Leatherface is a character and the main antagonist in the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its spin-offs. He is an unstable and cannibalistic serial killer who wears masks made of human skin (hence his name) and engages in murder and cannibalism alongside his inbred family. The murder weapons he uses usually involve random tools but what he mostly uses is the Chainsaw.
Leatherface appears in the first film of the series (1974) and in its eight subsequent continuations and remakes. He is considered the main antagonist of the franchise due to him driving most of the movie's plot and appearing in all movies even though he takes orders from his older family members.
Biography
Backstory
Not much is known about Leatherface's past as well as what he did before he became a mass-murderer. Gunnar Hansen, who portrayed the character in the original 1974 film, sees Leatherface as "completely under the control of his family. He'll do whatever they tell him to do. He's a little bit afraid of them." In the documentary The Shocking Truth, Tobe Hooper portrays Leatherface as a "big baby" who kills in self-defense because he feels threatened. In the first film, Leatherface shows fear when new people enter his home.
The Massacre
Leatherface about to kill Kirk.
In the first film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, siblings Sally and Franklin Hardesty go out with their friends Kirk, Jerry, and Pam, to investigate the robbing of their grandfather's grave. While on the road, they run afoul of a Hitchhiker named Nubbins. After coming across the Sawyer residence, most of the teens were killed off by Leatherface, starting first with Kirk and then lastly Franklin. Sally Hardesty, the sole survivor of the group, is kept alive, in which the Sawyer family tortured and tormented her. They eventually decided to kill her to end her life.
While Nubbins held Sally down, Leatherface helps Grandpa Sawyer in killing her with a sledgehammer. However, due to his immense age and failing strength, Grandpa Sawyer kept on dropping the hammer, forcing Leatherface to pick it up for him multiple times. During the struggle, in which both Leatherface and Nubbins attempt to help their grandfather, Sally manages to break free and escapes from the house. Leatherface then pursued her with Nubbins, his brother, chainsaw in hand.
Leatherface helping Grandpa Sawyer.
After Nubbins was accidentally ran over by an 18-wheeler, Leatherface was forced to chase after Sally on his own. While the panicking truck driver and Sally escape, the former throws a wrench at Leatherface, causing the serial killer to fall backwards and cut into his leg with his own chainsaw. This minor injury mostly prove to be ineffective as Leatherface continues pursuing them. After the truck driver escaped, Leatherface now focused solely on killing Sally. While limping towards her, she managed to escape on the back of a pickup truck, causing Leatherface to swing his chainsaw around in rage.
Harlow Orphanage
After the events of the first film, Leatherface ran away to a town called Harlow and came across an orphanage. The owner of the building, Virginia "Ginny" McCumber, takes Leatherface under her wing. According to Fede Alvarez, the director of the 2022 film of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface might've been in and out of the orphanage to do things with his biological family every now and then, but he eventually settled down. His chainsaw was then hidden in the walls of Mrs. McCumber's bedroom where it will remain for many years.
Known to the public
As Sally had told the authorities of her experience and her encounter with Leatherface, they launched an investigation into the murders. During that time, police found the remains of Kirk, Jerry, Pam, and Franklin. Based on what Sally told them, the authorities released to the public a composite image of Leatherface, in which the description is completely identical. The reactions upon seeing the image were full of terror, with one Texan even stating that "everybody was terrified". Leatherface struck fear into the hearts of everyone in Texas until he would be largely forgotten many years later in the future.
The Second Massacre
In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Leatherface is referred to as "Bubba".
One night in 1987, Leatherface and Chop-Top, who is Nubbins' twin brother, went for a ride in his truck along with the latter's corpse. Bubba, using a new chainsaw as well as using Nubbins' corpse as a puppet, attacks two young men in a car, while they are making a call to a radio station. This resulted in a car crash, in which both of the men inside are killed and the Sawyer brothers get away.
