Leatherface is a fictional character from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. He first appeared in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) as the mentally disabled member of a family of deranged cannibals, featuring his face masks and chainsaw. Created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel, Leatherface was partially inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein. The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, and comic books; appearing in all nine films in the franchise.
Actor Gunnar Hansen was the first and most well-known actor to portray the character, later going on to become a vocal advocate for the character. Since Hansen's portrayal of Leatherface, numerous other actors and stuntmen have assumed the role of the character throughout the series.
The character's physical appearance and personality have gone through many transformations over the years, with various writers and special makeup effects artists leaving their mark on the character and his design. Unique among horror villains, in which most antagonists of the genre are usually classified as sadistic or evil, Leatherface is characterized as committing his brutal acts as a means of following his family's orders, while also killing out of fear. Leatherface has gradually become a widely recognized figure in popular culture, gaining a reputation as a cultural icon within the horror genre. He has been credited as one of the most influential characters of the slasher genre for inspiring the stereotype of the hulking, masked, and silent killer, predating and even influencing horror characters such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Chucky, and Ghostface.
Leatherface has since been parodied and referenced in novels, feature films, games, and television series; in addition to being an inspiration for many artistic outlets, fictional characters, heavy metal bands, and wrestling gimmicks.
Appearances
Leatherface is the only character to appear in all nine films in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, with later films exploring different aspects of him, while changing the overall history of the character and his family. Following his first appearance on the silver screen, Leatherface has appeared in various other entertainment mediums, which include comic book lines, novelizations, and video games; each appearance expands upon the universe created by the films.
Films
Leatherface made his first appearance in the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974. Here, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) is depicted as wearing the human skin of his victims as a mask. He and his family capture and murder a group of teenagers one-by-one as they trespass upon their property. The character's second appearance was in the 1986 sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. The film reveals that Leatherface (Bill Johnson) and his family have been on the run, and are being hunted by the uncle of a previous victim. Leatherface and most of his family are seemingly killed when a grenade detonates in their hidden lair. In Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), Leatherface (R.A. Mihailoff) appears alongside new family members as they capture a young couple when they get lost on the back roads of Texas. Leatherface is eventually knocked unconscious and left to drown in a bog. He is later revealed to have survived, emerging from the bog with his chainsaw. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), a group of teenagers attending their high school prom stumble across Leatherface and his adoptive family; all but one are killed.
Leatherface returns in the 2003 remake of the original film. Here, Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) and his family murder a group of teenagers. Leatherface loses one of his arms in a fight with one of the teens, before killing several police officers investigating his family home. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) provides a backstory to how Leatherface and his family became cannibals. It also details why Leatherface wears a mask of human flesh; as a young man, he purchased such a mask from a caravan of Scythian nomads. Throughout the film, Leatherface (Bryniarski) and his family torture and murder two couples as they drive through Travis County, Texas.
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), is a direct sequel to the original 1974 film. Picking up 40 years after the original, Leatherface (Dan Yeager) has been living in seclusion. It is only when his newly discovered cousin Heather (Alexandra Daddario) arrives that Leatherface emerges to commit a new string of murders. A prequel to the original film, titled Leatherface, was released in October 2017. It centers on Leatherface/Jedidiah (Sam Strike) being institutionalized after his family murdered the daughter of law enforcement officer. He escapes the mental hospital years later. Jedidiah suffers extensive physical trauma to his face by law enforcement. He eventually kills them, and uses their skin to craft his first face mask to hide his disfigured face.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) also served as a direct sequel to the original film. Picking up several decades after the original film, the story focuses on an aging Leatherface (Mark Burnham), living in relative peace with an elderly woman named Virginia "Ginny" McCumber (Alice Krige). When an altercation with a group of young adults leaves Ginny dead from a heart attack, he finally snaps. Fashioning a new mask out of Ginny's face before retrieving his old chainsaw, he begins slaughtering members of the group, gaining the attention of Texas Ranger Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), the sole survivor of his original killing spree. After slaughtering many people, including Sally, Leatherface returns to the house where the original 'massacre' began.
