The WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie series looks at the true stories behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
“The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected, nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” When I joke about movies being very loosely based on a true story, that opening dialogue from John Larroquette and the wild popularity is what I’m referring to. While it may not be the first movie to falsely present itself as a true story, it’s one of the most famous and certainly the most famous early example in the realm of horror. I’ve joked about it enough but lets actually take a good look at what, if anything, resembles truth from one of the best to ever do it. Don’t pick up any weird looking stray hitchhikers as we find out what REALLY happened to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (watch it HERE).
Tobe Hooper was an assistant director and documentary cameraman at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1970s. He came up with ideas for a movie involving isolation, darkness, and the woods but, like the gang from A Clockwork Orange, felt that he needed a bit of the old ultra violence. He felt that way when he was astonished to see the graphic violence shown on the news coming out of San Antonio. He then based his killer or at least some of the aspects of the killer on Wisconsin’s Ed Gein who was convicted in the 1950’s. Now, here’s where the tricky part comes in. Hooper puts in the beginning of the movie a bit about the movie you are about to see is true and that was an intentional deception. The Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Oil Crisis of 1973 were all moments in time that the general public was lied to about and his cinematic misinformation was his response.
Hooper wasn’t alone though as he co-wrote the script with the co-writer of his first film Eggshells Kim Henkel. While Hooper based the story crimes very loosely on Ed Gein, Henkel was more interested and astonished with the story of Elmer Wayne Henley who was involved in what came to be known as the Houston Mass Murders. Henley helped lead nearly 30 young men and teenage boys to the home of Dean Corll over the span from 1970 to 1973 before Henley killed Corll allegedly in self-defense. What Henkel found interesting and something that he added to his characters was the lack of remorse and full ownership of their crimes. Henley, like the family that does the killing in today’s movie, completely owned his crimes and Henkel worked that into his portion of the screenplay.
Henkel was also the writer for Eaten Alive which was directed by Hooper and The Unseen from 1980. He would also go on to direct and write the 4th installment of the series Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Yeah, that would end up being his only directorial effort. The cast for the movie was mostly local talent from stage, commercials, or TV or even just people that Hooper knew personally. Marilyn Burns wouldn’t end up making much after this but did show up in Eaten Alive and two other Texas Chainsaw movies while Gunnar Hansen would make a nice niche for himself in some fun horror movies like Mosquito, Campfire Tales, and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers before a final Chainsaw appearance in the iteration from 2013. Probably the most famous on screen talent is just a voice. John Larroquette was an unknown who worked for weed and would end up doing the narration again for the remake, its prequel, and the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The movie was a smash success with it making 30 million on its 80-140 thousand dollar budget but the people that actually made the movie didn’t reap the benefits as much as you would hope do to making a bad deal with bad people. It gained controversy as Hooper asked for a PG rating due to much of the gore being not expressly visible but it was instead slapped with an X before cuts dropped it to an R. It would end up as a video nasty and had some screening either flush with walkouts like San Fransisco or theaters threatened with citations and violations like in Canada. It remains one of the most successful independent films of all time as well as one of the best horror films ever made.
The movie opens with a camera snapping hard to see polaroids followed by a pile of body parts set up in a grisly fashion before we meet a group of friends that include Sally and her brother Franklin along with their friends Jerry, Pam, and Kirk. They are on the way to a property owned by Sally and Franklins family the Hardestys. They pick up a very strange hitchhiker who tries to sell them a photograph after mentioning that his family is in the animal slaughter business just like the Hardestys are. They refuse to buy the picture and the man cuts Franklin before being chased out of the van. He also cut his own hand and smeared blood on the side of the vehicle as it drives away.
(Factometer 5%) Ok look, we are going to try to make this interesting, but I was serious when I said this was the joke I use when saying movies that are purported true stories “aren’t as bad as Texas Chainsaw” when it comes to their validity. If you are looking at the Ed Gein side of things, there is really nothing here that is similar to what is seen on screen. He had a brother and a very strange and sad childhood upbringing. If you look at what Kim Henkel used as inspiration, there isn’t a ton that is familiar there wither with Henley either. He was one of four sons and I guess the fact that he was in Houston, Texas puts him in the same state as the film. The group of friends isn’t exactly lured into anything either like Henley was involved in. we will try to look at both inspirations throughout.
