The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

In Austin, Texas in 1972, film student graduate Tobe Hooper had directed two PBS funded documentaries and his first feature, Eggshells (1969) had won an award at the Atlanta Film Festival. Eggshells received limited distribution and for his second feature Hooper wanted a film that would hit big and give him a calling card for Hollywood. Drive-ins at the time, in the wake of the terrific success of Night of the Living Dead (1968), were full of cheap horror films. One of the most successful was The Last House on the Left (1972) which culminated in death by chainsaw.

Eggshells co-writer Kim Henkel was working as an illustator by day. At nights, he and Hooper pooled their ideas and came up with a script entitled Leatherface. Henkel was inspired by a case in Houston, Texas where a 17 year old called Elmoline Henley had procured young men for a much older man. They both had sex with their captives then murdered them. Another man had helped the murders but when he too was killed Henley went to the police as he thought he would be next to die. In custody he showed police around Houston pointing out where the bodies were buried as TV crews followed them. A news reporter asked Henley how he would face his punishment. The kid said he'd take his medicine like a man. Henkel liked the idea of horrific murder coupled with a bizarre code of ethics. Hooper incorporated the story of Ed Gein, the real life cannibal and necrophiliac who was the inspiration behind Psycho (1960). When he was a boy, Hooper had been told the story in graphic detail by relatives visiting from Wisconsin. Also an inspiration were the regular news reports coming from San Antonio which showed every gory detail of any accident or murder.

Titled Leatherface, and later Headcheese, they took the script to the Texas Film Commision whose head, Warrren Skaaren, much later writer of Batman (1989), helped them get investors and, when the film was completed, helped them with a distribution deal. Not happy with the title, he suggested a number of alternatives. Of these Hooper picked The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Hooper and Henkel set up a company called Vortex to produce the film and a company called MRD Investment Co for those who wanted to put money into the film. A crew was assembled from local Texas film students and graduates, many of them attracted by Hooper's reputation, actually having made a film. Similarly local actors were cast. Marilyn Burns, then working at the Texas Film Commision, landed the survivor's role. When the person originally cast as Leatherface was too drunk to begin shooting Gunnar Hansen was cast. The huge Hansen would recall later how Hooper had been impressed when he'd turned up at the audition and simply filled the doorway. He then spent two days at a state school for retarded people and studied the way people there moved in preparation for the part.

Shooting began on 15 July 1973 and for the next 32 days cast and crew would work long hours, seven days a week in the strong heat of a Texan summer to make the film.

The script for the opening scene started on a shot of the sun which moves to the eye of a runover dead dog and then cuts to a travelling van containing the vacationing kids. When cast and crew arrived for the opening scene, there was a dead horse by the side of the road. Hooper jettisoned the dog idea, but the horse smelled so disgusting the shot was never completed. Instead prodcution designer Robert Burns produced a dead armadillo he had found and then stuffed. Burns maintains Hooper wanted the van to run over it but Hooper refutes this.

The opening scenes as it now stands, with the much loved grotesque sculpture made of human remains in a cemetery, wasn't in the script, nor was it actually shot in the original filming block. Instead, Hooper and Daniel Pearl, his director of photography, regrouped to do a series of pick-ups that made up the opening montage.

Sound man Ted Nicolaou had recently bought a van to carry his equipment. The movie was so tightly budgeted that this became the van the kids used in the movie. Unbearably hot and cramped with cast and crew, interior shots in the van could only last a few minutes. Paul A. Partain who played the wheelchair bound Franklin remained in character even when not filming and the other actors kept away from his moaning. Gunnar Hansen later admitted that he "hated" Partain and was quite glad to take part in the killing of his character Franklin!

The production team found a nice old country house to use for where the family lived. Totally cleared out of its fittings, it was decked out by Robert Burns, the walls covered in butcher's paper and then soaked in animal blood left to dry. For props Hooper came up with ideas which were supplemented by Robert Burns who then designed and made them often overnight. Burns went around farms and collected carcasses and bones of dead animals left in fields. Make up artist Dorothy Pearl had access to a vet's yard and Burns loaded of knapsack full of extra dressing including monkey bones.

Burns also spent a long time looking for a realistic way to portray human skin both for the house "decorations" and Leatherface's mask. Liquid latex and fibreglass insulation material which layered up yellow was used. Burns wanted a mask that would look as if victims had been hit, then skinned and then sewn together by a madman, not created by a designer trying to be impressive.

The family unit of Grandpa (according to Henkel, Grandpa to Texans often means an old aged father rather than its strict definition) and the family included no women. Burns created the petrified Grandma who didn't feature in the script.

