Five Fun Texas Chain Saw Facts

The article which you are about to read is an account of the movie that, in telling the story of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her brother, Franklin, made an indelible impact. The events of that day would lead to the discovery of a horror legend whose reputation has only grown in time. That is, of course, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As it turns 50, here are five facts.

1. Credit Hooper and Henkel

Kim Henkel, an English major at the University of Texas at Austin, was introduced to filmmaker Tobe Hooper in the early 1960s. Hooper had started making his own films on his dad’s 8mm camera when he was nine years old. His early documentary work had attracted Academy attention; The Heisters got a coveted invitation for submission to the documentary short subject category for 1965, but it wasn’t properly completed by the deadline.  By 1969, Hooper made his first feature film, the acid-tinged Eggshells, with Henkel cast in the role of Toes.

Hooper began to develop the concept of a horror film that was in part inspired by how the news media covered violent events (Hooper had been on campus and witnessed Charles Whitman’s clock tower shooting rampage at the University of Texas in 1966). He wanted to present the film as if it were a true story, in part as a reflection on how he felt that the media had lied about Watergate and Vietnam.

Hooper also incorporated story references to Ed Gein, the Wisconsin handyman whose crimes were discovered in 1957. Gein was a murderer and grave robber whose activities included making lampshades and furniture components out of human skin and also trying to assemble a (yes, this is gross) “woman suit.” Gein’s story had already inspired Psycho and would later inspire elements of The Silence of the Lambs. At this point, it led Hooper to the notion that the killer in his story might wear a face made of human skin. When Henkel joined Hooper to co-write the screenplay, Henkel added elements based on Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., who, along with David Owen Brooks, lured victims to the home of Dean Corll to be murdered in Texas in the early 1970s. The filmmakers marketed the film as if it were a true story, but with a bit of a nod and a wink; it did help sell the picture.

When Henkel and Hooper finished the screenplay, they formed the production company Vortex, Inc. in order to make the film. Given the low budget, cast and crew were asked to defer salaries until after the film was sold; however, Hooper and Henkel did give profit percentage points to key personnel.

2. The Chain Saw Became a Horror Icon

While the slasher genre can be said to have originated with two 1960 films, Peeping Tom and Psycho, it’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that really codifies several elements. In addition to a masked killer, the killer has a particularly personal weapon of choice. The chain saw makes sense because it’s directly tied to the fact the Leatherface and his family were apparently slaughterhouse workers. It also plays into the carving/butchering motifs that are central to the film’s visual language. As the genre spins out into the rest of the decade and into the 1980s, you see the mask/weapon pairing become increasingly important, with iconographic sets that include Michael Myers’s painted William Shatner mask and butcher knife and Jason Voorhees’s hockey mask (which replaces the burlap sack from Friday the 13th Part 2 in Friday the 13th Part III) and machete. One could argue that Freddy Krueger’s burned face is his “mask” and Pinhead’s nails are his; they certainly have the personal weapons with Freddy’s razor-clawed glove and Pinhead’s hooked chains. In 1987, Sam Raimi flipped the script and made the chain saw the good guy’s weapon when Ash uses it against the Deadites in Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. In essence, the chain saw is the rare horror weapon that’s iconic for both a villain and a hero.

3. Sally Hardesty: Final Girl

Another trope that TCM cemented is the Final Girl. That’s typically identified as a young woman who’s the sole survivor at the end, having lived through a final conflict with the villain. The term was originally coined by U.C. Berkeley professor Carol J. Clover in her 1987 article, “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Clover noted that most of the Final Girls at that point tended to be markedly intelligent or resourceful and had a quality that gave them some kind of moral superiority over the characters that don’t live through the movie (such as: they’re a virgin, they don’t drink, etc.). In TCM, Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) manages to evade Leatherface on two separate occasions before escaping thanks to two passing motorists (one of whom attacks Leatherface with a wrench, the other of whom drives away with Sally). While Sally doesn’t directly fight Leatherface, she sets the stage for Final Girls to follow who get to strike back, like Halloween’s Laurie Strode (with her infamous hanger to the eye of Michael) and A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Nancy Thompson (who not only figures out how to yank Freddy out of the dreamscape into the real world, but also has set up a series of traps to beat the unholy crap out of him before setting him on fire; don’t mess with Nancy).

The original trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre)

4. Reminder: The Country is Scary

TCM is an example of American rural horror at a time when most horror stories were relocating to cities, or at least small towns. The Universal Monster movies generally had European locations festooned with mountains or foggy moors.  Any number of American 1950s films from The Blob to I Was a Teenage Werewolf  generally had the action in small towns. By the time we get to the late 1960s, Rosemary’s Baby in is New York City, The Exorcist is in Georgetown, and the scary stuff is happening in familiar locations. Hooper removes it to the country, adding an element of isolation that ups the terror.

For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that rural horror is separate from its cousin, folk horror. Folk horror frequently employs rural settings, but usually has either a supernatural element or a plot that’s tied to ancient, even pagan, traditions and beliefs. The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Project, The Witch, and Midsommar all deal in folk horror. The constant intrusion of the modern world in TCM, including the trucks on the highway and the chain saw itself, are clear lines distinguising it from the folk side.

5. Its Reputation Has Only Grown

Although the film was released to mixed reviews, the positives were extremely positive. Roger Ebert was just one of many notable critics who praised it for its atmosphere and the skill that Hooper brought to the filmmaking. Over time, the movie has attracted more and more champions who commend it for being a sustained exercise in terror. Eight more Chain Saw films have been made, but none match power of the original. As recently as October 9, 2024, it sat at the top of Variety magazine’s list of The 100 Best Horror Films of All Time. Variety’s write-up sums up its power thusly: “In the end, what Chain Saw revels in with such disturbing majesty, and what makes it more indelible and haunting than any other horror film, is its image of madness as the driving energy of the world: Leatherface, swinging his chain saw around in front of the rising sun, his crazed dance of death not just a ritual but a warning — that the center will not hold. That something wicked this way comes.”