The strange case of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's age rating

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which turns 50 years old this month, is one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It's also one of the most notorious. A lot of that is down to its evocative, violent title. These are four words — technically five in the original title, but who writes it "Chain Saw"? — that promise lurid, horrific brutality.

That's backed up by the opening narration, delivered with portentous gravitas by John Larroquette in his first credited acting role. His voiceover establishes the events of the film as "one of the most bizarre crimes in the annal of American history" and provide almost a true crime feel. Nobody outright says this is a true story, but they certainly want you to think it might be.

Everything about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre screams violence and its reputation is certainly as a festival of on-screen gore and brutality. All of this makes the story of its age rating a very strange one indeed. Because when director Tobe Hooper was making the movie, he had a PG certificate in mind.

In the behind-the-scenes documentary Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth from 2000, Hooper explained that he was in frequent contact with the Motion Picture Association of America throughout the production. He sought guidance on limiting visible gore in some of the most shocking scenes, including the moment in which Pam (Terri McMinn) is impaled on a meat hook.

Hooper said: "I put in a lot of telephone calls in to the MPAA asking their advice. 'How do I get an R rating?', no actually I said 'how do I get a PG rating and hang someone on a meat hook?'"

Read more: Texas Chainsaw Massacre star Sarah Yarkin says she was ‘shocked’ by ending to Netflix film (The Independent)

In that documentary, production designer Robert A. Burns explained that this approach was very deliberate on his part and it's a source of pride to him that almost everybody who sees the film thinks they have seen way more violence than they actually have. Only one character is actually killed with the chainsaw.

"You think you've seen the slaughter. I'm very pleased because you come out of this thing thinking you've seen this bloodbath, and you've seen very little blood," said Burns.

In the 1989 book Making Movies: The Inside Guide to Independent Movie Production, Hooper expanded on his approach to the ratings board, explaining that "in all my conversations with [the MPAA] I was talking PG". If that all seems a bit ridiculous, well Hooper actually thought so too — despite his best efforts. He said: "Of course there was no way they would give it a PG, but at least [if] I was working toward it maybe there would be a compromise and I would get an R."

This didn't pan out quite how the director hoped. Chainsaw's original version was given a restrictive X certificate — the equivalent of today's kiss-of-death NC-17 — but was eventually allowed an R rating after several minutes of material hit the cutting room floor. It eventually managed a super-successful cinema run to the tune of $30m (£22.4m) worldwide.

Read more: 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' at 45: Inside the gruelling production of a horror classic (Yahoo Entertainment)

In the UK, though, there was yet more trouble ahead. In February 1975, the BBFC refused to issue a certificate to the film, citing the "level of terrorisation" in the final act. Small cuts failed to fix this because "there were few moments of explicit violence that could be removed". As we've already discussed, the film is about tone. Without a BBFC certificate, it couldn't be released in British cinemas. Separately, the Greater London Council approved the movie to screen in the capital with an X certificate.

When James Ferman took over as BBFC boss in 1975, he had another look at Hooper's film. He agreed that its unique focus on a tone of terror meant it couldn't be cut into a releasable shape. The film resurfaced, though, in the early 1980s. At the time, VHS releases didn't need a BBFC certificate, which finally made Texas Chainsaw available outside London.

When the Video Recordings Act 1984 closed this loophole, Texas Chainsaw again found itself unavailable in the UK and it ended up on the list of "video nasties" that couldn't be legitimately sold. It wasn't until 1999 that the BBFC viewed a new, uncut print of the movie and decided to give it the 18 rating that still stands today.

So it proved to be quite a journey through the ratings world for Tobe Hooper's horror masterpiece. What started as an attempt at making horror within a PG environment ended with a de facto 25-year ban in Britain. Fortunately, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre now gets the credit it deserves for depicting a horror maestro at work, showing that you don't need gore when you have a lurid title, a chilling voiceover, and a determination to terrorise the audience through the stress-inducing whir of a chainsaw firing up.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is streaming on Shudder.