Some players, from the start, were up front about admitting it was a hoax. Others insisted, to their graves, that the story was true, that the Lutz family had been haunted by something. It’s just that the something may not have been paranormal at all.

A fictional trailer for a fictional film, dramatizing a civil war among zombies.

"A bridge over a river. Two zombies kiss so hard their faces distort as they shove into each other. Behind them rages a violent battle between crawling and standing dead."

In Austin in 1973, politicos and hippies could get together and create violent, visionary horror films for $60,000. So they did. The story of how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre got made.