The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), which was written and directed by Tobe Hooper, is always pulled up in lists of the greatest horror films. Total Film magazine canvassed leading directors and stars of horror to find out their favourites. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre happened to come at the very top of the list, giving it the title of the greatest horror movie ever made. But where did the story come from? Hooper cites one of his main influences as woman murderer and grave robber Ed Gein.
Gein has not only influenced Hooper’s Leatherface character from Texas Chain Saw, but he was also the main inspiration for many other fictional killers such as Norman Bates of Psycho, Buffalo Bill of The Silence of the Lambs and Bloody Face of the second installment of American Horror Story.
The Backstory Part
Edward Theodore Gein was born in 1906 to Augusta Wilhelmine Gein, who owned a local grocery shop, and George Phillip Gein, an alcoholic who was too unstable to keep a job. Gein also had an older brother, Henry George (born in 1901). Augusta sold her shop in 1914 for a farm to purposely live in isolation near Plainfield, Wisconsin. Augusta was a Lutheran (a branch of Protestant Christianity) and preached to her children about the wicked immoral ways of the world, the evil of drinking and the belief that all women were naturally whores and prostitutes of the devil – which, of course, excluded herself. Augusta was rarely pleased with Henry and Ed, believing they were destined to become failures and alcoholics just like their father, who died of heart failure in 1940 due to his alcoholism.
Augusta took advantage of the farm’s desolate location and turned away outsiders so they wouldn’t influence her sons. She reserved time every afternoon to read to Henry and Ed from the Bible. However, she would select graphic verses from the Old Testament which focused on death, murder and divine retribution. They were only allowed to leave the premises of the farm for school and Augusta punished Gein whenever he tried to make friends. Gein grew up shy and was often bullied at school. Teachers and classmates remembered him having strange mannerisms such as random laughter as though he were laughing at his own personal jokes. Although Gein developed poor social skills, he did fairly well in school and was particularly advanced with reading. Despite Augusta’s domineering control, Gein did not seem to mind and was rather devoted to pleasing her. Henry was worried about Ed’s affection for their mother and he often spoke ill of Augusta around Ed, who was shocked at his comments. Henry eventually began dating a divorced, single mother of two and planned on moving in with her.
In 1944, Henry and Ed were burning away marsh vegetation on the property and the fire got out of control which drew attention of the local fire department. Ed reported his brother missing and Ad, Augusta and two deputies searched for Henry whose dead body was found lying face down. Apparently he had been dead for some time and it appeared he died from heart failure since he had not been burned or injured otherwise. It was later reported that Henry had bruises on his head but the police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Some suspected that Ed killed his brother and it has been said that Ed lead them right to Henry’s body even though he said he didn’t know where he was.
Shortly after Henry’s death, Augusta suffered from a paralysing stroke and Gein devoted himself to taking care of her. She died on December 29th, 1945. Ed was obviously devastated by his mother’s death after growing up so close to her with no one else. Gein held onto the farm and worked odd jobs to earn some money. He boarded up the rooms used by his mother and left them untouched and in pristine condition. However, the rest of the house became dirty and unpleasant.
On November 16th, 1957, Bernice Worden, the owner of a hardware store in Plainfield disappeared. Worden’s son told investigators Gein had been in the store the evening before she disappeared and returned the next morning for a gallon of anti-freeze, which happened to be the last receipt written by Worden on the morning of her disappearance. Investigators searched Gein’s farm and discovered Worden’s body decapitated and dressed out like a deer in a shed. She was hung upside-down by ropes at her wrists with a crossbar at her ankles and had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle. The mutilations were made after her death. Gein admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern owner missing since 1954, as parts of her were found on the day.
This is a list of what the authorities found in Gein’s residence:
- Whole human bones and fragments
- Wastebasket made of human skin
- Human skin covering several chair seats
- Skulls on his bedposts
- Female skulls, some with the tops sawn off
- Bowls made from human skulls
- A corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist
- Leggings made from human leg skin
- Masks made from skin from female heads
- Mary Hogan’s face masks in a paper bag
- Mary Hogan’s skull in a box
- Bernice Worden’s entire head in a burlap sack
- Bernice Worden’s heart in a saucepan on the stove
- Nine vulvae in a shoe box
- A young girl’s dress and the vulvas of two females judged to have been about fifteen years old
- A belt made from female nipples
- Four noses
- A pair of lips on a window shade drawstring
- A lampshade made from the skin of a human face
- Fingernails from female fingers
Gein admitted to the digging up of nine graves of recently buried middle-aged women who he thought resembled his mother and he took their bodies home. He also stated on about 30 other visits to dig up graves, he was in a daze-like state which he came out of at the cemetery and returned home empty-handed.
Soon after Augusta’s death, Gein contemplated sex-change surgery and began creating a woman suit so that he could become his mother – to literally crawl into his skin.
