The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an American horror franchise created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper . It consists of nine films, comics, a novel, and two video game adaptations. The franchise focuses on the cannibalistic spree killer Leatherface (who uses a chainsaw as his signature weapon ) and his family, who terrorize unsuspecting visitors to their territories in the desolate Texas countryside, typically killing and subsequently cooking them. The film series has grossed over $ 252 million at the worldwide box office.
49-630: Sally Hardesty is a fictional character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise . She made her first appearance in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) as a young woman investigating her grandfather's grave after local grave robberies—crossing paths with Leatherface and his cannibalistic family in the process. In this film and later in The Next Generation (1995), she was portrayed by Marilyn Burns . Olwen Fouéré
98-669: A Final Girl, as she does indeed endure, and it is this that makes her so noteworthy. Editor Stefano Lo Verme compared Burns' performance as Sally to the performances of Sandra Peabody as Mari Collingwood in The Last House on the Left (1972) and Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (franchise) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , released in 1974 , written and directed by Tobe Hooper ,
147-441: A financial success. Since its initial release, however, it has developed a cult following of its own. Unlike its predecessor, which combined minimal gore with a documentary-style nature, the sequel is a comedic horror film, filled with black humor and various gore effects created by make-up maestro Tom Savini . The film features an appearance by novelist Kinky Friedman as well as film critic Joe Bob Briggs . Briggs' cameo appearance
196-486: A news crew, before carrying out a new series of murders. A trailer for All American Massacre was released on the internet, but the film itself was never released. As of September 2024, the film has yet to ever release. In 2012, a continuation of the secret society subplot from The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre titled Butcher Boys was released in 2012, despite the film featuring no characters from
245-454: A reenactment of the dinner table sequence from the 1974 film. American singer Tinashe made an homage to the character in the music video to her 333 (2021) single " Naturally " in a sequence featuring the singer covered in blood and laughing maniacally in the back of a pickup truck . In October 2023, it was revealed at Toy Fair that Trick or Treat Studios would be releasing an action figure of Sally. In Making and Remaking Horror in
294-597: A sequel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995). He also wrote and co-produced the Eagle Pennell classic Last Night at the Alamo (1983) as well as the adaptation for Hooper's Eaten Alive (1977). Henkel returned to the horror genre in 2012 with another tale of cannibals titled Butcher Boys , which was co-directed by two of his former film students Duane Graves and Justin Meeks. Henkel had previously worked with
343-428: A series of local grave robberies. After visiting the abandoned Hardesty homestead, their friends are murdered by the cannibalistic Leatherface and his sadistic family. While searching for them, Leatherface appears and kills Franklin and Sally is pursued and captured. Bound at the family's dinner table, she breaks free and escapes. Although she does not physically appear in the following two sequels, Sally's aftermath from
392-432: A week into filming and were replaced with David Blue Garcia. Chris Thomas Devlin wrote the screenplay with the story by Fede Álverez and Rodo Sayagues . The film skipped a theatrical release and was instead released on Netflix , on February 18, 2022. The film received mostly negative reviews. An upcoming tenth film, Texas Chainsaw Legacy , is in development. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, when compared to
441-421: Is exempt) with the exception of Leatherface. The 1991 Leatherface miniseries was loosely based on the third Texas Chainsaw Massacre film . The writer of the miniseries, Mort Castle said: "The series was very loosely based on Texas Chainsaw Massacre III . I worked from the original script by David Schow and the heavily edited theatrical release of director Jeff Burr, but had more or less free rein to write
490-626: Is in fourth place with $ 779.5 million, followed by the Saw series with $ 688.3 million, and the Child's Play film series rounding out the list with $ 305.2 million. Stephen Hand wrote a novelization of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that was published March 1, 2004, by Black Flame . Several comic books based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films were published in 1991 by Northstar Comics entitled Leatherface . They were licensed as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Avatar Press for use in new comic book stories,
539-572: Is saved by Dr Loomis ( Donald Pleasance [ sic ]). Despite this, both Sally and Laurie combine to make manifest the key attributes of the Final Girl as both struggled, endured and, in Laurie's case, attacked their aggressor until they could escape and be saved. In the slasher films that followed in the wake of Chain Saw and Halloween, the Final Girl steadily gains in strength until she herself vanquishes
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#1733106618660588-422: The leading role of Sally. Burns stated, "I believed in this movie from the beginning." Burns hoped the role would launch her career, and although she was the central character, she feared her scenes would get cut during editing. Due to her prior experience working on film sets, most of the cast assumed Burns was a screen veteran. Filming was difficult for Burns. Her costume was so drenched with fake blood that it