The van starts to run low on fuel but is told that the gas station has nothing left. They find an abandoned house owned by the family of Sally and Franklin but more importantly Kirk and Pam find a different nearby house that seems to be running off of a generator. Generator means gas and so the two go over to see about trading for some gas when we meet what we affectionately come to know as Leatherface when he is introduced to us by shocking killing Kirk with a hammer blow to the head. He is called Leatherface because he fashions a mask made of the skin of his victims. Pam goes looking for Kirk and stumbles into a room full of human and animal bones and skin along with feathers and other assorted atrocities before being hung on a hook and killed. A short time later, Jerry enters the house and befalls the same fate as his friends.
(Factometer 25%) This may be the most accurate part of the movie to label based on a true story. For the Ed Gein side of things, what he ended up doing apart from killing AT LEAST 2 people, was dig up graves and use the skin and bones for various things. When the police finally apprehended him, they found, among other things, chairs covered by human skin, skulls on his bedposts, bowls made from human skulls, a human skin suit including leggings and corsets, and a female nipple doorbell. Gein had become so obsessed with his mother at an early age that he eventually wanted to become her and effectively crawl back inside her. Leatherface’s appearance as well as that room that Pam stumbles into area really the biggest parts that you could put together with Gein and even then, it’s not exactly apples to apples or I suppose bodies to bodies. The only similarity to Henley and the Houston Mass Murders is the number of victims there are. There is no confirmation how many people Leatherface and his family killed but it had to be a lot, the number that Henley was involved in was almost 30.
Sally and Franklin are all that remain when nightfall rolls around, and they are attacked with Franklin brutally killed in his wheelchair and Sally left to run through the woods. She makes it to the house where her friends were all killed where she sees an elderly body upstairs and is chased away to a gas station/food place. The owner drives her back to the house where we find that the hitchhiker, gas station owner, and Leatherface are all brothers, and the very much alive elderly man is their grandpa. Sally is to be killed with a hammer but when the family’s attempt to have the grandfather do it fails, and she escapes. When the hitchhiker and Leatherface chase her, the hitchhiker is killed after being struck by a truck and Leatherface is knocked down, injuring himself while Sally escapes in the back of truck screaming a mix of joy and insanity.
(Factometer 15%) Again, there isn’t much here. If you look at the Ed Gein side of things, he was alone in the acts that he committed and neither victim that he had while alive was able to escape. Gein was put in a mental hospital after a juryless trial where he would die in 1984 at the age of 77. The movie at least has a passing resemblance to the end of the Henley saga. While the main murderer Corll preferred men and teenage boys, Henley ended up bringing a girl to the house where the killings happened which made Corll turn on Henley. The woman in question while she was about to be murdered was able to convince Henley to stop and kill Corll and let them escape so we have a Sally avatar from real life. Henley called the police after two victims made it out safely and admitted to everything. Just like Gein and unlike Leatherface, Henley would not go on to have any sequels. He was tried for 6 murders of the boys he brought to Corll and he is still in prison today with his next parole opportunity being in 2025.
Well, we did it! We tackled the very untrue story of a purportedly true tale. Texas Chainsaw is still an all-time classic but if you want to watch anything based on the two inspirations for it to actually learn more you are much better off elsewhere. While there arent any big movies about the Houston Massacre, there was a loose adaptation called Freak Out from 2003. Gein has a few more options with the best being Deranged from 1974 but don’t sleep on the self-titled Ed Gein which is also known as In the Light of the Moon starring Steve Railsback from 2000. Nothing will ever take away from the original TCM even if some of its sequels tried their damnedest but if you’d like to explore the stories that inspired it, you best find another farm to explore.
A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Really Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To check out the other shows we have on the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel, head over to the channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Originally published at https://www.joblo.com/tcm-really-happened/