Gein was tried for first-degree murder where he pled not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and was later transferred to Mendota State Hospital, both of which are in Wisconsin. Gein was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and spent his life in the mental hospital. He died from lung cancer in 1984 at 77 years old.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre uses a lot from Gein’s case, such as the relationships he had with his family and especially the body parts found in his house.
The Review Part
The opening sequence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre alone captures the disgusting, rotting atmosphere in the overheated part of Texas that is set to follow for the rest of the film, especially with the use of real bones which were actually rotting in the heat. The opening also shows a dead body rotting away tied to a monument.
Sally Hardesty and her paraplegic brother, Franklin, travel in a van with their friends Jerry, Kirk and Pam to visit the grave of Sally and Franklin’s grandfather after they heard reports of vandalism and grave robbing. Afterwards they decide to head over to the old Hardesty family farmhouse. Along the way they pick up a mad hitchhiker who talks about his family who worked at the old slaughterhouse. This sets up the tone of the film even more as the soundtrack features sounds that the animals at the slaughterhouse would hear. The hitchhiker takes Franklin’s pocket-knife and cuts himself on the palm of his hand. He also takes a polaroid picture of Franklin and demands money for it, but they refuse to pay so he burns the polaroid and cuts Franklin on the arm. The group of friends then kick him out, agree it was a weird experience and then proceed with their travels. They stop as a gas station to refuel but they’re told the pumps are empty, so they carry on and vow to return once the station has received a fuel delivery.
At the farmhouse, Kirk and Pam go off to find a local swimming-hole which they find has dried up, and they notice a nearby house with a generator running. Kirk calls out asking if anyone lives there and if they could have some gas, but there is no answer. Pam waits outside on a swing and Kirk enters through the unlocked front door, where Leatherface appears, kills him with a mallet and drags him into a room. Leatherface wears masks made of human skin and takes orders from the older members of his family. Pam soon enters and turns into another room which is filled with furniture made from human skin and human bones. She trips on the bones and looks around her. At this point, the scenery really captures the gruesome atmosphere, especially as we can see the heat of Texas with every shot as the real bones actually rot around the actress. What is found in this room is a direct influence from the list of bones and skin the authorities found in Gein’s house. Leatherface captures Pam and impales her on a meathook and prepares to butcher Kirk with a chainsaw. The actress was actually held up by a nylon cord that went between her legs, causing her a great deal of pain. Jerry eventually heads out to find Pam and Kirk at sunset and comes across their blankets outside the house. Kirk enters and finds Pam, still alive, in a freezer. However, Leatherface kills him and closes Pam in the freezer before Jerry has time to react.
As darkness falls, Sally and Franklin decide to find their friends together. They spot the house in the distance but Leatherface appears from the darkness and kills Franklin with a chainsaw. Sally runs towards the house screaming and heads upstairs – obviously – to see the desiccated remains of an elderly couple, which is another influence from Gein with his need to preserve or perhaps become his mother. Sally runs around for a good while through the trees outside, constantly tripping over and jumping through glass. Most of the blood cuts on Sally were actual wounds she had made with falling and catching herself on the branches and her screams were very real and high pitched.
She escapes back to the gas station where a man offers to help, but he instead ties her up and takes her to the house. The hitchhiker also arrives and is revealed to be the brother of Leatherface. The old desiccated man from upstairs is announced to be the grandpa and he is brought downstairs for a meal, which is served by Leatherface dressed as a woman. They cut Sally’s finger with as small knife, which actually happened as they could not get the tube of fake blood to work behind the knife, so Sally’s screams here are also real. Sally eventually escapes and gets away in the back of someone’s car and Leatherface is left waving the chainsaw about above his head in frustration.
The latter part is an iconic scene and between the mix of real screams, cuts, rotting bones and the visible 100 F (37 C) degree heatwave, the film definitely adds a sense of realism to what is happening to the characters and to their disgusting, death-filled surroundings.
The Trivia Part
They went through so much to shoot the film considering the actual pain caused to the cast and the filming in a heatwave, and here is some more trivia behind the film which makes it so much more interesting:
- The human skeleton in the house at the very end of the movie was a real human skeleton. They used a real one because a human skeleton from India is far cheaper than a fake plastic skeleton.
- The film was shot in chronological order.
- Marilyn Burns (Sally’s) costume was so drenched in fake blood that it was virtually solid by the last day’s shoot.
- The film took four weeks to complete filming.
- One of the crew members, Dorothy J. Pearl, accidentally injected herself in the leg with formaldehyde while preparing one of the props.
- According to John Larroquette, his payment for doing the opening narration was a marijuana joint.
- Due to the low budget, Gunnar Hansen had only one shirt to wear as Leatherface. The shirt had been dyed so it could not be washed. Hansen had to wear it for four straight weeks of filming in the Texas summer, By the end of the shoot, no one wanted to eat lunch with Hansen because his clothing smelled so bad.
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