- "A grown man, huge, but mentally stunted. With emotions of an eight-year-old. Frankly, he scared the shit out of me."
- ― Mr. Farnsworth[src]
- ""I wish this was just normal, I wish we were just two people at a diner, you know, I wish I was somebody else""
- ― Jedidiah Sawyer[src]
Jedidiah "Jed" Sawyer, also known as Leatherface, is the titular main protagonist of Leatherface, the main antagonist of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and one of the two main antagonists (alongside Burt Hartman) of Texas Chainsaw 3D. He is the son of Drayton Sawyer and the younger brother of Nubbins Sawyer. When his family was murdered at the hands of vigilantes led by Burt Hartman, Jedidiah began enacting a personal vendetta, hunting down and slaughtering those responsible for the demise of the Sawyer Family.
Biography[]
The Origin[]
Jedidiah Sawyer since his childhood was pushed by his family, to kill using a chainsaw, however he was unable to. After leading a teenage girl named Beth Hartman into a death trap in 1955, her father, sheriff Hal Hartman has Jed committed to a Mental Institution, he was there for almost ten years.
In 1965 he escaped with several other patients from the institution, kidnapping a nurse named Lizzy. During his years in the Institution he became a friend of Bud, they were best friends until he dies on the run. When Jed and Lizzy are trying to escape from Hal Hartman he shoots him through his face, destroying part of his mouth leaving him with the inability to talk and resulting in a car crash.
When Hartman puts Jed in the same hole where his daughter died, Verna and her family track him to the place thanks to a deputy giving them information in exchange for money. Jed is finally brought home and Verna tries to sew Jed's mouth, using a harness to keep his face together but this leaves him scarred. When Hal Hartman is tied up inside Jed's house, he takes the chainsaw and finally kills Hartman. Lizzy escapes from the Sawyer house and is chased by Jed but is caught in a beartrap. She tells him that his mother is crazy which angers Jed and he immediately cuts her head off with the chainsaw.
In the final scene of the film, Jed uses both Hal Hartman and Lizzy's face and creates his first mask, becoming Leatherface. He's lost all trust of anyone except for his immediate bloodline, who he will trust immediately and unconditionally even if the treatment is not reciprocated.[1]
The Massacre[]
On 18 August 1973, Sally Hardesty, her invalid brother Franklin, and their friends Pam, Jerry, and Kirk, travel to a cemetery in Newt, Texas to inspect the resting place of Sally's grandfather after hearing news reports of corpses being dug up in the area. After learning that her grandfather's remains are intact, the group drives to a gas station to refuel their vehicle. When the station's proprietor, Leatherface's father and/or brother Drayton Sawyer, informs them that the station is temporarily out of gas, the group abandons their plans to leave Newt and drives to Grandpa Franklin's farm with the intention of spending the night. At the Hardesty home, Kirk and Pam diverge from the group for recreational purposes when they spot the Sawyer Residence from afar. The two intrude in the house to see if there is any gas, when its resident, the mentally handicapped killer Leatherface, slaughters Kirk and puts Pam's body in a freezer. Eventually, Jerry discovers the Residence in search of Pam and Kirk. Startled by the presence of yet another intruder in his house, Leatherface kills Jerry and leaves the house with his chainsaw, hunting for any other potential trespassers.
At night, Leatherface comes across Sally and Franklin, the latter of which he murders. Sally panics at the sight, and flees to the gas station with Leatherface in pursuit. She outruns Leatherface, but is captured by Drayton and brought back to the Sawyer Residence for dinner. After taunting Sally at the dinner table, Leatherface, his brother Nubbins Sawyer, and Drayton give Grandpa Sawyer a hammer so that he can kill Sally with it. However, Sally slips from her restraints and dashes out of the house and into the road. Despite being chased by Leatherface and Nubbins, Sally escapes in the chaos when she is picked up by a passing trucker.[2]
Aftermath and exposure[]
Shortly after the incident, Sally informed the town authorities of the Sawyer Family's horrific crimes.[3] Following police investigations into the grisly murders, public reactions were largely that of repulsion, with the Texas Chain Saw Massacre being branded as "one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history" by at least one reporter of the incident.[4]
On the morning of August 19th, Sheriff Hooper showed up to the Sawyer Residence, where the armed Sawyer cousins had gathered to the house with Drayton, Leatherface, and Grandpa. Hooper demanded that they surrender Leatherface for arrest. After debate within the family, the Sawyers agreed to give Leatherface to the law. As the arrest was about to take place, vigilantes led by Burt Hartman showed up unannounced at the Sawyer Residence, burning it to ashes and killing most of the Sawyer family.
There were only two known survivors: Leatherface and an infant Edith Sawyer, who was taken by one of the vigilantes to grow up in a different family. Throughout the decades, Leatherface lived with his wealthy caretaker Verna Sawyer-Carson in her mansion.[3]
A New Relative[]
Verna eventually died of old age in 2012, leaving Leatherface alone in the mansion while she also secretly wrote a letter to Edith, now known as Heather Miller, who recently learned that she was adopted following Verna's death. Heather and her group of friends traveled to Newt, Texas to collect her family inheritance. Unfortunately, Heather didn't immediately read Verna's letter after Mr. Farnsworth gave it to her, which made her oblivious to her family history.
As Heather's friends stayed at the mansion, a hitchhiker they picked up named Darryl, tried to steal anything of value he could find at the mansion, but was met with Leatherface while he tried to open the metal door that lead to his residence. Leatherface hits him over the head with a sledgehammer and bludgeons him several times. Shortly after this, a man named Kenny arrives at the section of the house where Leatherface has been living, which makes Leatherface come out of the darkness and use a meat hook to grab Kenny before he could reach upstairs.
