frame.
To its many detractors, both the structure and content of the movie exemplified a new low in talentless filmmaking. Several of its opponents derided the narrative's illogical construction and abrupt ending, while condemning its visceral exploitation of rural barbarism. Most famously Stephen Koch rejected The Texas Chainsaw Massacre "as a vile little piece of sick crap. with literally nothing to recommend it". However, for its defenders, Tobe Hooper's film represented an experimental and nihilistic genre breakthrough that could be considered through a number of perspectives. Robin Wood famously argued that the film detailed the monstrous uprising of an abandoned rural underclass whose victims are middle class college kids. More recently, writers such as Carol J. Clover have shifted attention from the social, to the sexual significance of the film. Specifically, she has explored the gender relationship between the female victims and the sexually confused killer Leatherface. Beyond Clover's interpretation, other writers have considered the ritual significance of the cannibals" practices, while the fairytale quality of the movie has also been dissected.