Released: October 11, 1974

Director: Tobe Hooper

Written By: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper

Stars: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen Narrated By: John Larroquette

Plot: Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.

How did this movie do Budget: $140 thousand
Box office: $40 million

• According to John Larroquette, his payment for doing the opening narration was a marijuana joint.
  
  
• Marilyn Burns (Sally), whose character was chased by Leatherface through the undergrowth, actually cut herself on the branches quite badly, so a lot of the blood on her body and clothes is real.
  
  
• Surprisingly, this film is one of the least bloody horror films of all time. This is because Tobe Hooper intended to make the movie for a “PG” rating, by keeping violence moderate, language mild, and having most of the horror implied off-screen rather than shown in great detail onscreen. However, this plan had actually backfired, and made the film even more horrifying.
  
  
• Director Tobe Hooper claims to have gotten the idea for the film while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store while Christmas shopping. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.
  
  
• According to Edwin Neal (Nubbins/Hitchhiker), Texas State Troopers actually shook his hand and thanked him for causing crime to drop 18%. Apparently the message audiences took away from the movie was “Don’t pick up hitchhikers”.
  
  
• The film’s original distributor was Bryanston Distribution Company, which turned out to be a Mafia front operated by Louis Peraino (“Butchie”), who used the movie to launder profits he made from Deep Throat (1972).
  
  
• Leatherface wore three different masks: the “Killing Mask,” “Old Lady Mask” and “Pretty Woman Mask.” Gunnar Hansen commented: “The reason he wore a mask, according to Tobe and Kim, was that the mask really determined his personality.
  
  
• One of Tobe Hooper’s techniques for making the film more intense was cutting a small number of frames off of the shot preceding something violent occurring. This small beat catches the viewer off guard, as their eye has become accustomed to certain shots being a specific length. Cinematographer Daniel Pearl also mentioned a misdirection trick Hooper would use, which was having something on the left side of the frame, then cutting to Leatherface on the right side.
  
  
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired Ridley Scott to make Alien (1979). Some people have even called Alien a Texas Chainsaw Massacre in space.

• Kirk – Bludgeoned in the head with sledgehammer.
  
  
• Pam – Impaled on meathook and later froze to death in freezer.
  
  
• Jerry – Bludgeoned in the head with sledgehammer.
  
  
• Franklin Hardesty – Sawed in the chest and stomach with chainsaw.
  
  
• Hitchhiker/Nubbins Sawyer – Accidentally ran over by truck by a truck driver.

Ed Gein was the inspiration for this and many other movie, book and story characters.

Quick Bio:

Edward Theodore Gein (August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984), also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American convicted murderer and body snatcher. Gein’s crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.

Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. By 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of the murder of Worden, but he was found legally insane and was remanded to a psychiatric institution. He died at Mendota Mental Health Institute of respiratory failure, on July 26, 1984, aged 77. He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave.

Inspiration for:

Psycho (1960), Deranged (1974), In the Light of the Moon (2000), Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007), “Ed Gein, the Musical” (2010), Rob Zombie films House of 1000 Corpses and its sequel, The Devil’s Rejects. Gein served as the inspiration for myriad fictional serial killers, most notably Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs).

Searching the house, authorities found:

• Whole human bones and fragments
• A wastebasket made of human skin
• Human skin covering several chair seats
• Skulls on his bedposts
• Female skulls, some with the tops sawn off
• Bowls made from human skulls
• A corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist
• Leggings made from human leg skin
• Masks made from the skin of female heads
• Mary Hogan’s face mask in a paper bag
• Mary Hogan’s skull in a box
• Bernice Worden’s entire head in a burlap sack
• Bernice Worden’s heart “in a plastic bag in front of Gein’s potbelly stove”
• Nine vulvae in a shoe box
• A young girl’s dress and “the vulvas of two females judged to have been about fifteen years old”
• A belt made from female human nipples
• Four noses
• A pair of lips on a window shade drawstring
• A lampshade made from the skin of a human face
• Fingernails from female fingers

Deaths in immediate family

• On April 1, 1940, Ed Gein’s father George died of heart failure caused by his alcoholism, at age 66.
• On May 16, 1944, Henry and Ed were burning away marsh vegetation on the property; the fire got out of control, drawing the attention of the local fire department. By the end of the day—the fire having been extinguished and the firefighters gone—Ed reported his brother missing. With lanterns and flashlights, a search party searched for Henry, whose dead body was found lying face down. Apparently, he had been dead for some time, and it appeared that the cause of death was heart failure since he had not been burned or injured otherwise.It was later reported, by biographer Harold Schechter, that Henry had bruises on his head.The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death.
• Augusta, Gein’s mother, had a paralyzing stroke shortly after Henry’s death, and Gein devoted himself to taking care of her. She had a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly. She died on December 29, 1945, at the age of 67. Ed was devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had “lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world.”

Gein’s Death and Grave

Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute due to respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer on July 26, 1984, at the age of 77. Over the years, souvenir seekers chipped pieces from his gravestone at the Plainfield Cemetery, until the stone itself was stolen in 2000. It was recovered in June 2001, near Seattle, Washington, and was placed in storage at the Waushara County Sheriff’s Department. The gravesite itself is now unmarked, but not unknown; Gein is interred between his parents and brother in the cemetery.