The film you are about to see is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Classic. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a brilliant, bloody, goretastic piece of horror film nostalgia. That opening narration alone sets the course of cinema history and has inspired plenty of copycats to this day. In an age of information and research at your finger tips, people still believe it to be true. For a few of you this will come as a shock, but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a work of fiction. Or was it?
Like most great works of fiction, there are some basis of truth into the story of the Sawyer family and old Leatherface himself. It all starts in the little town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. Now now, I know what you all are thinking, "Wisconsin?? come on Dora, we didn't come here to hear about some cheese head up in dairy land. We came here to hear about that Texas boy Leatherface!" Well, we wouldn't have the likes of Leatherface without the tale of murderer Ed Gein. Shoot, we wouldn't have Leatherface, Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, Norman Bates from Psycho, and many more horror legends.
The Mad Butcher as he was called confessed to killing two women. Now that does not seem like enough to go down in infamy along with other famous murderers. It was his other deeds that earned him the fame and title. He would exhume freshly buried corpses, particularly female, take them home, tanned their skins and make all kinds of artifacts from the remains. Furniture, lamp shades, belts, and the famous articles of wear made from female skin. He was working on a full body suit made from his lady victims. that includes many masks made from the skins of female heads. Sound familiar? If you want to learn more about Ed Gein, there is plenty of works out there on him. He even has a few horror movies of his own. So, let's get back to why we're here. That little movie from Texas that shook the horror world.
With the Halloween season coming upon us, I decided to take a trip to see what and if any locations were left from the movie. Then I figured what the heck, try and see the 2003 remake locations as well, since it too was shot in Texas. Now I did this trip as one big day trip travelling from the Dallas area. It is possible, even from my distance to see these in one day, but I would recommend splitting it into two. for the purpose of daylight and time to enjoy a few other sights. If you are in the Austin area, well every site here is a stones throw away. you can easily visit every one in a day or spread out to different weekends. Now I do plan on revisiting and exploring some different sites at a later date, but for this trip I focused on these locations. I ran out of daylight after some delays with traffic and construction.
- The original 1974 House - 1010 King Ct, Kingsland, TX
- 1974 Gas Station - 1073 TX-304, Bastrop, TX
- 2003 House - 901 336 Country Rd. Granger, TX
- 2003 Gas Station - 18726 Cameron Rd. Manor, TX
- Location of the 1974 original Chainsaw - Tattoo Ranch - 108 W Exchange Ave, Fort Worth, TX
- 1974 Film Cemetery - Bagdad Cemetery CR 279 Leander, TX