Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a very popular horror movie amongst fans of the genre, especially around Halloween. Most people watch the film at face value, however, I did a little research and wanted to give amore in depth analysis about the character Leatherface, also known as Bubba Sawyer.
To start, the actor who played Leatherface was not originally the person they had casted. The original actor had gotten caught up in something and wasn’t able to be in the movie. Due to this unforeseeable situation, the casting agents called Gunnar Hansen in, and one of the questions they asked him was if he was “violent” or “crazy.” When Hansen answered no, the director got concerned. He was even asked if he was able to play the role! Hansen says himself that he didn’t believe Tobe Hooper, the director, had any idea about acting and how it worked. The questions in themselves portray Leatherface as a very insane and violent character, especially with the way Hooper reacts to Hansen’s response.
Leatherface canonically has an IQ of 67 and originally in the scene where Drayton Sawyer, the cook, returned home yelling and kicking at Bubba, he was supposed to have gibberish sentences that meant something in the script. However, after recording it the way Hooper had directed, the director decided that the gibberish was “too intelligent” and that Hansen should just make random noises instead to imitate a way of communicating. Similarly, all of Bubba’s mannerisms were improvised by Hansen, including the leg patting, the pacing and the teeth licking. All of it was improv via Gunnar Hansen, which is kind of ironic since he wasn’t even casted for his acting, but because he could “fill the door frame”; He was 6 ‘4, or 193 cm.
It was very obviously a lower budget movie which is clearly seen when the first victim, Kirk, is murdered. The actor was physically hit on the head with a hammer and bruised fairly badly. Hansen was originally supposed to just drag him off camera and then close the door, but that’s not how the filming of that scene went at all. First, Hansen was so adrenaline filled he accidentally tossed Kirks’ actor past the pillows he was supposed to land on and into a wall, causing him to be half conscious. Then there was the door, which he was supposed to close, but in his adrenaline filled strength, ended up slamming it shut and it got stuck due to the door not being crafted well. In the end, it worked out because the slam made it look as though the door was super heavy and added to the “brute strength” that Leatherface was supposed to have.
In the scene following Leatherface killing the first two victims, Jerry had come searching for his friends. Jerry ended up getting killed as well, but I thought Jerry had escaped the first time I watched it through because right after it cuts to him slamming a freezer shut and then looking around frantically and running towards a window. However, that was not how the scene was supposed to be interpreted. In the scene, Leatherface looking around was actually him making sure there were no more people, not him looking for Jerry. Additionally, Leatherface looking through the window was him trying to figure out where all these people were coming from. He ends up hitting his head a few times due to frustration and stress and there’s a very uncomfortable clip where it cuts to him licking his tongue against his very misshapen teeth, which I believe was supposed to be a nervous tick. This is the first glimpse of humanity we get of Bubba in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. We see this humanity later in the movie as well when he shows fear, fear of his older brother, of getting caught, etcetera. That’s the motivation behind his killing; fear. Inthe original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface killed out of fear, not pure unbridled insanity or violence like his eldest brother.
At the very end of the movie, there is a “dance” scene that was a very popular clip amongst the TCM fans. In reality, it wasn’t a dance. In an interview, Hansen confirms it was like a temper tantrum. Hansen was so done with the movie, he wanted to scare the director before it was over, so with his limited vision due to the mask, and using his weight, he swung around the live chainsaw with all his might, winding around it. The movie cut off before we were able to see it, but Hansen had continued, and ended up throwing his chainsaw into the brush not far off from the road they were filming on as a final temper tantrum.
Moving on to Ed Gein, the serial killer that Leatherface was based off of. Although the character and the person had a similar love for making things out of human remains, that was about it. From their appearance, to their motives and to their intelligence levels even, they’re all different. First off, Ed Gein wasn’t really “tall,” especially to modern day standards, unlike Leatherface who was always between 6 ‘4-6’ 6 in the movies. When it comes to the looks, Ed Gein wasn’t really conventionally unattractive, he looked “normal” according to most, unlike Bubba Sawyer, who was considered “ugly,” and their motives are completely different. Ed Gein was mentally deranged, was obsessed with his mother and wanted to make a skin suit to “resurrect her” while Bubba only killed for his family. He didn’t enjoy killing from what we know, he did it out of fear, as I mentioned previously. Lastly,, something very different between the two was their levels of intelligence. Leatherface had an IQ of 67, which puts him at a mild mental disability according to the IQ scale. Ed Gein had an IQ of 106 which was average at the time. Overall, I feel like the two aren’t really that similar besides the “body art”.