637-502: The 1970s and 2000s: Why Don't They Do It Like They Used To? , David Roche contrasts Sally to Laurie Strode from the Halloween series stating: "All in all, Sally Hardesty and Laurie Strode have very little in common, apart from the fact that both characters survive the horror they have witnessed" and goes on to say that "Sally, the hippie, is very 'feminine' and not especially heroic: she undergoes intense suffering, attempts to sell her body, and seems to lose her mind. Sally is, in effect,
686-424: The 1974 film, as well as a cousin of Leatherface. According to Seth M. Sherwood, writer of the prequel Leatherface (2017), the eighth film is part of a continuity that consists of Leatherface , The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Texas Chainsaw 3D . Following the release of Leatherface , the producers had the rights to make five more Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. Producer Christa Campbell stated that
735-498: The 2003 remake was in flashback format, featuring an aged Sally recounting her experience with Leatherface to authorities; Burns had several conversations with the studio about reprising her role although this version of the film got scrapped. Olwen Fouéré was cast as Sally in David Blue Garcia's Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), a direct sequel to the original film, following the death of Burns in 2014. Before being cast, Fouéré
784-417: The chainsaw he wields. Although the film is marketed as a true story, it does not depict actual events, and is instead (as with the film Psycho ) inspired by notorious killer Ed Gein , who acted alone and did not use a chainsaw. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) is set 13 years after the events of the first film. Although it managed to recoup its relatively small budget, the film was not considered
833-459: The character of Sally by no means represents a feminist development, but her resilience does enable an anti-essentialist subtext to emerge to some extent". However, James Rose believes that Sally and Laurie have a lot of similarities, describing: Possibly the most significant impact Hooper's film has had upon the horror genre is its sustained trauma of Sally Hardesty. The juxtaposition of her terrible plight but eventual survival seemingly reconfigured
882-456: The events of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre and is in continuity with the original series. The film stars Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher , Moe Dunford , Nell Hudson , Jessica Allain , Olwen Fouéré , Jacob Latimore , and Alice Krige . In addition, Mark Burnham portrays an older Leatherface, replacing Gunnar Hansen , while Olwen Fouéré plays Sally Hardesty , replacing Marilyn Burns . Original directors, Ryan and Andy Tohill, were fired
931-516: The fate of the potential films would largely depend on the financial reception and perceived fan reactions regarding the 2017 prequel. Lionsgate and Millennium Films lost the franchise rights in December the same year due to the time it took to release it. Legendary Entertainment subsequently acquired the franchise's rights with interest in developing television and film projects. The ninth film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre , takes place 50 years after
980-428: The film, it does set out to answer the ambiguity of the subplot. In 2025, a haunted house attraction called Universal Horror Unleashed will feature characters from the film franchise. Kim Henkel Kim David Henkel (born January 19, 1946) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actor. He is best known for co-writing the horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with Tobe Hooper . Henkel
1029-451: The first film receives mention in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), which identifies her as Sally Hardesty-Enright . In the opening, the narrator states that Sally describes her traumatic encounter with Leatherface and his family as feeling like she had "broken out of a window in hell" and that she became catatonic after revealing her ordeal to the police. In the intro speech for Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990),
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#17331066186601078-467: The first horror-themed video games, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre caused controversy when it was released due to the violent nature of the video game and sold poorly as many video game stores refused to carry it. Wizard Video's other commercial release, Halloween , had a slightly better reception, but the limited number of copies sold has made both games highly valued items among Atari collectors. In 2006, HeroCraft with publisher MindMatics released
1127-506: The first of which was published in 2005. In 2006, Avatar Press lost the license to DC Comics imprint, Wildstorm , which has published new stories based on the films. However, in June 2007, Wildstorm changed a number of horror comics, including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , from monthly issues to specials and miniseries. The series of comics featured none of the main characters seen in the original film ( Topps Comics Jason vs. Leatherface series
1176-516: The five young protagonist friends in the original 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , her character dies in the 2022 reboot Texas Chainsaw Massacre from Leatherface chainsawing her in the stomach. The character made her cinematic debut in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on October 11, 1974. Created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper , in this film, Sally ( Marilyn Burns ) is a free-spirited young woman traveling across Texas with her brother Franklin and friends to investigate her grandfather's grave after
