Born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Ed Gein lived most of his life as a reclusive loner. Since Vortex only owned half the film, with Parsley owning the other half, their shares were all sliced in half, which many of them apparently didn’t realize at the time. Happened around the late 1920's is think. Not outside of a series of movies, anyway. “I did a rack focus to the saws, and I thought, ‘I know a way I could get through this crowd really quickly.’ I went home, sat down, all the channels just tuned in, the zeitgeist blew through, and the whole damn story came to me in what seemed like about 30 seconds. And, while Gein was convicted of murdering two women, most of his crimes had to do with the fact that he stole corpses from the local cemetery. It feels like you’re actually watching a group of people going insane, and that’s because … well, maybe you are. Both Henry and Ed were strictly forbidden from having visitors and were punished for even making friends. “I thought he was going to have a coronary,” she said. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) & Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) The poster for the 2003 remake was sinister, dark and had genuine menace despite the somewhat sad eyes of Leatherface, this time played by Andrew Bryniarski in both movies. With the addition of an extra investment to help him finish post-production, Hooper had made the film for a little more than $80,000, and Bryanston acquired it for distribution for $225,000. “As you watch the film, notice there’s probably about two ounces,” Hooper later joked. They fought for and ultimately got the moment, and it remains the most beautiful composition in the film. According to both Hooper and Pearl, producers (namely Parsley, who visited the set often and feared the film would be a disaster) didn’t want them to spend time on the shot, as it was not a part of the storyboards they worked from for much of the film. “Two weeks later,” Hansen recalled, “the same guy calls and says, ‘The guy who was hired as the killer is holed up drunk in a motel and won’t come out. The opening narration, which promised that “The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths,” certainly helped that along, as did the original poster and its promise that “what happened is true!” Despite this clever aura, the tale of Leatherface and his deranged family is still a work of fiction, despite continued protestations from fans even decades later. Nowhere. Determined that would not happen again, his follow-up effort, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), would shake up the world of cinema, forever change the face of horror, and spawn a billion dollar franchise. Ed Gein and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Reel-Faces. As a large man who had to work every day in triple-digit heat while wearing a wool costume that he couldn’t change out of, Gunnar Hansen already had it rough while making The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He got so smelly by the end of production that the rest of the cast and crew avoided eating around him. Though his name would suggest a singular horrifying visage, Leatherface actually wears multiple masks in the film—the rationale being that they were the only way he could truly express himself. In 1974, director Tobe Hooper revolutionized horror with his film “inspired by a true story,” THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Not outside of … One of his most unnerving habits was to randomly laugh out loud as though someone had told a joke that only he could hear. At its best, its horrors … Even in 1973 it was a shoestring budget (John Carpenter’s famously low-budget Halloween was made for five times that amount a few years later), which meant little pay and long hours for the cast and crew. The idea actually came from a doctor I knew. The hitchhiker, the older brother at the gas station, the girl escaping twice, the dinner sequence, people out in the country out of gas.”. So, for my answer, and it is only what I have been told secondhanded from a supposedly read newspaper article, it did indeed take place, albeit many years ago, as the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" came out in, I believe, late 1970's early 1980's. Ed was the returned to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he died on July 26, 1984. Though it's easy to think of the film as a straight-up horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also belongs to the New Hollywood movement … Allegedly because Bryanston’s owners—Joe and Lou Peraino—were members of the Colombo crime family. Today's chainsaws show all a number of safety features to protect the operator. Gein was called the Butcher of Plainsfield (Wisconsin) and is known to have robbed bodies from graves and taken trophies, … Though the real crimes of Ed Gein did influence Hooper and Henkel in their writing, the idea that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is itself based on a true story is something that grew out of the marketing of the film. Frustrated and exhausted (this was during the 27-hour shooting marathon), Hansen ultimately stripped the tape off the knife when no one was looking and cut Burns for real. After the November 16, 1957 disappearance of hardware store owner Bernice Worden, police began to suspect Ed, who was the last person to see her alive. The scene in which Sally’s finger is cut so that her blood can be fed to Grandpa was supposed to rely on a very simple special effect. It just hit me that he was whiny.”