THE GOSPEL IN FILM — WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM “THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE” (1974)

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I deem it good to look for redemptive tracks everywhere, trying to locate the Gospel in every corner of human expression. Music, art, science, politics, botany, even horror films are occasionally pressed into service as reluctant parables. But honesty requires us to admit something bracing and unfashionable: some things teach us absolutely nothing about the Gospel—except how far we are willing to wander from it.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released in 1974, is one of those things.

Let us be clear. This film offers no hidden Christ-figure, no sacrificial arc, no moral illumination disguised beneath the gore. There is no resurrection whispered through the blood, no light flickering at the end of the tunnel. If there is a sermon here, it is not preached by the film but against it. The message is not theological but diagnostic—a case study in the human appetite for emptiness, cruelty, and spectacle baptized as entertainment.

I once watched films with a critical eye, even made a little money doing it, and I watched this nonsense. And it was not disturbing in the way people often claim. The violence itself is almost beside the point. All one has to do is imagine the cameras, the directors, the lighting crews, the planning meetings, the collective decision-making that said, Yes—this is worth making. When you pull back the curtain, the horror is not the chainsaw; it is the imagination that thought this was meaningful.

The Gospel does not appear here as contrast by accident but by absence. The Word of God teaches us that depravity is not merely an act but a direction—a bent of the will away from God. “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). When entertainment delights in emptiness and calls it art, we are not witnessing rebellion so much as boredom with goodness. Sin is rarely dramatic; more often it is tedious, repetitive, and profoundly stupid.

And that is the word that fits best here: stupid. Not morally complex. Not darkly insightful. Just stupid. Violence without truth is not depth; it is noise. Shock without meaning is not art; it is clutter. The film does not explore evil; it exploits it. It does not warn; it wallows. It does not illuminate the darkness; it turns off the lights and congratulates itself for the gloom.

The Gospel, by contrast, never glorifies depravity even when it names it. Scripture looks squarely at the human condition and refuses to sensationalize it. The Bible is brutally honest about sin, but always for the sake of redemption. The Cross is not spectacle; it is salvation. It is suffering with purpose, pain with meaning, death conquered rather than displayed.

If The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and films like it) teaches us anything at all, it is by negative space. It shows us what happens when creativity is severed from truth, when imagination is detached from goodness, when freedom forgets its telos. It is Romans 1 without the hope—minds darkened, passions indulged, futility celebrated.

And here the Gospel speaks—not from the screen, but over against it. Christ does not shock us into awareness; He awakens us into life. He does not trade in blood for amusement; He gives His blood for atonement. He does not reduce humanity to prey; He restores humanity to sons and daughters.

Some things are not mirrors of grace. Some things are warnings. And wisdom knows the difference.

BDD