4. Implication / Set Design. And speaking of that horrific ensuing scene and the way it is shot, it is always pointed out that there is really no gore in the entire film. This is true -- eventually there is blood smeared all over Leatherface's apron, and all over Sally, and that is about it. Actual points of impact between instrument and flesh are not shown, only implied. But the implication doesn't stop with just gore and violence. To me, the most heavy implication in the film is when Pam / McMinn first discovers the 'chicken room', falling onto a floor covered with plucked feathers, surrounded by what seem to be thousands of human and animal bones, arrayed in a manner that seems to be both haphazard and ritualistic. A human skull dangles from the ceiling with a bull's horn shoved through it's mouth, above crude furniture made of human flesh and bone. I would like to personally award an Oscar to the film's art director, Robert A. Burns, for designing this chamber of horrors. The implication here is that someone has REALLY (literally?) let their household go to hell. It's like when you're out walking in the city and you go by a dilapidated house or apartment, with oddities and garbage strewn about the porch and yard, and you wonder, "What goes on in there? And what could it possibly SMELL like in there?" Or, when you hear a news report about a family that has kept their kids locked in a small room for years where they wallow in their own filth. These things happen. That's why some critics place Chainsaw in the "horror of the family" genre.

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