Vanita "Stretch" Brock, a radio DJ, hears everything and puts it on a tape. She later brings it to Sheriff Lefty, the uncle of Sally and Franklin Hardesty, who decides to try and look for the killers.
Leatherface hits Chop-Top by accident.
Several nights after the first incident, Stretch is visited by Chop Top, who announces himself and Bubba to be big fans of her. When Stretch gives Chop Top a tour and they get to a dark room, Bubba runs out with his chainsaw and misses Stretch, accidently hitting his brother in the head, which ruined his wig. After getting yelled at by his brother, Bubba goes after Stretch. She runs into a room and repels the former by spraying him with a fire extinguisher and then closing a sliding metal door, which Bubba is unable to saw through. Just when she thought she was safe, Bubba broke into the room through the wall and began sawing into a cooler full of ice and beer. However, upon seeing her face- to- face, Bubba forms a crush on Stretch. He strokes her with his chainsaw and she compliments him, which Bubba seemingly couldn't handle it anymore and begins to saw into the shelves and the radio room. He does a dance and leaves, sparing Stretch.
He meets Chop Top, who just finished hitting L.G., Stretch's partner, in the head multiple times. Chop Top asks Bubba if he killed Stretch, to which Bubba lies and tells him yes. They take L.G.'s body, throw it in the back of Chop Top's truck and drive off. Stretch follows them to an abandoned carnival called Texas Battle Land. When she arrived at the attraction Lefty arrives as well, but when they meet, she falls into a trap. Lefty enters the abandoned amusement park with three chainsaws, in an attempt to rescue his niece and bring an end to the Sawyers.
Bubba with Stretch.
Stretch falls into the butcher room and hears footsteps. She hides just as Bubba enters and is tasked by Drayton to take care of the meat. Bubba skins L.G. but stopped when he heard something. Grabbing a butcher knife, he looked for the source of the noise, and Stretch in her hiding place. Not wanting his family to find her, a panicking bubba places L.G.'s skinned face onto Stretch, disguising her as a dead body. He then proceeds to dance with her, but upon hearing the destruction of his home caused by Lefty, Bubba ties Stretch up and tells her to stay. After he left the room, L.G., barely alive, gets up and helps Stretch escape, but dies soon after.
Later, Bubba is with his family, with Chop Top dancing with Nubbins' corpse and Drayton expressing worry about a cook-off. When Stretch runs by them, Drayton tasks Bubba with finding who just ran by. He does so and chases after Stretch, eventually cornering her. He held her in place with his chainsaw, not sure on what to do next. When his brothers arrived, a confused Chop Top tells Drayton that Stretch was supposed to be killed a while ago. However, when he supposedly figured out on why bubba didn't kill her, he begins chanting that his brother has a girlfriend, much to Bubba's embarrassment. He then begins hitting himself on the head with the shell of a lamp in frustration while Chop Top proceeds to knock Stretch out. Taking her captive, they proceeded to bring her with them to the dining room.
Leatherface fighting Lt. Lefty Enright.
After Stretch wakes up and begins screaming, Bubba kisses her on the lips, his brothers fetched Grandpa Sawyer and they have him whack Stretch with a sledgehammer, while Bubba held her down. However, Lefty arrives and saves his niece. Bubba then grabs his chainsaw and begins attacking the former, engaging in a duel. The sheriff then impales Bubba with his chainsaw, which went through his stomach, but Bubba continues fighting and is accidentally knocked down by Grandpa Sawyer when he attempted to throw his sledgehammer at Lefty. Drayton, deciding to commit suicide, detonates a grenade he grabbed from Nubbins' jacket, which blew up the entire cave, killing Drayton and the rest of his family, with the exception of Chop-Top and Bubba. After the former's death at the hands of Stretch, Bubba is left as the sole survivor.
