1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) – Vegetarianism
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an iconic slasher, and like many of its contemporaries, it has a deeper meaning. However, instead of the more common themes like the ignorance of youth or loss of innocence, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has a slightly more unexpected message. When it’s put under the microscope, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is actually a vegetarian fable.
After picking up a disturbed hitchhiker, the film’s teens are forced to listen to his graphic description of slaughterhouse procedures. These are the very same horrors later unleashed upon the teens, who are subsequently eaten by the hitchhiker and his terrifying family. When the film’s cannibalism and its sweaty, torturous imagery are considered, the film’s message becomes blatantly clear: meat is murder, and killing sentient beings for food is bad.
Director Tobe Hooper summarized the notion brilliantly. When asked what The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was about, Hooper simply replied: “Meat.” Hooper has reported that he was unable to eat meat while making the film, and Guillermo del Toro famously claimed that it turned him vegetarian, too. The likening of its characters to cattle by having their experiences parallel those of cows in a slaughterhouse makes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre a distinctly vegetarian film, and though it makes its point in the most gruesome way possible, it’s still pretty compelling.
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