Leatherface

This article is about the movie villain. For the punk band, see Leatherface (band). For the professional wrestler, see Michael Kirchner.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre character
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Leatherface
Gender:	Male
Race	Caucasian
Location	Texas
Weapon of Choice:	Chainsaw
Portrayed by:	Gunnar Hansen (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) Bill Johnson (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) R.A. Mihailoff (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III) Robert Jacks (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation) Andrew Bryniarski (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning)

Leatherface is a fictional character in the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies. One of the first slasher film villains, he has appeared in all six of the series' films since the release of the original in 1974. The character wears masks made of human skin, a practice which led to his name, and is a cannibal.

Leatherface is portrayed as "severely mentally retarded and mentally disturbed," and often uses a chainsaw and sledgehammer to slaughter his victims. He lives with a family of mentally disturbed fellow cannibals, who are often abusive and violent towards him. The character was inspired in part by notorious serial killer Ed Gein, who also wore the skin of his victims.

Film appearances

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The character was originally played by Gunnar Hansen. His real name is unknown, although older brother Chop Top calls him "Bubba" in the second movie.

In the original film, Leatherface is never seen without one of his human-flesh masks on. The reason for this is unknown. He differs from other movie killers in that he is not so much sadistic or evil; he is in fact mentally retarded and most of the time he only does what his family tells him to do. Hansen has stated that Leatherface is "completely under the control of his family. He'll do whatever they tell him to do. He's a little bit afraid of them." Tobe Hooper has argued on the documentary The Shocking Truth that Leatherface is a 'big baby' and kills in self-defense because he feels threatened, pointing out that in the first film Leatherface was actually frightened at all the new people entering his house.

The people Leatherface kills are later made into barbecue and chili, which are sold by his much older brother, Drayton Sawyer. Aside from Leatherface and Drayton, the Sawyer clan includes his two brothers, Nubbins and Chop Top, as well as Grandpa and Grandma (real names unknown).

Sequels

Prior to the 2003 remake, there were three sequels to the Tobe Hooper original. With the exception of the first sequel, they were mostly in their own continuity each featuring Leatherface with a different family.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a direct sequel to the 1974 film, but is more campy and over the top than the original. Tobe Hooper said on The Shocking Truth that he wanted to expand on the dark comedy in the original film, an element that he felt no one truly picked up on. In this film, Leatherface develops a "crush" on one of his victims, and in one scene, skins off the face of her friend (while alive) and places it on her to hide her from Drayton and Chop-Top

The third entry to the series, titled Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III takes place in its own continuity. It has nothing to do with previous films. The filmmakers attempted to make the series darker and grittier as with the original, but interventions from the MPAA quashed their vision and had them tone it down and change the ending. An uncut version was released in 2003. Leatherface has a daughter in this film, possibly from a rape.

Leatherface appeared one more time in the third sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. In this version, Leatherface is inexplicably not a cannibal but a pizza-eating transvestite involved in an Illuminati conspiracy to provide society a source of horror.

Remake and prequel

A remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 2003. Its success greenlit a prequel that was released in 2006, which delved into the origins of Leatherface and his sadistic, cannibalistic family.

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Leatherface from the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Here, Leatherface's real name is Thomas Brown Hewitt. His mother died giving birth to him at the meat factory where she worked, and Thomas was left to die in a dumpster. Luda May Hewitt found him and took him home to raise him. Says producer Brad Fuller, "The Hewitts raise Leatherface as their own. But in a lot of ways, Thomas Hewitt is more like a pet than a member of the family. At the same time, they do love and admire one another, albeit in peculiar and unusual ways."

Leatherface in this continuity suffers from a facial disfigurement and skin disease that ate away most of his nose. Due to this disfigurement, Hewitt was horribly treated by his peers as a child. He wore a small leather mask to cover up this deformity, and worked at the same meat factory his birth mother did. He also had a tendency for self-mutilation, and was diagnosed with mental degeneration at age 12.

After health inspectors closed the factory down, Hewitt was ordered to leave. When Hewitt didn't, he was bullied and called a 'retard' and a 'dumb animal'. Hewitt killed his boss with a sledgehammer, and later discovered a chainsaw in the factory for later use. When Winston Hoyt, the local sheriff, tried apprehending him, Thomas's uncle Charlie came to his aid by killing the sheriff and later assuming his identity.

Thomas would later make a mask out of human skin by slicing off the face of one of his victims after killing him.

Although Leatherface is still manipulated by his family here, they are at least somewhat more caring for him and less abusive than they were in the classic. His mother is fiercely protective over her son and her disgust with the teenagers is partially due to the cruelty that Leatherface suffered from his peers.

