The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a saga so embedded in the modern-day horror genre, that it’s almost difficult to imagine a future without it.
Of course, we know that Hollywood is partial to rebooting/resurrecting a dormant horror franchise for a new generation – think of Andy Muschietti’s It, Friday the 13th and, to a lesser extent, Jigsaw – and come October, directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo will carve out a new chapter in the storied history of TCM in the form of Leatherface.
It’s a prequel to Tobe Hooper’s genre classic of 1974, when a group of unsuspecting teens stumbled upon a cannibal family and Leatherface himself, the serial killer famed for wearing a mask made of human skin. Gnarly stuff, by anyone’s standards, and at least based on these new photos for the film, which come to us by way of Bloody Disgusting, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise hasn’t lost its appetite for blood, as a couple of them are certainly a bit gruesome.
Pitched as “a brutal and nihilistic road movie,” that sense of legacy isn’t lost on the directors, who are working from a script by Seth M. Sherwood. On paper, this is a project bursting at the seams with blood-curdling potential, and casting-wise, we know that Stephen Dorff (Blade), Vanessa Grasse, Sam Strike, and Lili Taylor (The Conjuring) are along for the ride, which takes place years before the spine-chilling events of the 1974 original.
In Texas, years before the events of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in the early days of the infamous Sawyer family, the youngest child is sentenced to a mental hospital after a suspicious incident leaves the sheriffs’ daughter dead. Ten years later, he kidnaps a young nurse and escapes with 3 other inmates. Pursued by authorities including the deranged sheriff out to avenge his daughter’s death, the young Sawyer teen goes on a violent road trip from hell, molding him into the monster known now as Leatherface.
Leatherface will be available first via DirecTV on September 21st, before Lionsgate launches Julian Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s nightmarish prequel into select theaters on October 20th.