Leatherface

Why do I find Leatherface likable and hilarious? What is wrong with me that I watch the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and find it strangely bemusing and charming? I understand that I am an unusual person by a lot of people’s definitions, but I am not (for the most part) evil. In real life, I am (for the most part) considerate and gentle. . . I swear I am! I don’t even like a lot of other horror movies, especially the more modern “torture porn” type of films like Saw or Hostel (especially Hostel! That movie’s gross!) So what is the appeal of TCM in general and Leatherface in particular? After careful and deliberate thought, I think I may have figured out this conundrum. . . for the most part.

What actually makes Leatherface special is how he differs from his later slasher breathren. Unlike the slashers that would come later, which all had some sort of supernatural basis (Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and all those lesser-known B-grade slashers), making them relentless forces of nature that can never be truly stopped, Leatherface is quite clearly a human being, even if he is a total maniac. He can be hurt, and he can actually be ourtrun. (In contrast, try to outrun Jason! He can casually walk behind you, with all the speed of a mall-walking grandmother, and still end up in front of you!) Also, Leatherface seems to have some actual relatable human emotions. After Sally’s boyfriend is the third to enter Leatherface’s house, and the third to get killed, Leatherface is obviously agitated and confused, peering nervously out of a window to see if any other dumb kids are going to waltz up to his house. What other slasher gets nervous?

You really get to see how human Leatherface is during the finale, where it is revealed that the Hitchhiker and the Old Man are Leatherface’s older brothers, and, in an interesting inversion, Leatherface becomes the abused rather than the abuser. One of the sickest laughs in the film is also one of my favorite lines in the movie, where the Old Man gets mad at Leatherface for his shenanigans with the teenagers, and he starts beating Leatherface with a stick after uttering the immortal line: “You. . . you damn fool! You ruined the door!” It is funny because it is such a non sequitur, but it also seems like a real response, like the kind of ironic priority an actual killer would have. This scene also makes sense of why Leatherface was nervous earlier. He’s not bothered about killing people; he just doesn’t want his older brother to abuse him for messing up the house. Instead of a soulless monster, we have here a human, twisted to be sure, but worried about his family relationships like all of us are.

The scene at the end where they go get Grandpa from upstairs to have a sick version of a family dinner with a tied-up Sally shows further Leatherface’s concern for his family. Watch carefully how tender and loving Leatherface is towards Grandpa, kissing him gently on the forehead at dinner and helping him patiently with the hammer as he tries limply to kill Sally at the end. Of course, it is a horrific scene, but it also has a psychological reality to it. To Leatherface, this is family night.

Leatherface, who before was an abstract horror concept, becomes a kid that has been abused since birth, an innocent child deformed emotionally by the madness of his family and physically by the unfortunate kink in his inbred genetics, a product of a family of horrors that he nonetheless loves and tries to protect. And isn’t this how a lot of maniacs start out in real life, as kids twisted into something terrible by their own kin? While not remotely redeemable, he is at least partially understandably human, and in a celluloid world of purely evil supernatural boogeymen, this humanity makes him safer and more accessible, yet also scarier. Other slashers are reassuringly fake, but Leatherface and his sick family are based in our world, where people are the monsters. After all, we will never face a magical murdering hobgoblin like Freddy, but we could go down the wrong road and get invited to dinner with Leatherface and his family. They’re out there somewhere, and that’s the real horror.

Copyright 2013 Brian Stacy Sweat