1225-421: The genre and created, as Clover has termed it, the character of the Final Girl. Yet, for all her endurance, Sally is not the first Final Girl but more a survivor who stands alongside Halloween ' s Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis); for as much as both survive, each, in the end, requires male intervention to fully save them from the narrative's male antagonist: Sally is rescued by a passing driver, while Laurie
1274-577: The group instead come upon a traumatized survivor who shoots herself in their van. The film gives Leatherface's background, a real name (Thomas Brown Hewitt), as well as a possible reason for his wearing masks, namely a skin disease which has caused his nose to rot away. The remake received a mixed critical response upon release, but was financially successful enough to lead to a prequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), which takes place in 1969. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman , written by Sheldon Turner and produced by Michael Bay, it explores
1323-408: The male antagonist. He goes on to state the difference between the two: It is this that prevents Sally from being a true Final Girl, for she (unlike Laurie and all the others that followed) never turns upon her aggressors and attacks them . Instead, she simply endures, runs from them and, by chance seizes an opportunity to escape. However, this is not to disagree with Clover's positioning of Sally as
1372-486: The mobile game Texas Chainsaw Massacre under license from New Line Cinema . At The Game Awards held in December 2021, a new game titled The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , based around the original film, was announced, to be released by Gun Interactive , the company behind Friday the 13th: The Game . The game was released for Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on August 18, 2023, also releasing on Xbox Game Pass on
1421-470: The most resisting body. As such, the character of Sally simultaneously enables the Family to attempt to assert its masculinity in the face of the abject female and contributes to the discovery of the instability of sexist patriarchal values by bearing witness to the way the Family's mimicry of patriarchy reveals its constructiveness; these two functions coalesce in the shots of Sally's eyes. I would, thus, argue that
1470-711: The narrator states that Sally died in a private health care facility in 1977. Burns briefly reprises the role in a non-speaking cameo appearance in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) as a patient on a gurney. Written by Henkel, he included Sally to convey "an emotional connection between the Sally character and the Jenny character, a kind of perverse passing of the torch". Sally returns in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). Olwen Fouéré
1519-588: The other top-grossing American horror series— A Nightmare on Elm Street , Child's Play , Friday the 13th , Saw , Scream , and Halloween —and adjusting for 2023 inflation, is next to last with $ 459.7 million, Halloween is the highest-grossing horror series in the United States at approximately $ 1.09 billion. Next in line is Friday the 13th at $ 908.4 million, followed by the Nightmare on Elm Street series with $ 793.5 million. The Scream film series
Sally Hardesty - Misplaced Pages Continue
1568-449: The pair as a producer on their debut feature The Wild Man of the Navidad . Most recently, he produced the horror film Found Footage 3D , which was released on the horror streaming service Shudder in 2017. He has been a lecturer in screenwriting at Rice University ; as well as Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi . This article about an American screenwriter born in
1617-422: The roots of Leatherface's family and delves into their past. Leatherface's first mask is featured, as well as the first murder he commits using a chainsaw. It grossed less than its predecessor and has received a largely negative reception from film critics. The seventh film, Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), is a direct sequel to the original 1974 film, and makes no reference to the events of the other sequels. The film
1666-430: The same day. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre content has been featured in the video games Mortal Kombat X , Dead by Daylight , Call of Duty: Modern Warfare , Call of Duty: Warzone , Rocket League and Fortnite . In 1998, filming began for All American Massacre , and was to be the series' fifth installment which would have served as both a sequel and prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 . The film
1715-418: The set, and she witnessed them getting kicked off. Burns knew of Hooper's previous work as a filmmaker, noting that as a young actress, she tried to make herself aware of as many filmmakers as possible. Shortly after this incident, Burns became a member of the newly formed Texas Film Commission and was aware that Hooper and Henkel were developing a film. Burns wanted to audition for them and ultimately got cast in
1764-478: The story the way it should have been told. The first issue sold 30,000 copies". Kirk Jarvinen drew the illustrations for the first issue, and Guy Burwell finished the rest of the series. The comics, not having the same censorship restrictions from the MPAA , featured much more gore than the finished film. The ending, as well as the fates of several characters, was also altered. An adaptation of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