. The Texas Chainsaw House is located in Kingsland, Texas, on the grounds of The Antlers Hotel. Though its teeth were removed for some shots, the saw Hansen wielded in the film was indeed a working chainsaw, and it sometimes put cast members in real danger. Born to an alcoholic father, George, and a fanatically religious mother, Augusta, Ed Gein suffered heavy psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his parents. “At this point I was so crazy that I just wanted to get the film over with,” he later said. Where did the "REAL" Texas Chainsaw Massacre Happen? Ed took odd jobs but remained reclusive and unsuspecting. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is NOT a true story. As he dragged the knife across Burns’s finger, Hansen was supposed to squeeze the bulb and pump the blood out to simulate the cut, but the tube kept clogging in take after take. The brothers were also reminded on an almost daily basis that they would never be loved by a woman. Years later, Hooper sarcastically referred to the experience as an “interesting summer.". It’s hard to imagine anyone but the massive Gunnar Hansen, who passed away in 2015, behind the Leatherface mask in the original film now, but he was apparently not the first person cast in the role. With no idea where the deadly power tool would land, Hansen just covered his head and hoped for the best. It was apparently the first time he had seen Hansen in full costume. On a further search of the property, authorities also found various human remains including a trashcan made out of a human skull, chairs covered in human skin, and skull bedposts. The best protection, even still, is experience. However, Gein lived in Wisconsin and he operated alone. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider a… Almost immediately after the film’s release, rumors began to circulate that there was an actual chainsaw wielding madman living with his deranged family in the town of Poth, Texas. Among the other remains, the police also found a corset, leggings, masks, and a dress all made from the skin of young women. Ed was born in 1906 and his brother Henry was born five years before. In the end, the cast saw very little money for their work. He was buried at the Plainfield Cemetery where his grave was routinely vandalized. When Hooper wanted the character to “squeal like a pig,” Hansen went out into the country and studied a friend’s pigs. Hooper will present The Texas Chainsaw Massacre this Friday, October 30 at the Alamo Drafthouse as a benefit screening for the Austin Film Society. See pics of the real Leatherface, Ed Gein, and watch the movie trailer. Although represented as a true story involving the ambush and killing of a group of pals on a cascade through rural while encountering a family of cannibals in Texas, the film is actually a work of fiction. From marathon shooting days to flying chainsaws to mafia money problems, here are 20 facts about one of the greatest slasher films of all time. That said, Texas is a big state and, sadly, we do have our share of serial killers, wackos, and dysfunctional families. “Six months, no check. This 1900s Victorian house was featured prominently in the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the home of Leatherface and his cannibalistic family, before it was moved to this location from Williamson County in 1998. Police found the remains of 15 bodies in his home which had been mutilated and turned into different items such as bowls, drums, knifes etc. The original location used as the house of Leatherface and his family was located in Williamson County, Texas, in what is now the Round Rock area. The idea of a mask made of human skin actually came to Hooper far more directly, and creepily. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a fictional story. In terms of ticket sales, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most profitable films of all time. It's a 1974 cult classic horror movie that spawned a series of sequels and remakes from 1984 to 2003. Then it was changed to the menacing working title of Leatherface. The inspirations for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are surprisingly diverse, ranging from director and co-writer Tobe Hooper’s attempt to make a modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel to real-life Wisconsin murderer and corpse defiler Ed Gein. 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was loosely inspired by a number of real-life events that caught the attention of Hooper. The real-life model for terrifying horror movie psychos like Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, and Norman Bates was a man named Ed Gein, whose actual exploits were even more shocking than the movie plots they inspired. While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is often seen as one of the most disturbing horror movies of the ‘70s, Tobe Hooper originally wanted the picture to be rated PG.Since the PG-13 rating wasn’t invented until 1984, Hooper wanted his film to be PG so that it could reach a wider audience.. Hooper asked Larroquette to imitate Orson Welles for his reading, and while he didn’t quite get that, what the actor ultimately provided worked wonders. His mother was overbearing. The blade of