One of the great horror movies

The chainsaw is not what is so frightening about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is the broom. It is not Leatherface. It is the hitch hiker and the Old Man. It is the fact that these are not iconic villains (TM) and that they don't appear to be played by actors. It is as if the film makers recruited these strange people, told them to "just be yourself" and pointed that handheld, heat-warped camera at them.

The reason that they are so scary is that, if we are extremely unlucky, we will meet one of them on our walk home from work tonight. The hitch hiker will smile and sidle over to us, offer to shake our hand. And if our fear of giving offense overcomes our in-built trepidation at his lank-haired, gap-toothed strangeness, if we reach out to shake his hand, we must watch his other hand very very closely. The truth is that we have met the hitch hiker before, he has recently been released from prison and has asked us for a bus fare before. We have shaken his hand, not daring to smell our palms afterwards, just washing them guiltily when we reach the safety of home.

We may have met the Old Man before two. This charming old gent who means well, who is "old school" and casually prejudiced across every conceivable dimension: gender, race, sexuality... we have heard his views expressed by uncles linked to us by uncertain family relationships, bonds, and commitments. We have bought him drinks in dark and dingy hotel bars in Liverpool. He has shown us the gap between his teeth, how he can capture our sister's nipple in there, his tongue flickering like a rattlesnake's tail.

In my opinion, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974 is one of a handful of the greatest horror movies ever made. This was just a fraction of my rationale.