At the climax of the remake, his chainsaw arm was chopped off with a meat cleaver by Erin Hardesty, but he survived the attack. He escaped after police discovered his ranch house and found the remains of 33 people. The crime scene was not properly secured, and while filming evidence in the basement, two officers were attacked and killed by Leatherface, most likely with a sledgehammer. The film remains the only footage of Leatherface, who escaped and was never found, forcing the case to remain open to this day.

Andrew Bryniarski, who played Leatherface in the remake, states that "In my estimation, Leatherface is like a beaten dog — he was ostracized and ridiculed, and treated harshly by his peers. The psychological damage they inflicted was immense … there’s no chance for him."

Says Terrence Evans, who played Leatherface's uncle Old Monty, "I think there was a chance Thomas' life could have been different. But the teasing he suffered, coupled with a bad temper, and following Hoyt around like a puppy dog, left room for Hoyt to get absolute control."

The comics

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Leatherface and Luda May from Wildstorm's Texas Chainsaw Massacre #5. Art by Wesley Craig.

Leatherface was a prominent character in Wildstorm Comics's continuation of the movies. With the family exposed after the events of the first film, the comics finds the Hewitt family living in a series of tunnels in the sewers of Travis County.

As he was at the end of the first film, Leatherface is missing an arm in the comics. Halfway through the first arc, Leatherface's uncle Monty helps Leatherface build a 'prosthetic arm' (consisting of a hook attached to a bone and tied to Leatherface's arm with a belt) to assist with his nephew's handicap. Leatherface later uses this hook in addition to his chainsaw on victims, at one point spearing a man's leg to prevent him from escaping.

The comics also imply that the rest of the town, while perhaps not involved with the Hewitts' cannibalism, are at least aware of it and have agreed to help them deal with outsiders--in one scene, when a potential victim runs into a bar looking for help, she is stopped from calling the police and told by the patrons that they "don't want no Hewitt trouble" and later reprimand Leatherface for not looking after his "livestock".

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A young Leatherface, sans mask, in About a Boy.

Later one-shots published by Wildstorm also dealt with Leatherface. One of them, "About a Boy", focused on the parts concerning Leatherface's childhood that The Beginning neglected to show. It revealed that Thomas Hewitt was severely picked on as a child and thus spent most of his time alone drawing in his notebook, and hunting and skinning animals, later making clothing out of them. His future as Leatherface is further foreshadowed when, after being bullied severely by another of his peers, Thomas attacks him and skins off his face while he is still alive.

It also details how his family was for the most part ambivalent towards Thomas's actions. His uncle Charlie (the future Hoyt) helps him get rid of the bully's body (his only criticism being that Thomas needs to "learn how to fix 'em proper", after putting the faceless victim out of his misery with a shotgun). Later, after Thomas's teacher questions her about son's behavior and tells her that he's going to file a report with the city to get him some help, Luda May bashes his head in with a shovel, stating "There is nothing wrong with my boy."

The mask

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The 2003 remake suggests that the reason why Leatherface wears a mask is to hide a severe facial deformity that ate away at most of his nose

In the original film, Leatherface wore three different masks; the "Killing Mask", "Grandmother Mask" and "Pretty Woman Mask." Gunnar Hanson commented, "the reason he wore a mask, according to Tobe and Kim, was that the mask really determined his personality. Who he wanted to be that day determined what mask he put on. So, when the Cook comes home, with Sally, Leatherface is wearing the 'Grandmother Mask' and he's wearing an apron and carrying a wooden spoon – he wants to be domestic, helpful in the kitchen. At dinner he wears a different face -- the 'Pretty Woman,' which has make up.'

Hansen later added "the idea of the mask is that there is no personality under the mask. That was the idea in talking with Tobe and Kim. When they created the character, they said he has to put on masks to express himself because he himself can't do it. ... The way we tried to create him, there is nothing under the mask, which is what makes him so frightening."

The remake offered a more concrete explanation as to why Leatherface wore masks. As a child, a severe facial deformity ate away most of his nose and made him subject to cruel ridicule from his peers. Prior to killing people, he wore animal hides, cloths and leather masks that covered up the bottom of his face. Later, he began to skin some of the people he killed and wore their faces as a mask. Unlike the original film, Leatherface does not seem to have different masks for different purposes, although he has changed masks occasionally. The 2006 Wildstorm comics that took place in the remake's continuity had Leatherface taking off his mask when alone with his family, something that did not occur in any of the original films.