the saw was just inches from actor William Vail’s head for the scene in which Leatherface begins carving up Kirk’s body, and Hooper and Pearl had to carefully dance around Hansen to shoot the film’s final moments as Leatherface swings the saw around. For as much information I have poured into this web site, people still e-mail me asking me where/if it really happened. Although never proven, many suspect Ed played a role in his brother’s death. Fond of preaching from the Old Testament, Augusta instilled the fear of God as well as a fear of sexuality and a general mistrust of women in Ed and his brother Henry. “During the filming, none of them would talk to me or be anywhere near me until they were dead,” he later recalled. Partain’s commitment worked just as well behind the camera as it did in front of it. The then-dilapidated farm house originally sat on Quick Hill Road during the July–August 1973 filming of the movie.The original site is where La Frontera is now located, in Round Rock. Then the original Leatherface quit. “Before I came up with the chainsaw,” Hooper said, “the story had trolls under a bridge. Almost immediately after the film’s release, rumors began to circulate that there was an actual chainsaw wielding madman living with his deranged family in the town of Poth, Texas. Despite this, there was an actual skin-wearing maniac that was the film’s inspiration. In addition to the excessive heat and odor in the dining room during filming, the sequence was given another challenge: It had to be completed in a single day because John Dugan, the actor who played Grandpa, refused to endure the 10-hour process of getting his makeup applied a second time. We decided Leatherface would have a different human-skin mask to fit each of his moods.”. Still, it’s probably not as gory as you remember. With no real dialogue (apart from a gibberish scene that Hooper eventually cut) to drive his character, and his facial expressions hidden by a mask, Hansen had to come up with other ways to express who he thought Leatherface was. There’s a lot of bad karma surrounding this movie, and I’m quitting.’ So I called [art director] Bob Burns and told him I was interested.”. When he first heard that the film was being made, Hansen—then a graduate student in Austin—was told he’d be “great” for the role, but that it was already cast. Because of its low budget, many of the stars of Chainsaw took ownership shares in the film rather than a salary, but their shares were actually percentages of Vortex, the company set up by Henkel and Hooper to produce the film. Check Out This Killer Custom-Painted TEXAS CHAINSAW VCR! "You didn’t have to stay in character all the time. To make matters a little more difficult, though, he also dealt with an interesting character technique that his victims engaged in. The producers eventually took Bryanston to court, but by then the distributor’s financial situation was so dire that they had no demonstrable assets to sue for. The concept for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came to Hooper in the early '70s, as he was directly inspired by much of the … This behind-the-scenes observance actually produced some intense onscreen results. The brothers apparently got into the film business in the first place after muscling away the rights to another classic ‘70s cult film: Deep Throat. Learn the true story behind the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs. Thanks to the rural location of the home, and it's natural eerie look, the house was a shoe-in for the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and it ended up playing the part of Leatherface's abode. It’s called the Grand Central Café, and though the owners proudly include its cinematic heritage on their website, you won’t find any human bones as part of the décor. Virtually no member of the cast went uninjured, and the heat and stench got so punishing at one point that the actors would run to the windows of the house where the dinner scene was shot to throw up and breathe a little fresh air between takes. The story is VERY LOOSELY based upon Ed Gein, a man from Plainfield, Wisconsin in the 1950's, who murdered only a few women and used parts of their bodies for clothing and furniture. He used to visit screenings of the film at Austin’s Village theater, wait for his scenes to come up, and then tap viewers on the shoulder and watch them freak out. Hansen himself ended up with the closest near-miss of the film, though: During the chase scene in which Leatherface pursues Sally through the woods at night, Hansen slipped and fell, sending the saw flying into the darkness. Classmates remember Ed as being reclusive with strange habits. Ed Gein found himself the subject of many interpretations. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre True Story. The answer to these questions is that the leading character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is loosely based on the real life man, Ed Gein. That probably means you did something right. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American slasher film directed by Tobe Hooper and written and co-produced by Hooper and Kim Henkel. For all its brutality, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also made use of the natural beauty of its location to produce some truly stunning images, including one shot that almost didn’t happen. To make matters worse, the production endured a Texas summer with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees (including 115-degree heat for the un-air conditioned interior shots), a single bathroom shared by more than three dozen people, costumes that could not be changed because the actors only had one set of clothes, and the constant presence of the bones and rotting meat used as props. Despite its reputation for gruesome mutilation and gore, much of the violence in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is suggested rather than directly depicted. The film’s menacing opening narration is an instant tone-setter, preparing the audience for a truly horrifying experience. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. While shooting at Leatherface’s house, Hooper and cinematographer Daniel Pearl conceived a shot that would track under the swing in the yard and follow Pam (Teri McMinn) at a low angle as she walked toward the house, which would grow menacingly in the background until it towered over her. This seems to be the question that will not go away. After inspiration struck, Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel hammered out a script over several weeks and gave it the eerie title Head Cheese (named for the scene in which the hitchhiker details the process of how that particular pork product is made). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a fictional story. It wasn’t until a week before shooting was set to begin that the eventual title arrived, suggested to Hooper and Henkel by Warren Skaaren, then head of the Texas Film Commission, who’d helped the project get financing. If there ever was any "chainsaw massacre" of any kind, anywhere, it is totally unrelated, completely coincidental and had no bearing or impact on Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's creative process during the production of their 1974 film. Homeless Person Living In Person’s Cabinet, The Strange Surreal Sculptures Of Shary Boyle. The 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been touted with the tagline “Inspired by a true story,” leading many horror fans to wonder whether the … Ed was arraigned on November 21, 1957 where he pleaded “not guilty” by reason of insanity. There's Someone In The House! To make matters more complicated, Bryanston Distributors—which acquired the film for release in late 1974—was declaring revenue for the film was much, much lower than the millions it raked in at drive-ins and midnight shows. Augusta’s strict biblical teachings were extremely instrumental in shaping Ed’s attitude towards women. Because The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or, as it was originally known, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) never happened. On November 7, 1968, doctors determined that Ed was capable of standing trial, and he was found guilty on November 14th. The inspired events were also said to have taken place on August 18th, 1973. Nothing was found and on the records, it was concluded that the massacre Sally described did not happen. “I’ve had people say ‘I knew the original Leatherface,’” Gunnar Hansen, who played the killer character, recalled. Because of its realism and “true story” marketing, Texas Chainsaw created the opportunity for some interesting encounters between fans and cast members. However, a second trial regarding his sanity found that he was once again not guilty by reason of insanity. He may not have had a chainsaw, but serial killer Ed Gein was a key inspiration for the infamous Leatherface. Robert Bloch used him as inspiration for his 1959 novel PSYCHO, which went on to be adapted for the screen in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film of the same name. Sort of. The film went on to earn $12 million at the box office in its first year, according to Variety, but Bryanston ultimately claimed only about $1 million of that. And he didn't get in a chainsaw duel with Dennis Hopper, as Leatherface does in the so-bad-it's-bad Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 (above), which also claims to be based on "real events." "There were these big Christmas crowds, I was frustrated, and I found myself near a display rack of chain saws. Police searched the family farm where they found Bernice’s decapitated body hanging upside down inside the barn. The film does make a connection with the crimes of Ed Gein. Ed Gein was one of two sons born to George and Augusta Gein. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was produced on a budget of $60,000 raised by Bill Parsley, a Texas Tech administrator and former member of the Texas Legislature who fancied himself a film producer. “He announced that he was not sitting through it again,” Hooper said. Never mind flying under the radar. The cemetery from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in November 2011 The cemetery scenes were filmed at the Bagdad Cemetery in Leander, Texas, at the intersection of North Bagdad Rd at Old Farm to Market Rd 2243, Leander, TX 78641. For example, when Jerry (Allen Danzinger) discovers Leatherface’s slaughter room and then meets the man himself, the scream he lets out is genuine. Hidden away on the family’s secluded farm, the family kept to themselves. Ed remained on the family farm, boarding up his mother’s room to ensure that it would remain just as she had left it on the day she died. 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