2. Minimalism. The plot may be Slasher 101 -- a group of nubile young adults on a road trip run out of gas near a strange farmhouse, and looking for help, they are picked off one by one, except for one female member of the group who displays exceptional survival skills -- but Chainsaw has an uncompromising minimalism that most slasher films don't even try to match. The last hour of the movie takes place in an area of about 100 square yards, where one by one, three of the kids walk from their moored van to the nearby farmhouse, entering the same front door into the same hallway that leads to Leatherface's spectacularly decorated meat locker. The killer doesn't even have to go out and omnipotently hunt his prey -- they come to him. This insurmountable hallway becomes a horror icon in itself, the fulcrum on which the tight structure of the film balances.

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