The Third Massacre
In Leatherface:The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Leather face is now fully recovered from being impaled by Lefty's chainsaw, is now living in a forest with his other brothers: Tex Sawyer, Tinker Sawyer and Alfredo Sawyer, along with his mother Anne Sawyer and daughter. Leatherface ends up fighting a survivalist named Benny, and he gets his head brutally bashed in with a rock, however, Leatherface survives.
The Fourth Massacre
In Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, he was a cross dresser and was involved in an Illuminati conspiracy to provide society a source of horror. Leatherface, along with his brothers Vilmer and W.E. and Vilmer’s girlfriend Darla, hunt down lost people and murder them. Leatherface and his family do not eat their victims, however, rather they eat pizza.
Leatherface, like the original, is seen wearing an elderly lady’s face and wig. However, for the rest of the film he wears a black dress, a more feminine skin on his body, and a brown wig. When he was first seen, he wore a camouflage jacket, his traditional yellow apron, and has a long brown curly wig.
Leatherface was known to scream throughout the film. When he realizes that he’s been caught by Heather, he screams, along with Heather. When the latter temporarily escapes from his hands into a storage room, he once again screams. After he throws her into a box and she keeps opening it, he continues screaming. It’s not until after he uses heavy objects to prevent her from escaping from the box that Leatherface has a total meltdown. He also screams after killing Barry, but worries that his brother W.E., who's outside, and can hear him.
Leatherface appears to be the weakest the family and is hurt by the fighting that occurs. His brother W.E. abuses him relentlessly, to which Leatherface does not fight back but cries. During a fight between Vilmer, Darla, and W.E., Leatherface is seen cowering behind the refrigerator screaming, crying and plugging his ears, suffering from a panic attack.
During dinner, while dressed in a drag, Leatherface is seen doing his nails. At one point, Vilmer mentions how his brother (Leatherface) is tired of his current female face and wants a new one. He implies that Jenny’s face will be his new face, which Leatherface becomes excited over.
When Jenny escapes again after using Vilmer’s remote controls to mess with his bionic leg, Leatherface, in his full drag, chases Jenny with the chainsaw. During the chase, one of Rothman’s men, flying an airplane, kills Vilmer with the propeller, which Leatherface witnesses and appears to be devastated over it. When Jenny escapes in Rothman’s limo, Leatherface, once again, had a total meltdown. He began screaming a third time and emulates the infamous chainsaw dance seen in the original.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
In 2022, Leatherface is still living with Mrs. McCumber in the now deserted town of Harlow. When a group of young entrepreneurs arrive and make plans to gentrify the town, two members of the group, Melody and Dante, enter Harlow Orphanage. Melody tries to evict Mrs. McCumber out of the orphanage, to which she refuses as she was still legally allowed to live there. Due to the stress of the situation, Mrs. McCumber began to have breathing problems and is forced to use an oxygen mask to regain oxygen. Hearing the commotion, Leatherface immediately headed down the stairs, stopping half-way. Upon seeing him, Mrs. McCumber lovingly assures that she herself is fine and tells him to go back to his room, which he obeys. Shortly after he left, Mrs. McCumber reveals to Melody that he is the last of her "boys" and that he needs special care, which is the reason on why she refused to leave the orphanage in the first place. When two officers from the Sheriff Hooper County attempted to evict her, she began to throw up and collapsed, causing Leatherface to immediately arrive at the scene and he lifts his caretaker into his arms. He carries her to the officers' van. He then rides with the officers as they bring Ms. McCumber to a hospital.
While on the way, Leatherface holds her in his lap and is comforted by the latter, being told that he is her boy. She then suffers from a heart attack to which Leatherface panics. He puts her oxygen mask over her mouth and tries to save her, but was unsuccessful. Out of rage and agony, Leatherface kills the officer in the back of the truck by snapping his hand and stabbing him with the bone that was sticking out. He then caused the dying officer to accidentally killer the driver which leads to the truck crashing into a wheat chopper in a sunflower field. Leatherface then exits the van, skins Mrs. McCumber's face and wears it as a mask. He then props her corpse into a sitting position in the field. He then finds Ruth, Dante's girlfriend, alive in the passenger seat and stabs her in the gut. He caresses her face before walking back to Harlow.
