The first Texas Chain Saw Massacre (yes, “chainsaw” was spelled as two words in the 1974 classic’s title) claimed to be based on true events, but the truth is a bit murkier (and potentially even darker) than fiction. Keep reading (if you dare) to find out whether Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a true story, but please be warned that the information you are about to read is disturbing and likely triggering for many.
Is Texas Chainsaw Massacre a true story?
Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper has said that some details of the murders themselves, including Leatherface’s iconic skin mask, were based on the murders of serial killer Ed Gein. Gein murders are believed to have taken place between 1954 and 1957; however, Gein was based in Wisconsin, not Texas. “My relatives that were based in a town close to Ed Gein told me these terrible stories, these tales of human skin lampshades and furniture and such as that. A little bit of grave-robbing, I think,” Hooper (a native Texan) said, adding that he grew up with Gein as a bogeyman figure in “campfire tales,” but that he didn’t know much about the murderer’s real story. Judge Robert H. Gollmar, who presided over Gein’s trial, wrote a book about the case called Edward Gein: America’s Most Bizarre Murderer, detailing the horrors found in Gein’s home, including heads, bones and bodies of murder victims; human skulls; and masks, bowls, chair covers, leggings and lampshades made of human skin. Gein, a prolific grave robber, was eventually only tried and convicted of two actual murders, leaving questions as to whether the remains in his home were from bodies he’d illegally exhumed or from other victims that went undiscovered. Gein was found guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life in the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. Besides serving as the basis for Texas Chainsaw’s Leatherface character, he’s also been cited as the inspiration behind the Norman Bates character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
Where did the real chainsaw massacre happen?
Gein’s crimes were committed in and near his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin—he was notoriously known in real life as the “Butcher of Plainfield”—but as far as the world knows, no actual chainsaws were involved in his killings. Leatherface was reportedly also inspired by Elmer Wayne Henley. Henley was a teen when serial killer Dean Corll hired him and David Owen Brooks to help him lure, rape and murder teenage boys. Frequently referred to as The Houston Mass Murders, at least 28 boys fell victim to the group before Henley shot Corll to death and confessed to his role in the slayings of the other boys. The group’s modus operandi for murder, however, reportedly never involved chainsaws, with the murderers opting for strangulation. At age 18, Henley was sentenced to six 99-year prison terms. Brooks, also sentenced to 99 years, died in May 2020 while suffering from COVID-19.
Was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre based on a real family?
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre features the cannibalistic and murderous Sawyer family, but they aren’t based on any one group of actual people. That said, Gein, like Leatherface, had a bizarre fixation with his mother that also partially inspired the Norman Bates character in Psycho.
Was Leatherface based on a real person?
Leatherface was largely based on Gein, right down to the skin mask. Texas Chain Saw Massacre co-writer Kim Henkel, however, explained to Texas Monthlythat Gein wasn’t alone in being a lurid muse. “I definitely studied Gein, but I also noticed a murder case in Houston at the time, a serial murderer you probably remember named Elmer Wayne Henley. He was a young man who recruited victims for an older homosexual man,” Henkel recalled. “I saw some news report where Elmer Wayne… said, ‘I did these crimes, and I’m gonna stand up and take it like a man.’ Well, that struck me as interesting, that he had this conventional morality at that point. He wanted it known that, now that he was caught, he would do the right thing. So this kind of moral schizophrenia is something I tried to build into the characters.”
Who was the real Texas Chainsaw Massacre killer?
There was never a real Texas Chainsaw Massacre (thankfully, yet). The murderous family in the film franchise is loosely based on Gein and Henley.
Is Ed Gein still alive?
No, Gein is dead, and that’s likely much better for the rest of us who hope to sleep at night. Gein died in July 1984 at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. Henley is still alive, but will be in prison until he is not. Next, check out these classic horror movies that are still terrifying today.
