"Technology is mankind's best friend." - Tinker Sawyer
Tinker "Tink" Sawyer is a relative to the Sawyer Family and a quaternary antagonist in the film Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. He is played by Joe Ungar.
In the Film[]
Tinker first appears when Benny returns to his capsized car, passing the time by lighting flares. Benny asks for his help to turn his car upright and Tinker gets in his truck, presumably to push the car upright. When Benny looks in Tinker's truck to find an assortment of malicious tools, he believes Tinker to be a killer and runs to his truck to grab his gun. Tinker soon starts up his truck and rams Benny's car at full speed, sending Benny tumbling down the hillside. Tinker laughs on as Benny disappears into the darkness.
Tinker later returns to the Sawyer residence to greet his mother and his brother Edward "Tex" Sawyer, dragging Ryan in with him. Him and Edward both hook Ryan to the hammer machine in the kitchen before Tinker begins setting up dinner. When Edward introduces a kidnapped and bound Michelle to him, Tinker accidentally refers to Edward by his real name, angering the latter greatly. Tinker apologizes for it and offers Edward the honour of gagging Michelle. Once she is gagged, Tinker leaves to retrieve 'Junior's present'.
Later, when Leatherface returns home and begins harassing Michelle, Edward brings in his present, which turns out to be a chainsaw that Tinker single-handedly crafted. After admitting his appreciation, Tinker comes in and begins scolding Leatherface for arriving empty handed, referring to how Leatherface was supposed to kill Benny and bring back his body. In a show of his outrage, Tinker takes Leatherface's souvenir, a Walkman, and tosses it into the stove, before he is suddenly choked by an irritated Leatherface. While choking him, Leatherface forces Tinker to reach in and retrieve the Walkman with his real hand, burning it in the process. With the Walkman destroyed, Leatherface runs to his mother for comfort, while Edward helps Tinker up and attempts to distract him from a potential fight with his sibling.
While his mom and Leatherface are setting up the dinner table, Tinker and Edward are releasing the hammer machine's mounted sledgehammer and bludgeoning Ryan. When Leatherface is preparing to mutilate Michelle with his present, Benny begin firing at the family from the window, hitting Tinker in the ear and ripping it clean off. Incapacitated and bleeding, Tinker commands Edward to kill Michelle before she escaped. What happens to Tinker from here is unknown.
In Comics[]
In the Leatherface comics, Tinker is depicted as a former party-loving hippie, similar to Chop Top from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. He is fixated with classic rock music and a "Chrome Machine God" that he believes controls everything. He also mentions taking Quaaludes and hash and lush and the purest lysergic acid ever come from Hashbury. Tech is fatally injured in the comic by being shot repeatedly by Benny, later dying in Leatherface's arms.
Tinker lost his fingers
Appearance[]
Tinker is a Texan with a harsh tan on his skin. He has naturally black hair that is thinning, though long enough to reach the bottom of his neck. He has a thick black moustache and stubble on his chin and cheekbones.
In most of his appearances in the film, he wears a blue smelter's coat with white pads on his shoulders and pockets. He has a pair of reading glasses hanging around his neck by a chain. He wears pale white leather pants and black work boots. His left hand is replaced with a prosthetic hook, while the stump his covered with a white cloth sleeve.
Personality[]
Tinker is undeniably the most intelligent of the entire Sawyer family, both within the film and the entire trilogy. He is proven to be skilled in engineering and metalworking, able to craft a gold and silver chainsaw with fine decorative printings on the blade. He obsesses with inventing and often claims technology to be the best discovery of mankind, referring to it as 'mankind's best friend'.
Next to Edward, Tinker is one of the sanest of the Sawyers and is less sociopathic than his entire family. Tinker even shows genuine love for his family, despite their sinister routines, shown when offering sympathy to his brother Edward and supporting him. Despite this compassionate side to Tinker's personality, Tinker enjoys the torment of their victims as much as the rest of his family.
Despite the love for his family, Tinker clearly dislikes Leatherface and considers him to be a man-child, scolding him in a similar manner to a father figure and punishing him accordingly. Likewise, Leatherface appears to see the same of Tinker, based on Leatherface actively turning the tables on Tinker for burning his Walkman.
Tinker had no interactions with his older brother Alfredo Sawyer in the film, but based on how Tinker treats his family, it is assumed that both of them trust each other due to the fact that Alfredo is given the job to run the Last Chance Gas station.
He is also evidently racist towards African-Americans like Benny, referring to him as "dark meat" and "darkie" on occasion.
References[]
- Tinker's appearance and the presence of his hook hand make Tinker resemble Captain Hook, the secondary antagonist from the book Peter Pan. The irony is that Tinker's name resembles another Peter Pan character named Tinker Bell.
- It is unknown how Tinker lost his hand, though it can be assumed that he created the hook hand himself to replace it.