Returning to the orphanage, Leatherface finds Dante walking around the home and cuts him across the face before leaves him to bleed out on the floor. Melody was there while this was happening and hid under Mrs. McCumber's bed. Going into the bedroom of his dead caretaker, Leatherface breaks the wall open to retrieve his chainsaw, which he used back in 1973. Before he is able to start it, however, a mechanic named Richter enters the house while armed after having seen Dante walk out covered in blood. Leatherface attacks him and swings his hammer at Richter's leg, destroying it by bending it backwards. After this he stabs him in the head with a shard of broken glass on the window, causing Richter to fall to the ground and see Melody hiding under the bed. Leatherface grabs his sledgehammer and repeatedly bashes Richter in the head to the point of shattering his skull and tendering his flesh, all while Melody was hiding under the bed, having witnessed his brutal murder.
Leatherface leaves the room, but hears Melody sneaking around the house. He finds her at the bottom of the staircase and throws his sledgehammer at her, causing her to fall and break through the floor. She tries to crawl away but Leatherface listens to her and saws through the floor. She gets to a vent cover but gets covered in feces when the sewage pipe is sawed through. Melody's sister, Lila, finds her and gets her out, and the two fled to a party bus. Following them, Leatherface kills the bus driver before entering the party room where he is met with a group of young influencers, who begin to record him on their phones. Leatherface revs his chainsaw and begins to brutally murder every last one of the influencers. The live event being unfold on the phones were, however, met with mixed reactions from those that are watching it. While Leatherface continues going on his killing spree, Melody and Lila go into the restroom of the bus and escape through a ceiling window. Leatherface saws through the door but gets stabbed in the arm with a corkscrew.
Leatherface gashing Sally Hardesty.
As he is leaving the bus, Melody and Lila find a cop car and enter it, finding an elderly woman, who turns out to actually be Sally Hardesty, the sole survivor of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She tells the two girls to stay in the car while she confronts Leatherface, who is sitting alone in Harlow orphanage. Leatherface is held at gunpoint and is asked by Sally if he remembers her, to which he doesn't. He walks out and finds Melody and Lila hiding in the car. He grabs Melody but gets shot in the shoulder by Sally. The two start to fight with it ending with Leatherface impaling Sally with his chainsaw and tosses her onto some garbage bags.
Leatherface finds Melody and Lila in a garage, having crashed the police car into it. He was about to kill the duo, but is stopped by Lila when she aims a gun at him, but when it was found to be empty, he started chasing her. Lila falls to the ground and before he gets to saw her, Sally shoots Leatherface again, in which he stumbles away into an abandoned theater while Sally bleeds out to death. Lila enters the theater, armed with Sally's shotgun, but is attacked by Leatherface. The two began scuffling with each other. When Leatherface is about to kill Lila, Melody returns and hits him in the chin with his own chainsaw, making him fall into a large body of water.
Leatherface returning home.
Several hours later, Leatherface reemerges and finds the sisters leaving Harlow in their car. He proceeded to break down the window and grabs Melody, decapitating her. He then holds her head up for a horrified Lila to see as the car automatically drives away. Leatherface, while still holding Melody's severed head, swings his chainsaw around just like he did many years ago. He then returns to the Sawyer ranch while under a beautiful sunset.
Trivia
- Wisconsin killer Ed Gein, who wore a mask made of human skin, was reportedly the inspiration for the character.
- In the introduction of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a file is shown on screen which states Leatherface's age as being 16-20 back in 1973.
- Leatherface may be a supernatural human, as he survived being impaled through the stomach, bashed in the head multiple times with a heavy rock and was shot several times with a shotgun.
- Jeff Burr (director of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3) has a headcanon as to why Leatherface is the way he is. He is quoted as saying "I would say he's mindless as result of injury. I don't know; I would have to assume that the catastrophic injury that destroyed his face may have destroyed his vocal cords."