For the actors, filming was tough. To prepare for the scene in which Jerry is killed, actor Allen Danziger blindfolded himself so he wouldn't know what Leatherface looked like. A crew member lay on the floor with a hand in Danziger's belt to jerk him back as Leatherface's hammer was meant to hit. As soon as Danziger caught sight of Hansen in his Leatherface make up, he was so scared he tore loose of the crew man and rushed off the set. William Vail (Kirk) was caught by accident with a real blow from Gunner Hansen during his death scene. Hansen was apologetic and would thereafter ask him if he was OK after every further slam.

Being buried under the Leatherface make up made the shoot a particularly uncomfortable one for Hansen - he later recalled how executive producer Jay Parsley had to rescue him after he'd been filming in 110 degrees by plying him with ice-cold Lone Star beer!

For the meathook scene, Hooper told Burns he wanted the hook to come out of the girl and blood spurt out. Burns thought it would be more effective if the audience didn't see the violence. With Burns refusing to work on the effect, make up artist Dorothy Pearl made a harness out of pantyhose which meant actress Teri McMinn could last about a minute hung. At a lunch break sound man Ted Nicolaou's daughter came skipping into the house as a scene with Leatherface was decapitating Kirk whilst McMinn hung on the meathook. The girl ran away screaming!

There is little blood in the film. What there is is really red cable syrup. For Franklin's death, Hooper and Pearl stood either side of actor Paul A. Partain and would spit "blood" on each swing of the chainsaw. The reason for the film lacking in blood was down to Hooper naively believing that the film would be awarded a PG rating by the MPAA - he was wrong and the film went out with an R rating.

It would be toughest on Marilyn Burns. She was hit with a real broom by Jim Siedow. After eight takes it still didn't look realistic enough and she told Siedow not to hold back. He hit hard enough to bruise her. While tied to the "arm" chair, her character, Sally, needed to be gagged. A dirty rag was found on the floor and it looked so good the rag was stuffed in her mouth. Never cleaned, it stayed there for a long time. She fell over in one scene and was left tied and gagged while the scene was reset.

The toughest time for her, and the other cast and crew, was the dinner scene. With Siedow on the last day of his contract and the Granpa make up appaliances used to alter the young actor playing him running out, filming was done in one 27 hour block. Though set at night, much of it was done in the 120 degree heat of a Texas day with chicken bits, dog entrails and charred bones all smelling vile. On completion of one scene, Gunnar Hansen exited the door and threw up.

For Sally's escape through the window a stuntwoman was used, but Burns had to leap six feet into shot as though coming through the window. This twisted her ankle and she limped through the chase.

The woods chase scene wasn't that difficult to shoot. However there weren't any woods out by the house. Close by was Rattlesnake Hill where they found a found a patch of woods fifty feet across. To give the illusion of different space even though they were in reality often on the same path, they changed lens size and moved camera position. It took several nights to complete.

Production went further back as shots were discussed and minor script revisons were made. Hooper felt it was important for the film to end when the sun is rising and this entailed further waiting. This need to get things right meant Burns was recalled for her final escape scene in the truck. Her manic laughter was real as she was overjoyed to be finally finished with the film!

The film had cost $125,000. Over budget from its original $64,000, many participants were asked to defer salary in lieu of points in the film. Thinking they would be getting a portion of the film's gross, they were actually given a percentage of Vortex the production company, which had a limited stake in the film.

Hooper edited for about a year in his living room whilst he scored the music in another. Hooper had been involved with experimental music and using unconventionial instruments and his library of weird sounds, the unsettling score was produced.
The sound mix had to be done a second time to correct composition. This was done by Robert Knudsen who had worked on The Exorcist (1973). The effect of the bird cage rattle is actually the noise of Regan's bed squeaking from The Exorcist.

Again running out of funds during the edit, Hooper and Henkel were forced to sell off much of their participation in the profits to keep production afloat.

Finally completed, the movie was shown to many distributors including AIP. A new company, Bryanston took it, immediately writing a cheque for three times the prodcution cost. In October 1974, the film opened at cinemas and drive-ins across Texas becoming a massive hit. Then it went to film festivals, garnering great reviews and it was then shown across America. Influential New York critic Rex Reed called it the scariest film he'd ever seen and its success was replicated all over the USA. Abroad, it faced severe censorship problems. It was refused a certificate in Britain by the BBFC but some local councils allowed it to be shown in their cities in 1978.

The participants never saw any of the money the film generated. Bryanston was mafia controlled and released none of the money. Eventually sued by some of the makers, they settled for $400 000 out of court.

The house used in the film is now a plush restaurant the Kingsland old town grill.
DAVID HANKS

Last Updated: 29 December, 2009