It’s called Deranged (1974) and, in addition to its closer resemblance to true events, it also has the very noteworthy distinction of being the first released film work of the legendary special makeup effects magician Tom Savini. Eight months before Leatherface made his nauseating debut, a similarly themed and much more directly inspired Ed Gein tale hit theaters. But I’m not talking about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The film is also narrated by a deep-voiced journalist. In this film, the villain attacks his victims at his revolting family farm (decorated with human remains) and wears a mask made out of somebody else’s face. In 1974, an infamous and often imitated horror film inspired by the sick life of Ed Gein, was released to great shock and disgust. Fans would have to wait one more year for a truly scary and accurate Ed Gein flick to premiere. While this ultra-low budget shocker does contain many of the elements that have become slasher film staples, Three on a Meathook is a curiosity for the exploitation fan, but isn’t exactly an according-to-Hoyle classic. Thirteen years later, a much less artistic and successful film was released called Three on a Meathook (1973). The author was Robert Bloch, the book was Psycho (1959) and the acclaimed film that it inspired is commonly referred to as “Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho” (1960), one of the prime examples of the horror art film. Two years later that novel was published and only one year after that, its first film adaptation was released and is still hailed today as one of the best films ever made. Probably the first fictional story inspired by Gein was penned by a 40-year-old writer who lived less than one hour away from Gein at the time of his arrest. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was far from the first of these. Still, Gein’s really gross crimes had invaded the public consciousness enough to inspire books and movies about him. While I will grant that “ The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is a more interesting title than, say, “ The Wisconsin Cemetery Vandalism Cheese Acre”, that hardly makes the story real. Unlike Leatherface, Gein was a complete loner with no psychotic family to help him (everyone was already dead) and Gein lived his entire life (including the prison years) in Wisconsin.
Another slice of reality is that Gein was arrested in 1957, 16 years before the purported events of the first film. Although Gein is sometimes referred to as a “serial killer”, he was only ever proven to have killed two people (his crimes were more of the “grave robbing” sort), there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Gein ever used a chainsaw in his crimes and there is no evidence whatsoever that Gein had ever set foot in the great state of Texas at any point in his long life. So isn’t that proof in itself that “it’s all real”? He was a real-life killer whose escapades are legendary, even to the point that he was whispered about in the small town Louisiana schools I went to (he was known as “that mean old butcher”). First of all, yes, there really was a man named “Ed Gein” (that last name rhymes with “mean”, not “dine”) who served as the very loose inspiration for one character in Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel’s original 1974 fright fest The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Those movies, connected or otherwise, go a lot farther and deeper and span a lot more time than most fans (or haters) probably realize.īefore we delve into the myriad linked films in this quasi-saga, let’s begin with a little bit of reality.
Texas chain saw massacre true story series#
Not outside of a series of movies, anyway. Because The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or, as it was originally known, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) never happened. No, I don’t know that… and neither does anyone else. How dare I claim that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn’t real? What am I, stupid? Don’t I know that someone’s cousin twice removed knew a guy who knew the people who bought the house where all of those murders, like, actually happened? Don’t I realize that even if Tobe Hooper did make up the whole “Leatherface” story, that the exact same thing he filmed really did also happen in real life just by chance? Haven’t I read that this is all a matter of public record that somebody’s brother’s best friend’s uncle’s neighbor knew a guy who knew a guy who had a clipping from the newspaper about it? How could I not know this is real? For as long as I’ve been reviewing and writing about movies there has always been one subject that is the surefire method for evoking angry fan response.
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