- Leatherface, when compared to the rest of his brothers is much bigger physically and the reason behind this, is that he suffers from acromegaly.
- According to the casting call for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface's name is Kenny. This name was never mentioned in the film however.
- The original script for Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 describes what he looks like underneath the mask, stating that 'for the record' that he has no nose, necrotic skin covering his face with the exception of the islands around his eyes and mouth and some black stitchwork. Although this was not seen in the final product of the film, the idea of Leatherface being horribly disfigured was used in the 2003 remake.
- Leatherface's concept art design for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), which shows on what he looks like without his mask, bears a striking resemblance to the late Gunnar Hansen, who originally acted as Leatherface in the first film.
Physical Appearance
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Leatherface is a tall, overweight man with peach skin and brown eyes. He has small, yellowed, slightly crooked teeth (which heavily resemble that of Hutchinson's Teeth). For a large portion of the film, he wears a white shirt with a yellow butcher's apron, blue jeans, black cowboy boots, a yellow bracelet (which he stole from Pam) and a sallow human skin mask that covers his head with black hair. He also wears a black tie with a blue stripe on it.
When he is at home doing chores, Leatherface wears a pink shirt with a cooking apron, a tie and an elderly woman's face with greying brown hair as a mask. When it was dinner time, Leatherface wore a dark blue suit with a white shirt underneath, a tie and a pale woman's face with makeup and curly brown hair as a mask.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2
Leatherface wears a black suit with a white tie that has a red floral design on it, sometimes wearing black leather gloves as well. He has messy brown hair with some grey streaks and he wears a tanned mask made up of heavily-stitched together faces tied around his head. Leatherface's teeth are even more crooked and he sometimes sticks his tongue out, his mouth deformed and crooked. He has sores, warts and scabs all over his actual face, meaning he is suffering from a disease.
When he is butchering, he wears a yellow apron, blue jeans and blue shirt.
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
Leatherface has long brown hair, which has grown since the second film and he wears a mask of a woman's face, a tattoo of a flower is seen on the cheek. He wears a dirty and raggedy shirt and pants with a tie. He uses a knee brace, likely as a result from his injury from the first film or the explosion from the ending of the previous film.
Leatherface is often seen doing an angry looking facial expression in which he bears his rotten and crooked teeth. Although not fully revealed in the film due to censorship, the script for the third film reveals Leatherface is in fact horribly disfigured, having been facially skinned and losing his nose due to syphilis, part of this disfigurement can still be seen in the final film and production stills through the eyeholes of his mask.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Leatherface is first seen wearing a white T-shirt, green camouflage jacket, yellow apron and dark purple pants while wearing a stitched skin mask with a brown wig. He has a long mullet. His teeth are clean, straight and white.
Later, he wears an elderly woman's face with makeup applied to it with a grey wig and blue earrings. He sports a blue apron.
Towards the end of the film, he wears a black dress and a woman's skin with makeup applied to it, much more to a degree than his old lady outfit. He uses a long brown wig.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Leatherface is a burly, elderly man with long grey hair and a beard. He wears a brown shirt with rolled up sleeves, dark brown overalls and brown boots. His mask is that of a elderly woman's saggy face, which belonged to Mrs. McCumber. About halfway through the film, Leatherface wears his yellow butcher's apron and his black tie with a blue stripe on it as well as jeans and his white shirt.
Gallery
Killing mask (1974)
_0.jpg "Scan0022(2) 0.jpg (783 KB)")
Pretty Woman mask (1974)
.jpg "Leatherface Pretty Woman (Behind the scenes).jpg (196 KB)")
Old Woman mask (1974)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
The Next Generation
.jpg "Leatherface (TCM4).jpg (81 KB)")
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Appearances
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
- Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
- Mortal Kombat XL
- Dead by Daylight: LEATHERFACE[1]
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre