Even in 1973 it was a shoestring budget (John Carpenter’s famously low-budget Halloween was made for five times that amount a few years later), which meant little pay and long hours for the cast and crew. Then, to capture the mental instability of the character, he went to an Austin mental hospital and studied the movements of the patients there, which he then incorporated into his performance. Now, I’ll be honest and state I did actually like both of these films. Not outside of … "You didn’t have to stay in character all the time. Learn the true story behind the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs. Homeless Person Living In Person’s Cabinet, The Strange Surreal Sculptures Of Shary Boyle. The knife blade used in the scene was dulled by a piece of tape which also held a rubber tube attached to a “bulb” full of fake blood concealed in Hansen’s palm. The dinner scene near the end of the film in which Sally (Marilyn Burns) is terrorized by Leatherface and his family is one of the most intense sequences in all of horror cinema. DVD commentary by Tobe Hooper, Daniel Pearl, and Gunnar Hansen – 2003, suggested to Hooper and Henkel by Warren Skaaren. The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been touted with the tagline “Inspired by a true story,” leading many horror fans to wonder whether the … It’s hard to imagine anyone but the massive Gunnar Hansen, who passed away in 2015, behind the Leatherface mask in the original film now, but he was apparently not the first person cast in the role. The then-dilapidated farm house originally sat on Quick Hill Road during the July–August 1973 filming of the movie.The original site is where La Frontera is now located, in Round Rock. Perhaps the trait that mostly links Ed back to Leatherface was his fondness for turning human skin into apparel. It’s called the Grand Central Café, and though the owners proudly include its cinematic heritage on their website, you won’t find any human bones as part of the décor. So, basically, the cannibal crew in Texas Chainsaw Massacre is actually an amalgamation of lots of creepy IRL men, which definitely makes the entire movie much more … They fought for and ultimately got the moment, and it remains the most beautiful composition in the film. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre True Story. When Hooper wanted the character to “squeal like a pig,” Hansen went out into the country and studied a friend’s pigs. To make matters worse, the production endured a Texas summer with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees (including 115-degree heat for the un-air conditioned interior shots), a single bathroom shared by more than three dozen people, costumes that could not be changed because the actors only had one set of clothes, and the constant presence of the bones and rotting meat used as props. As he dragged the knife across Burns’s finger, Hansen was supposed to squeeze the bulb and pump the blood out to simulate the cut, but the tube kept clogging in take after take. Nowhere. The idea actually came from a doctor I knew. “Two weeks later,” Hansen recalled, “the same guy calls and says, ‘The guy who was hired as the killer is holed up drunk in a motel and won’t come out. And, while Gein was convicted of murdering two women, most of his crimes had to do with the fact that he stole corpses from the local cemetery. The voice providing that menace? If there ever was any "chainsaw massacre" of any kind, anywhere, it is totally unrelated, completely coincidental and had no bearing or impact on Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's creative process during the production of their 1974 film. See pics of the real Leatherface, Ed Gein, and watch the movie trailer. Ed also went on to see his likeness portrayed in the 1974 film DERANGED, as well as in Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. The story of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is loosely based on two real-life events (it's more of a melding of both events). The house isn’t there anymore, but if you head west of Austin into Kingsland you can find the actual home, restored and now in use as a restaurant. To make matters more complicated, Bryanston Distributors—which acquired the film for release in late 1974—was declaring revenue for the film was much, much lower than the millions it raked in at drive-ins and midnight shows. Thanks to the rural location of the home, and it's natural eerie look, the house was a shoe-in for the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and it ended up playing the part of Leatherface's abode. Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding maniac who would go down in history as one of horror cinema’s greatest villains, shows obvious Ed Gein influence thanks to his mask crafted from human skin, but Gein was not the character’s only precursor. On a further search of the property, authorities also found various human remains including a trashcan made out of a human skull, chairs covered in human skin, and skull bedposts. At its best, its horrors … I remembered that he’d once told me this story about how, when he was a pre-med student, the class was studying cadavers. Happened around the late 1920's is think. Gein's last victim was Beatrice Worden. On November 7, 1968, doctors determined that Ed was capable of standing trial, and he was found guilty on November 14th. “Before I came up with the chainsaw,” Hooper said, “the story had trolls under a bridge. Regardless, this left Ed as the only outlet for his mother’s insane devotion until her death on December 29, 1945. Check Out This Killer Custom-Painted TEXAS CHAINSAW VCR! The Shockingly Disturbing Story of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. All these features are not a 100% guarantee that the operator is not harmed. Yet, the isolationism, the overbearing nature of his parents, and Ed’s desire for accessorizing in human flesh will always most notably connect him to Leatherface. Ed was arraigned on November 21, 1957 where he pleaded “not guilty” by reason of insanity. Alas, the film’s intensity ultimately meant it earned an R rating. After inspiration struck, Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel hammered out a script over several weeks and gave it the eerie title Head Cheese (named for the scene in which the hitchhiker details the process of how that particular pork product is made). In the summer of 1973, newbie director Tobe Hooper—who passed away on August 26, 2017 at the age of 74—and a group of unknown actors ventured out into the Central Texas heat to make a … The saw landed just a few inches away. “He announced that he was not sitting through it again,” Hooper said. Where did the "REAL" Texas Chainsaw Massacre Happen? It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and Leatherface. Nothing was found and on the records, it was concluded that the massacre Sally described did not happen. However, a quick check of that date reveals that the film had just wrapped four days’ prior, making it fairly difficult to base a film on an actual event that had yet to occur. I just kind of zoned in on it,” Hooper told Texas Monthly. “I was a young, inexperienced actor who didn’t realize that it wasn’t like theater," Partain later said. Found mentally incompetent, Ed was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. This 1900s Victorian house was featured prominently in the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the home of Leatherface and his cannibalistic family, before it was moved to this location from Williamson County in 1998. “I did a rack focus to the saws, and I thought, ‘I know a way I could get through this crowd really quickly.’ I went home, sat down, all the channels just tuned in, the zeitgeist blew through, and the whole damn story came to me in what seemed like about 30 seconds. Not outside of a series of movies, anyway. Still, it’s probably not as gory as you remember. For all its brutality, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also made use of the natural beauty of its location to produce some truly stunning images, including one shot that almost didn’t happen. Ed's father, George, was a hard working farmer. Of all the cast members, it was Ed Neal—the hitchhiker himself—who would have the most amusing reaction from fans. Hansen—who stood six-foot-four and weighed 300 pounds—won the role from Hooper on sight. For the role of Franklin, Sally’s wheelchair-bound brother who draws the ire of the audience when he grows angry with his more able-bodied friends simply because he can’t share in their fun, actor Paul Partain opted to take a very Method approach to his work. For more information please see chainsaw safety devices. Both Henry and Ed were strictly forbidden from having visitors and were punished for even making friends. Almost immediately after the film’s release, rumors began to circulate that there was an actual chainsaw wielding madman living with his deranged family in the town of Poth, Texas. Braving blistering temperatures, on-set injuries, and a shoestring budget, they produced one of the most terrifying motion pictures ever made. Additional Sources: That’s the thing about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which came out on Oct. 11, 1974: In many ways, it represents, both then and today, something larger than simply the movie on celluloid itself. According to Hooper, though, the light bulb moment that really ignited the film came at a department store during the Christmas 1972 shopping rush. That said, Texas is a big state and, sadly, we do have our share of serial killers, wackos, and dysfunctional families. It's not even based on a true story. The opening narration, which promised that “The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths,” certainly helped that along, as did the original poster and its promise that “what happened is true!” Despite this clever aura, the tale of Leatherface and his deranged family is still a work of fiction, despite continued protestations from fans even decades later. Then the original Leatherface quit. The story is VERY LOOSELY based upon Ed Gein, a man from Plainfield, Wisconsin in the 1950's, who murdered only a few women and used parts of their bodies for clothing and furniture. This seems to be the question that will not go away. Classmates remember Ed as being reclusive with strange habits. According to both Hooper and Pearl, producers (namely Parsley, who visited the set often and feared the film would be a disaster) didn’t want them to spend time on the shot, as it was not a part of the storyboards they worked from for much of the film. We changed that to the character who eventually became Leatherface. We decided Leatherface would have a different human-skin mask to fit each of his moods.”. There’s the plain killing mask he wears for most of the film, the “grandma” mask he wears while preparing dinner to show his “domestic side,” and the makeup-covered mask he wears to sit down to dinner, complete with a suit in the Southern tradition of dressing up for the evening meal. Though it's easy to think of the film as a straight-up horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also belongs to the New Hollywood movement … When I first read the part, I could see that nobody wanted this guy to be there. The six bedroom house was built in Austin in the 1850's then moved by train in the 1930's and rebuilt brick by brick where it now sits. The answer to these questions is that the leading character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is loosely based on the real life man, Ed Gein. Since Vortex only owned half the film, with Parsley owning the other half, their shares were all sliced in half, which many of them apparently didn’t realize at the time. After the November 16, 1957 disappearance of hardware store owner Bernice Worden, police began to suspect Ed, who was the last person to see her alive. The brothers were also reminded on an almost daily basis that they would never be loved by a woman. Nine months, a check for $28.45. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. Police searched the family farm where they found Bernice’s decapitated body hanging upside down inside the barn. Because of its realism and “true story” marketing, Texas Chainsaw created the opportunity for some interesting encounters between fans and cast members. Determined that would not happen again, his follow-up effort, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), would shake up the world of cinema, forever change the face of horror, and spawn a billion dollar franchise. No this did not happen, though the story was based off of a killer named Ed Gein who robbed graves for recently dead body's and also killed at least 2 women. The scene in which Sally’s finger is cut so that her blood can be fed to Grandpa was supposed to rely on a very simple special effect. That probably means you did something right. Despite their abusive relationship, Ed was devastated by his mother’s death. In 1974, director Tobe Hooper revolutionized horror with his film “inspired by a true story,” THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. So, for my answer, and it is only what I have been told secondhanded from a supposedly read newspaper article, it did indeed take place, albeit many years ago, as the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" came out in, I believe, late 1970's early 1980's. For example, when Jerry (Allen Danzinger) discovers Leatherface’s slaughter room and then meets the man himself, the scream he lets out is genuine. Sorry, there is/was no such person as "Leatherface", nor was there ever a real Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Texas or any other location in the world for that matter. Born to an alcoholic father, George, and a fanatically religious mother, Augusta, Ed Gein suffered heavy psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his parents. 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