Roger Ebert vs. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Roger Ebert’s Texas Chainsaw review is a perfect snapshot of his uneasy relationship with horror. Watching Tobe Hooper’s low-budget 1974 shocker, he was both repelled and impressed. He grouped it with Night of the Living Dead and Last House on the Left as horror and exploitation films that were “really a lot better than the genre requires,” yet he warned that you might not actually enjoy seeing it. Ebert admired the grimy realism, calling Leatherface’s home “a masterpiece of set decoration and the creation of mood,” and he granted the film “grudging admiration” for its technical craft and brutal effectiveness. At the same time, he labelled it “a grisly little item,” “violent and gruesome and blood-soaked,” and questioned its purpose beyond “the creation of disgust and fright.” His conflicted response captures how provocative horror can force critics to wrestle with where artistry ends and outright sadism begins.
The Exorcist: The ‘Most Universally Beloved’ 1973 Horror
If Texas Chainsaw was the nasty outsider, the beloved 1973 horror crowned “most universally beloved horror movie of all time” is The Exorcist. Since its release, William Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel has terrified audiences with the story of Regan, a possessed child whose ordeal mixes Catholic ritual, family drama, and cold medical realism. Recently, Collider ranked it at the top of their horror list, ahead of titles like The Thing, The Shining, and Halloween, highlighting its enduring status as a prestige horror landmark. Director Friedkin once argued that the film’s reputation for being terrifying “preset” viewers’ minds to be frightened, turning the cinema into a “safe darkness” where you can experience something horrifying and still walk out unharmed afterwards. While Ebert’s specific comments on this title are not cited here, The Exorcist represents the kind of serious, carefully crafted horror that critics were more willing to treat as legitimate cinema.
Why Hitchcock Was Ebert’s Gold Standard for Suspense
To understand Roger Ebert horror opinions, you have to look at the director he admired most: Alfred Hitchcock. Ebert once picked Hitchcock’s Notorious as one of the ten greatest films ever made and praised Hitchcock as a filmmaker whose work “does not date, that fascinate and amuse, that everybody enjoys, and that shout out in every frame that they are by Hitchcock.” He considered Hitchcock “the most complete director,” someone who made “pure movies” by blending visual invention, narrative clarity, and emotional precision. Films like Psycho, with its iconic shower scene and Bernard Herrmann’s screeching score, or the experimental long takes of Rope and the voyeuristic structure of Rear Window, defined for Ebert what suspense cinema could be. Measured against this benchmark, it is easier to see why rougher, grimier titles such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre felt, to him, like powerful but troubling outliers rather than fully rounded classics.
How Critics Shape – But Don’t Control – Classic Horror Legacy
Ebert’s reaction to Texas Chainsaw shows how early critical backlash can slow a horror film’s mainstream respectability without stopping its long-term impact. In the short term, a disgusted review calling a movie “a grisly little item” can make casual viewers avoid it, while a serious, respectful reception for a beloved 1973 horror like The Exorcist helps it slide more easily into awards conversations, academic study, and curated streaming lists. Yet horror history is full of films that outgrow their initial reputations. Texas Chainsaw, despite being dismissed as “violent and gruesome and blood-soaked” and seemingly “without any apparent purpose,” is now seen as a milestone of low-budget ingenuity and social dread. Conversely, even celebrated prestige horror needs devoted audiences to stay alive. Critics can open or close doors, but cult status, rewatches, and new generations of fans ultimately decide what endures.
Why Malaysian Viewers Should Still Watch These Horror Landmarks
For Malaysian audiences catching up with these titles today, their value lies in contrast. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre offers raw, oppressive terror: handheld camerawork, sweat-soaked close-ups, and that unforgettable Leatherface turning rural isolation into a waking nightmare. Modern viewers, used to explicit gore, may be surprised by how much of its horror comes from suggestion, production design, and relentless pacing rather than pure splatter. The beloved 1973 horror The Exorcist, meanwhile, plays as a slow-burn about faith, parenthood, and science confronting the inexplicable. It feels closer to today’s “elevated horror,” where atmosphere and moral questions matter as much as jump scares. Alfred Hitchcock classics such as Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, and Notorious show where cinematic suspense was perfected, using camera movement, colour, and framing to manipulate emotion. Watching them together reveals a lineage: from Hitchcock’s formal control, through Friedkin’s prestige shock, to Hooper’s grimy nightmare, and onward to contemporary horror.
