So I watched it last night around 1am after my little adventure.
I must say, this movie was very different from what I thought it would be. Overall I thought it was pretty good, for a horror movie. It was very well paced. Nothing was brooded over for too long, and the movie quicky kills off people. Which brings me to the violence in the movie.
This movie was not nearly as gory I expected it to be. Instead, the movie utilized a style of intimate violence. Most people are desensitized to gun violence in movies, in part because it doesn't connect with the average person; I don't think the average person realizes what guns are capible of, in part because they aren't exposed to them much in real life. Yet when you see someone take a knife and slowly gash their hand, it looks real and relevent; everyone has used a knife before.
Seeing that dude stab himself and Franklin, or seeing people get smashed in the head with hammers was just crazy. I flinched. I was shocked that the movie never showed someone getting disembodied by the chainsaw though. I'm guessing those things happen in the more over the top sequels.
I've seen many horror movies, but this one really made me yell at the TV more than any other one. Not screaming, but actually yelling at the dumbass teenagers. First they picked up this wierd ass hitchhiker. Then they go to an abandoned house, and split up? WTF. I felt really sorry for Franklin lol; they really fucked him over throughout the movie, especially in that house. And other thing: I realize AIDS wasn't a huge thing in the 70s, but why the fuck were they screwing around with blood all the time? They used that knife (with the hillbilly's blood on it!) to cut their food, and then Frankin wiped his face with a rag he had used to wipe his bloody hand with. Ugh
Leatherface was pretty badass. The scene where he kills the first dude was amazing. Comes out of nowhere with the hammer, bashes his head, pulls his twitching body into the room and then SLAMS the damn door. Oh shit. His little dance at the end of the movie was just insane. Wow.
And his family...wow. This is another movie that will ensure I never go driving late at night in the south. Grandpa really freaked me out when I realized he was actually alive. When he started sucking her finger...

Overall I thought it was pretty good. It didn't scare me that much (the part where Leatherface comes out of nowhere and kills Franklin made me jump like a rabbit), but it did freak me out.
How are the sequels/remakes?