Going to the kitchen upstairs to cut some fingers off of his victims, Leatherface encounters Heather and, not knowing that she's his cousin, grabs her in order to take her to his slaughterhouse. Heather witnesses as Leatherface cuts Kenny in half with his chainsaw but she manages to escape and runs outside screaming, with Leatherface following her while yielding his chainsaw. During the chase, Leatherface encounters two other people, Ryan and Nikki, killing the former and wounding the latter before putting her in the freezer at his slaughterhouse.[3]
During her escape, Heather alerts the police and the now-mayor Burt Hartman. Hartman and his son, Carl, kidnap Heather and take her to the town's abandoned abattoir. Leatherface, while pushing a police car into his home, hears about the whereabouts of Heather via radio, and goes to the abandoned abattoir. He finds her there and discovers that Heather is her relative by seeing a Sawyer birthmark on Heather's chest. Leatherface frees her but is attacked from behind by Hartman and one of his cronies. Heather escapes but upon hearing Leatherface screaming inside the building, she goes back and comes to his rescue after finding they are related and tosses him his chainsaw, which he uses to force Hartman to his death in a meat-grinder, while Heather kills the crony. The two then head back to the mansion, where Heather finally reads the letter and decides to stay in order to take care of Leatherface.[3]
Personality[]
On his early days, Jedidiah was an innocent kid, however, he was manipulated and abused to do his family's dirty work such as luring people into The Sawyer compound so they can eventually be killed and eaten by his family. When urged by his family to kill someone with a chainsaw, Jed originally refused.
After spending time at a mental institution and away from his family, Jed developed into a shy but very protective young man. He was reserved but was not afraid of getting violent if it meant protecting people he cared about like nurse Lizzy. After being shot in the face by Hal Hartman and being rescued by his family, Jed starts to lose his independence and gets manipulated by them once again, killing Hartman in revenge for the damage that he did to him. While Jed was hesitant to kill Nurse Lizzy, he eventually did so after she called his mother crazy, angering him. He later made a mask using Lizzy's face as a sign of remorse for this recent crime, unfortunately, Jed would only become less sane and more submissive after this incident.
By 1973, Jed had become more child-like and was fully submissive to his family, being punished by them if he did anything wrong. During the massacre that took place that same year, Leatherface was easily frightened by the people that entered his home and tried his best to eliminate them in hopes of preventing his family's wrath. He unfortunately failed to do so and one of his victims got away, which caused the death of almost all of his family when their house burned down.
In 2012 and after years of living (mostly) in isolation, Leatherface, though still mentally stunted, had grown far more stoic and serious, as it seems old age had taken it's toll on him at this point. This time showing a more brutal and intimidating nature when killing his victims, in contrast with the childish way he used to deal with them in his early years. He'd become so unhinged that he had no problem sewing one of his skin masks directly onto his own face. Leatherface had also grown extremely vengeful towards the people responsible for the murder of his family, willing to hunt them down and kill them out of revenge if given the chance.
Appearance[]
Leatherface[]
In 1955, Jed was a small 8 year old boy with who wore a grey button-up shirt with a brown vest for his birthday and wore blue overalls along with a cow head when luring in unsuspecting victims.
In 1965, Jed is a paunchy 18 year old man with short brown hair, a slight stubble and blue eyes. He wore white hospital pajamas when he stayed at the Gormon Youth Reformery but after escaping with some inmates, he started sporting a red flannel shirt and blue jeans that he and the rest of the inmates stole.
Upon finally returning home and becoming Leatherface, he used the upper-half of Burt Hartman's face and lower-half of Lizzy's face to make his first skin mask, to which he sloppily applied lipstick to.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre[]
In 1973, Leatherface, now 26 years old, suffers from the condition acromegaly[5], making him stand at 6'5". His teeth have been filed and rotten as a result of no dental care, causing them to look small, yellowed and 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 pants, 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.
Texas Chainsaw 3D[]
In 2012, Leatherface has aged since the last massacre and is now 65 years old, with greying brown hair, a beard and dark eyebags.
When he was found in the mansion, he was wearing a red sweater, brown apron and an old tanned stitched skin mask. After he kills Marvin, he stitches a different face that looks similar to his previous one. He also switches clothes and wears an orange dress shirt, red tie, brown pants and what appears to be cowboy boots.
Gallery[]
Killing mask (1974)[]
_0.jpg "Scan0022(2) 0.jpg (783 KB)")
Pretty Woman mask (1974-2013)[]
.jpg "Leatherface Pretty Woman (Behind the scenes).jpg (196 KB)")
Old Woman mask (1974)[]
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)[]
Leatherface (2017)[]
Trivia[]
- In Texas Chainsaw 3D, Leatherface walks with a limp. This is in continuity with the first film in which Leatherface accidentally cut himself in the leg.
- The reason for why he cannot speak coherently in the first film is because of the wound he sustained back in 1965, his facial muscles being too weak to allow speech.
- He apparently healed overtime as Leatherface shouts out "Help me" in Texas Chainsaw 3D when he was being beaten.
- Fans of the series agree that Dan Yeager's performance of Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw 3D was the closest and most faithful to Gunnar Hansen's acting in original 1974 film.
- Verna claims to be Leatherface's mother multiple times, but Hal Hartman tells Lizzy that Verna is actually his aunt.
- The Sawyer File that Heather views lists Clarissa Sawyer as being the mother to Jed, confirming Hal's claim.
Appearances[]
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Video Game)
- Leatherface
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- Texas Chainsaw 3D
References[]
- ↑ Leatherface
- ↑ The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Texas Chainsaw 3D
- ↑ The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - Opening Monologue
- ↑ Description