I felt The Texas Chainsaw Massacre worked because as gag says in 1974 it was original and shocking.
However i felt it worked for different reasons. For one it introduced the concept of the masked killer to the movie industry. Yes, we'd seen plenty of films with killers portrayed in them but none looked as grotesque as the ranting Leatherface. He in turn gave cinema more masked bogeymen in the form of Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees etal.
The film also brought in the idea of the dysfunctional family. Extremely dysfunctional in this case, and that idea added a lot of tension and weird, extremely effective disturbing sequences. However there was humour involved albeit very macabre humour. The hammer to the head game at the table is still the most shocking and memorable part of the film in my opinion.
Where the second film got it so wrong came in the second half. The opening half was a terrific follow on to the original. However the second act attempted to imitate the dysfunctional family set up from the first film even re-imagining some scenes completely which failed to come over successfully due to trying to copy the macabre humour but not getting it correct, thus becoming a silly parody of itself.
I also don't feel it was a film ahead of it's time. The 70's were a very forward thinking decade in film and Hollywood in particular got in on the act early on. In fact from Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Easy Rider (1969), the film industry saw the idea of counterculture and allegory hit the screens via a new breed of young director often averse to the typical film making norms and taking mainstream cinema down unconventional uncomfortable routes.
So yes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did take horror to a new realm, but given it was surrounded by films like McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), The Godfather (1972), The Exorcist (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) to name just the tip of the iceberg. It's a film that really wasn't out of place in perhaps the most productive and boundary crashing decade in Hollywood's history.
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