Literature Leatherface's first foray away from the silver screen was in 1991, with Northstar Comics' four-issue miniseries Leatherface. This was a loose adaptation of the 1990 film Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III written by novelist Morton Castle. The miniseries followed the basic storyline of the film, with additional insight into Leatherface's mental state, as well as modifying character and plot elements to be different from that of the film. In 1995, Nancy A. Collins wrote a three issue, non-canonical miniseries involving a crossover between Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th series and Leatherface. In the story, Jason meets Leatherface, who adopts him into his family after the two become friends before turning on each other.
In 2004, a novelization of the 2003 remake was released. It was based on one of the film's earlier drafts, containing plot points that were discarded from the film's final draft, including Leatherface's murder of Jedidiah, one of his younger family members who had decided to help Erin escape. In 2005, Avatar Press began publishing a comic books based on the 2003 remake continuity. Leatherface made his official appearance in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special #1, a one-shot comic, centering on a group of three escaped convicts who rob the Hewitt family General store, bringing them into direct conflict with Leatherface and his family. In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Grind, a three-issue miniseries where Leatherface and the rest of the Hewitt family terrorize and kill a group of choir students and teachers whose bus breaks down near the Hewitt residence. Leatherface appears in Avatar's final one-shot comic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fearbook, which features Leatherface killing a group of cross-country travelers, with the exception of one girl, who is forced to wear the face of her dead friend and dance with Leatherface.
From January to June 1, 2007, WildStorm began publishing a six-issue series titled "Americanivore". Set one year after the events of the 2003 film, Leatherface and his family are hunted by the FBI led by agent Baines who seeks to avenge the death of his niece Pepper. Leatherface is also being tracked by a television news crew who attempts to capture him on film. The series climaxes in a bloody standoff, leaving most of the news crew and pursuing agents dead, and the sole surviving crew member escaping with Leatherface's chainsaw. On July 18, 2007, the company released The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: About A Boy, which chronicles Leatherface's journey through adolescence, and what it was like growing up with kids his own age. In Wildstorm's one-shot The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Cut!, Leatherface comes across a group of independent filmmakers, thirty years after the events of the 2003 remake, who are making a documentary about the Hewitt family.
A three-issue limited series, titled Raising Cain, was published by WildStorm in late 2008. The story centered on twins Cain and Abel, who are born into the Hewitt family, with their mother wanting her children to escape the family's blood-soaked heritage, bringing her and the twins into conflict with Leatherface and the rest of his family. Leatherface made a brief appearance in New Line Cinema's Tales of Horror anthology, published by WildStorm, which features Leatherface and the Hewitt family meeting a traveling salesman who tries to sell them chainsaws.
Video games Leatherface made his video game debut in the controversial 1982 video game adaptation of the first film released on the Atari 2600 by Wizard Video. In the game, the player assumes the role of Leatherface as he attempts to murder trespassers, all the while avoiding obstacles such as fences and cow skulls.
Leatherface also appears as a playable character in the 2015 fighting games Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat Mobile as a downloadable content bonus character. He was added alongside other horror icons such as Jason Voorhees, Predator, and Xenomorph.
He was added as a downloadable playable killer for Dead by Daylight in September 2017, utilizing his signature chainsaw and sledgehammer as weapons. Taken shortly after Sally's escape in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre film, he begins to panic at the thought of his family's atrocities being exposed to the police. Amid his trepidation, he is taken to the universe of Dead by Daylight by a supernatural force known as "The Entity".
He has made appearances as an Operator in the Call of Duty franchise with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone.
The character appears in the 2023 asymmetrical survival horror game The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which was developed by Gun Media and is based on the original 1974 film. In the game, players begin a match by taking the role of either a family member or a victim, with a total of three family members, which includes Leatherface, and four victims being playable for a total of seven players per match. The main objective for Leatherface is to use his chainsaw to hunt down the four victims and make sure they do not escape the match.
Leatherface was included as an unlockable skin in Fortnite during 2024's edition of their Fortnitemares event.
Concept and creation Created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel, the concept for Leatherface was developed while Hooper worked as an assistant film director at the University of Texas at Austin and as a documentary cameraman during the late 1960s. During this period, Hooper had grown increasingly disillusioned by what he referred to as the "lack of sentimentality and the brutality of things" witnessing the graphic and dispassionate violence depicted in the news at the time. This led Hooper to believe that "man was the real monster here, just wearing a different face", a belief that he later instilled into the character. According to Henkel, making Leatherface human instead of a typical monster made the character more frightening, stating "the only genuinely frightening thing to people is [other] people".