It concerns a family of cannibals in Texas, who abduct customers of their gas station. One of the main characters — Leatherface — kills his victims with a chainsaw. The film was inspired, like the films Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, by serial killer Ed Gein.
It is often considered the prototype of the slasher film sub-genre. Despite its grisly subject matter, the film — like John Carpenter's original Halloween — does not rely so much on explicit gore to generate terror in the audience, as it does pacing, suspense, and dramatic tension. The many sequels and imitators the original film spawned have been much bloodier and more graphic.
The film was banned in the United Kingdom (for a while, but was subsequently issued on video and DVD), Germany, and India.
The film spawned three sequels: