50 Fun Facts About Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Who directed the original 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Tobe Hooper. His art film Eggshells had found no distributor, so after seeing students line up for Night of the Living Dead he bet on cheap horror as the way to get noticed far from Hollywood.

Roughly how much did The Texas Chain Saw Massacre cost to make in 1973?

About $140,000. It went on to take more than $30 million in North America, yet the cast and crew saw almost none of it: their distributor underpaid them and went bankrupt in 1976.

Which real-life Wisconsin killer partly inspired Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Ed Gein. He wore skin cut from corpses, which gave Leatherface his masks; one of the writers said he also drew on a Houston serial-murder case that was in the news as they wrote.

Which actor played Leatherface in 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Gunnar Hansen. His costume went unwashed through weeks of 100-degree heat for fear of spoiling it, and by the end of the shoot, he said, no one would sit next to him at lunch.

Who plays final girl Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

Marilyn Burns. A University of Texas drama student, she took so many knocks during the shoot that her screams were real by the end, and her costume had gone stiff with stage blood.

Which future Night Court star performed the opening narration of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

John Larroquette. Then an out-of-work actor, he has said the director paid him in marijuana for the job, and he came back to read the opening of the 2003 remake as well.

At the start of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the van radio reports which crime in the area?

Grave robbing. The bulletin plays over glimpses of a dug-up corpse, and it sends Sally and Franklin to make sure their grandfather still lies where he was buried.

The writers of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre set out to update which fairy tale?

Hansel and Gretel. They kept its young wanderers lured to a remote house to be eaten; as one of the writers put it, theirs was just more sinister than a gingerbread cottage.

With what weapon does the hitchhiker attack Franklin in the van in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

A straight razor. He slashes Franklin's arm, is thrown out, and smears his own blood down the side of the van as it pulls away, a mark the friends shrug off.

How does Leatherface kill Kirk, his first victim, in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

With a hammer. The blow lands with no music and no warning, the way cattle were felled at the slaughterhouse where his family used to work.

Which character does Leatherface hang on a meat hook in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

Pam. For all the scene's notoriety, the hook is never shown going in and there is almost no blood: the camera simply closes in on her face as she hangs there.

How does Sally first escape the farmhouse in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

By jumping through a second-floor window. She runs to the gas station, where the owner soothes her with an offer of help, then beats her, loads her into his pickup and drives her straight back to the house.

Why do the brothers cut Sally's finger in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

So Grandpa can suck her blood. The trick knife kept failing, so the actor playing Leatherface quietly cut her finger for real, during a dinner scene that took 26 straight hours to shoot.

How does the hitchhiker die at the end of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

He is run over by a truck. He is chasing Sally down the road when a cattle truck flattens him, and she gets away in the bed of a passing pickup, laughing hysterically through the blood.

How does the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) end?

Leatherface swinging his saw at the dawn sky. Fans call it the chainsaw dance, and the series keeps returning to it: the 1986 sequel ends with its heroine whirling a saw over her head the same way.

Which animal's remains joined the cows, deer and goats dressing the farmhouse in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

An armadillo. The art director gathered real carcasses and bones for the set, and they rotted so fast in the Texas summer heat that the cast ran to the windows between takes to be sick.

Which of these was a working title for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Head Cheese. It was one of several names tried and dropped: the final title was settled only a week before shooting began, and the head of the Texas Film Commission claimed the idea as his own.

What rating did the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hope his uncut film would get?

PG. He kept the blood off screen and phoned the ratings board for advice, wanting children to be able to see it; the board gave the uncut film an X, and only cuts brought it down to an R.

Where did the chainsaw idea for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre strike its director?

In the hardware section of a busy store. Stuck in a Christmas shopping crowd at Montgomery Ward, he found himself by a rack of chain saws and thought of a very quick way through the crush.

While Britain banned The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, what else did its censors bar from film titles?

The word 'chainsaw'. Imitators had to rename their films, and the ban on the original outlasted two chief censors: Britain passed it uncut only in 1999, some 25 years after its release.

What became of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre farmhouse?

It became a restaurant in Kingsland, Texas. A hotel's owners moved the house there from Round Rock in 1998 and restored it, so guests could eat in the room where the cannibal family's dinner was filmed.

Which New York museum holds The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in its permanent collection?

The Museum of Modern Art. The same film was banned outright in Britain and several other countries, and one critic answered the museum's embrace of it with an attack in Harper's Magazine.

Why does Leatherface change masks during The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

Each one fits a different mood. The writers gave him no speech and no personality of his own, so, as the actor who played him put it, the mask he picks shows his state of mind and how he will behave.

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, what does the cannibal family's cook win with his 'prime meat'?

A chili contest. The sequel's black joke is that the family, now given the surname Sawyer, has gone into catering: the cook's secret ingredient is his victims, and the judges love it.

What is Leatherface's real name in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and its prequel?

Thomas Hewitt. The prequel shows him born on a slaughterhouse floor and dumped with the rubbish, then found and raised by Luda Mae Hewitt, whose family he grows up to kill for.

Which star plays chainsaw-wielding lawman 'Lefty' Enright in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2?

Dennis Hopper. His Lefty is the uncle of Sally and Franklin from the first film, and he plays the avenger deadly straight, arming himself with three chainsaws, while everything around him goes for laughs.

Which character does Bill Moseley play in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2?

Chop Top. He is the twin of the hitchhiker who died in the first film, and he outlasts the rest of the family, chasing the heroine up a tower until she turns a chainsaw on him.

The poster for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 parodied the poster for which 1985 teen film?

The Breakfast Club. The cannibal family sits posed like that film's five teenagers, a wink that the sequel was played for laughs, something its director felt audiences had missed in the original.

Which future Lord of the Rings star appeared in 1990's Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III?

Viggo Mortensen. Eleven years before he played the noble Aragorn he was Tex, a hitchhiker who turns out to be Leatherface's brother and the film's chief villain.

Which two future Oscar winners starred in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation?

Matthew McConaughey and Renée Zellweger. Both were little known when it was shot as The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre; a studio then recut and retitled it, and it came out again in 1997, after both had broken out.

Which producer's company, Platinum Dunes, made the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake its first film?

Michael Bay. The remake took $107 million worldwide, the most of the series' first nine films, and its success sent his company on to remake a string of other horror classics.

Who plays Erin, the heroine of the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake?

Jessica Biel. Her Erin gets a harsher retelling: the stranger the friends pick up is now a traumatised young woman who shoots herself in their van, and the sheriff they turn to for help is one of the killers.

Which Full Metal Jacket actor plays Sheriff Hoyt in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and its prequel?

R. Lee Ermey. The former Marine drill instructor brought his parade-ground bark to a 'sheriff' who, the prequel reveals, is an impostor: he murdered the real lawman and took over his identity.

In a 1995 comic-book crossover, Leatherface met which other screen slasher?

Jason Voorhees. In Jason vs. Leatherface he strays onto the cannibal family's land, and instead of ending up as dinner he hands Leatherface back his chainsaw and is welcomed in as a guest.

Which punk band recorded 'Chain Saw', a song inspired by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Ramones. The song opens with the whine of a saw on their 1976 debut, an album that stalled at number 111 on the US chart and is now counted among the most influential punk records ever made.

On which streaming service did the 2022 film Texas Chainsaw Massacre debut?

Netflix. The sequel had been announced for cinemas in 2021, but that release was scrapped and it went straight to streaming the following February, with an elderly Leatherface hunting influencers in a ghost town.

For which console was the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game released in the early 1980s?

Atari 2600. Players controlled Leatherface himself, scoring points for every victim he caught, and so many shops refused to stock so violent a game that it sold poorly.

Which mob-linked company released The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974 and underpaid its makers?

Bryanston Distributing. It was run by two sons of a Colombo crime family member, paid the filmmakers a fraction of what they were owed, and went bankrupt in 1976 before a court could make it pay.

Which institution added The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to its National Film Registry in 2024?

The Library of Congress. It named the film culturally, historically or aesthetically significant fifty years after its release, a long way from the X rating and the foreign bans that first greeted it.

Which slasher convention is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre credited with originating?

Power tools as murder weapons. It is credited too with the hulking, masked, silent killer that a decade of slashers copied, yet its own chainsaw kills just one of the film's victims.

Who co-wrote The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with its director?

Kim Henkel. He had co-written the director's first feature, Eggshells, and two decades later he wrote and directed the fourth film in the series himself, with two unknowns who went on to win Oscars.

The director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre went on to make which 1982 horror hit?

Poltergeist. Steven Spielberg wrote and produced it, and rumours that he had really directed it as well grew loud enough for the Directors Guild to open an investigation.

Which film festival screened The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1975, months after its release?

Cannes. It played in a sidebar there in 1975, in the very years several countries were banning it outright, and the festival welcomed it back in 2014 as a restored classic.

What job does Caroline Williams's heroine 'Stretch' do in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2?

Radio host. Two callers are attacked while still on the line to her show, and the lawman hunting the family has her replay the tape on air night after night to draw the killers out.

New Line Cinema bought the Texas Chainsaw series hoping to repeat which of its horror successes?

A Nightmare on Elm Street. New Line wanted a second Freddy and meant to make Leatherface its new star, but its 1990 sequel was cut to escape an X rating, flopped, and the studio dropped its plans.

Which studio produced and released The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in 1986?

The Cannon Group. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made it as the last film of a three-picture deal with the director; it took $8 million on a $4.7 million budget, and they sold the series on to New Line.

Who stars as Heather, the Sawyer heir who inherits a Texas mansion, in 2013's Texas Chainsaw 3D?

Alexandra Daddario. Her Heather learns she was adopted, inherits the house from a grandmother she never knew, and finds that the killer living behind a steel door in its cellar is her own cousin.

In which country was the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, set in a Texas ghost town, actually shot?

Bulgaria. A week into the shoot there the studio fired its two directors and threw out their footage, and a replacement began again from scratch on a Texas town built for the film.

In the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, original survivor Sally Hardesty returns as what?

A Texas Ranger. She joined the force to hunt Leatherface and spent nearly fifty years failing to find him, since a man who wears other people's faces is hard to trace.

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, brothers Eric and Dean are driving to enlist for which war?

The Vietnam War. It is 1969: Eric has already seen combat and wants his drafted brother beside him, and when Sheriff Hoyt learns that Dean meant to dodge the draft instead, he tortures him for it.