1813-403: The tube of a malfunctioned prop. Burns' stage clothes were so drenched with fake blood that they were solid by the last day of shooting. The character has become a pop culture figure and is commonly referenced by film scholars when discussing the final girl theory; a trope for which Hardesty is credited for being the catalyst. Although the character Sally Hardesty is the lone survivor of
1862-449: The wake of their 1996 films Jerry Maguire and A Time to Kill respectively. The 2003 remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , directed by Marcus Nispel , written by Scott Kosar and produced by Michael Bay , is based on the events of the first film, but for the most part, it follows a different storyline. A major difference between the two films, for example, is that rather than picking up Leatherface's psychotic hitchhiker brother,
1911-695: Was born in Virginia and grew up in several small towns in South Texas . He began his university studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 1964 majoring in English . He graduated in 1969. Mutual friends introduced Henkel to Tobe Hooper and Henkel acted in Hooper's first feature film, Eggshells (1969). Henkel and Hooper co-wrote the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre screenplay. Henkel both wrote and directed
1960-494: Was cast in the sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). The character, renamed Erin Hardesty and played by Jessica Biel , also appeared in a remake of the original film in 2003. Filming was particularly challenging for Burns as she endured numerous injuries throughout the notoriously difficult shoot. In one such scene, Hansen cut her index finger with a razor due to the crew being unable to get theatrical blood to come out of
2009-448: Was directed by John Luessenhop , and written by Adam Marcus , Kirsten Elms, and Debra Sullivan. Texas Chainsaw follows a young girl named Heather, who is travelling to Texas with her friends to collect an inheritance from her deceased grandmother, whom she had never met. There, Heather discovers that she is part of the Sawyer family, who were killed by the townspeople following the events of
Sally Hardesty - Misplaced Pages Continue
2058-454: Was initially conceived as a 15-minute short, but was expanded to a 60-minute feature. It was directed by William Hooper, son of Tobe Hooper. Bill Moseley reprised his role as the character Chop Top , who would have been revealed to have survived the events of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and been in a Texas psychiatric prison for a number of years. The plot of the film would have centered on Chop Top detailing his past in an interview with
2107-470: Was not a commercial success, and New Line had no further involvement in the series. The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1995) is the fourth film in the original series. It received a limited release in 1995 through Columbia Pictures , and was given a limited re-release in 1997 under the new title Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation in hopes of capitalizing on the elevated public profiles of stars Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey in
2156-433: Was originally cut in editing, but was restored for the director's cut version of the film when it was released on DVD . Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is a 1990 follow-up to the previous two films. It stars Kate Hodge , Ken Foree , and Viggo Mortensen and was directed by Jeff Burr . At the time, this was considered to be the first of several sequels in the series to be produced by New Line Cinema , but
2205-507: Was planned by Northstar Comics, but never came to fruition. Thus far, three video games based on the franchise have seen release. In 1983, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , a mass-market video game adaptation of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released for the Atari 2600 by Wizard Video . In the game, the player assumes the role of Leatherface, and attempts to murder trespassers while avoiding obstacles such as fences and cow skulls. As one of
2254-501: Was recast as Sally following the passing of Burns in 2014. It is the first film since the original to feature Sally as a focal point, with her having a five-decade-long vendetta against Leatherface. Marilyn Burns , a former University of Texas drama student, was working as a stand-in for Blythe Danner and Susan Sarandon in the drama film Lovin' Molly (1974). Burns met writer Kim Henkel and director Tobe Hooper when they snuck on
2303-399: Was solid by the last day of shooting. Within two days after filming finished, she received a call to come back on the set and reshoot Sally's escape in the truck as something went wrong with the original footage. Burns was mentally and physically exhausted from the shoot. Burns stated the thing that upset her the most was nobody on the set ever praised her performance. The original script for
2352-502: Was the first and most successful entry in the series. It is considered to be the first of the 1970s slasher films , and originated a great many of the clichés seen in countless later low-budget slashers. Its plot concerns a family of cannibals living in rural Texas , who abduct customers from their gas station. The film's most notable character, Leatherface , is one of the most well-known villains in cinema history, notable for his masks made of human skin, his blood-soaked butcher's apron and
2401-591: Was unfamiliar with the series and was unaware of the popularity of the Sally character. In preparation, she studied Burns' expressions and physicality, although she wanted to create her version of a character living fifty years after a traumatic event. Hardesty was a featured character, alongside Leatherface , in Universal Orlando 's 2012 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Saw is the Law Halloween Horror Nights amusement park attraction—appearing during
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