Summary
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - the reason I never let the gas tank drop below half and the reason I never pick up hitchhikers. I already knew not to wander into strangers' houses uninvited. Sally Hardesty, her brother Franklin, and a few of their friends learn all these lessons a wee bit too late and so run afoul of everyone's favorite human-skin-wearing craft enthusiast - Leatherface - and his entire demented family, most of whom never got over it when the local slaughterhouse closed down.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
This is, hands down, the most fascinating family of psychopaths ever to grace the silver screen. (I of course use the word "grace" lightly in reference to this group, though Leatherface does perform an enchanting pas de deux with his chainsaw at the end of the movie.)
The most obvious first question is - where are their parents? These three men live with their incredibly ancient grandfather, who hovers perpetually on the brink of the grave, and what I presume to be the corpse of their grandmother. Did their father run off and abandon them to the care of their mother and her parents? Did the mother's subsequent death drive her sons over the edge and into homicidal madness? Alternately, perhaps each man has a different father, (a theory corroborated both by their physical dissimilarities and by their very different temperaments) - transients who took advantage of their mother and then moved on, perhaps never knowing that they had left a son behind. This might explain the family's raging hatred and mistrust of strangers.
Or are these perhaps their paternal grandparents? Did their mother die in childbirth? (Leatherface cannot have been an easy delivery. Perhaps at this time he also suffered his evidently severe brain damage.) Distraught over the loss of his beloved wife, did their father, blaming his sons, mistreat and torment them until their rage spilled over and they murdered their own progenitor?
It is even possible that the eldest brother is, himself, the father of the other two by his own mother, though this still leaves unanswered the questions of her fate and the fate of Drayton's original father (unless, in an even more convoluted series of incestuous breedings, that father is his own grandfather.)
The theory that I prefer, however, is that both parents abandoned them, perhaps out of sheer selfishness because Leatherface was such a trying child to care for, but more probably because they noticed the burgeoning homicidal tendencies in their sons and feared for their own safety. I suspect that this is the correct hypothesis because the men do not appear to be in possession of the corpse of either parent. If said corpses were available (whether they met their ends through natural causes or through foul play) I cannot but imagine that they would be safely interred in the attic with Granny. It may well be that these parents are still alive somewhere, horrified by the reports of their sons' violent deeds, but unable to come forward and turn their feared yet beloved sons over to the police and an almost certain sentence of death.
Whatever the ultimate fate of the mother of this brood of crazies, it is clear that Leatherface, at least, was deeply affected by her loss. He keenly feels the absence of and necessity for a strong female presence in the household. It is his mother's vacant place he is attempting to fill by coming to dinner in makeup and a dress. It may, in fact, be her clothing he dons for special occasions (although unless his mother was an unusually tall and portly woman, he probably had to make some alterations), her makeup he so clumsily and poignantly applies to his trademark mask of human skin. Does Leatherface even know, on these occasions, that he is not, in truth, the woman he is seeking to imitate? The inarticulate grunts, which are his only means of communication, make it hard to assess accurately the depths of his seeming schizophrenia. It is even possible that he believes himself, at different times, to be each of his two parents - his mother when he entertains company and when he cares for the household while his brothers are at work (not that being a professional psychotic hitchhiker is a very lucrative career path, but that's neither here nor there), his father when he brings home meat to feed his family. Perhaps the true answer to the mystery of his parents' disappearance lies here - both have been absorbed into Leatherface, thereby negating their own physical existences. Leatherface has sucked up their essences because he has none of his own, just as he wears the face of another, because perhaps, underneath, he himself has no face at all. He is a swallower of souls as well as a destroyer of bodies. Astoundingly, I suspect he has no real understanding that he is doing either. He lacks the mental capacity to appreciate the significance of his absorption of his parents' personae (And why would he have deliberately brought about the destruction of the woman he was so clearly deeply attached to?) and he hunts and kills human beings exactly the way he would kill cattle in a slaughterhouse. I doubt he understands that he is not killing cattle and if he does, he fails to see the moral distinction. Like Lovecraft's blind idiot god Azathoth, Leatherface is malignant and destructive beyond the powers of human comprehension, not deliberately, but because that is his natural state of being.
Yet, on the flip side of the coin, Leatherface is not merely a destroyer, he is a creator as well. His furniture, his lampshades, his birdcages are all unique and fascinating works of art. As a matter of fact, it is only through destruction and killing that he is able to acquire the materials (skin, bones, etc.) that he needs to craft his masterpieces. Perhaps in his own mind he is no killer at all, but an alchemist, slaughtering the mundane to bring about the sublime. I'm also extremely jealous of his spacious workshop.
The other member of this family who fascinates me is Grandpa. (I'm not saying I don't like Drayton and the hitchhiker (I mean, I wouldn't want to hang out with them, but they're fine for horror movie killers.), but they lack the intriguing mysteries of character which draw me to Leatherface and his grandfather (again, as interesting specimens of cinematic madmen, not as potential dinner dates.) For many years, Grandpa held a respectable job in the slaughterhouse; he was apparently good at his job and took pride in it. He must have behaved fairly normally, functioned tolerably well in society. Franklin and Sally's grandfather apparently worked alongside him at the slaughterhouse and lived within shouting distance of Grandpa's house without noticing anything out of the ordinary. I therefore conclude that Grandpa probably lived most of his life as a sane, normal man. Is it possible that he is sane and normal still? He cannot feed himself, dress himself, or move about his own house without the assistance of his maniacal descendants, so he seems to be complicit in their activities, but is there really any evidence of this? Isn't it just as likely that his life is a constant torment, watching the atrocities committed by his grandsons without being able to prevent them? Could any existence be more hellish? Imagine knowing yourself to have brought into the world three of the most demonic, destructive murderers in American history, being forced to watch as they slaughter innocent after innocent, lacking the strength to protest, to stop them, lacking even the strength to end your own miserable life! I think Grandpa is one of the most tragically misunderstood characters in horror movie history. Sally's abominable experience is but a drop of blood in the veritable ocean of gore that Grandpa has endured.
BARBARA JO
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