A Boy and His Chainsaw
Every legend needs an origin story, and every origin story apparently needs a chainsaw. Leatherface (2017), directed by French gore artists Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, dares to do what few prequels attempt: make you feel sorry for a man who one day will wear someone’s face like a birthday hat. It’s the kind of idea that sounds terrible in a boardroom and somehow turns into something weirdly poetic on screen.
This is the eighth entry in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise—yes, the eighth—and miraculously, it’s not a total massacre of the audience’s patience. Instead, Leatherface revs up as a twisted road movie, part Bonnie & Clyde, part backwoods Shakespearean tragedy, all covered in a fine mist of blood and barbecue sauce.
The Chainsaw Starts with a Whimper
Set in 1950s Texas, the film opens with the Sawyer clan doing what they do best: turning dinner into a crime scene. A kindly couple stops to help what they think is a wounded child, only to become the main course at the worst family gathering since Thanksgiving with your in-laws. The victim’s father, Sheriff Hartman (Stephen Dorff, grizzled and furious), vows vengeance by snatching little Jed Sawyer and tossing him into the local youth asylum—because when you want to stop a budding serial killer, the best move is to surround him with several dozen more.
Ten years later, the asylum erupts in chaos, because of course it does, and the breakout pairs Jed (now renamed “Jackson” to protect his anonymity) with a sweet nurse named Elizabeth, a giant gentle lunatic named Bud, and two homicidal lovebirds who seem to think Natural Born Killers is a how-to guide. The group escapes into a blood-soaked road trip through Texas, leaving behind a trail of corpses and diner specials. Somewhere along the way, the boy who could’ve been saved becomes the man who will never stop killing.
The French Know Their Meat
Let’s give credit where it’s due: directors Maury and Bustillo (Inside, Livid) bring a European art-house sensibility to American grindhouse madness. The violence here isn’t the gleeful splatter of earlier Texas Chainsaw entries—it’s dirty, tragic, and sometimes almost tender, like a love letter written in blood. The cinematography by Antoine Sanier captures the rural desolation with painterly rot: golden fields that hide corpses, sunsets that look like open wounds, and asylum walls that could double as family portraits.
The directors understand that horror isn’t about noise—it’s about the quiet before the noise. The film’s best scenes are the still ones, when you can almost hear the flies buzzing around fate’s carcass.
Stephen Dorff: Sheriff of Bad Ideas
Stephen Dorff deserves an honorary badge for overacting in the best possible way. His Sheriff Hartman is less a man and more a human embodiment of vengeance issues and nicotine. He’s not interested in law; he’s interested in revenge that looks like law. Dorff chews the scenery like it owes him alimony, delivering every line as if he’s seconds away from punching the script.
Opposite him is Lili Taylor as Verna Sawyer, the family matriarch who could make a casserole out of human tragedy. Taylor’s performance is both chilling and oddly maternal, like June Cleaver if she hosted True Crime Kitchen. Her scenes with Jed are disturbingly touching—proof that you can nurture love, even if it’s the kind that comes with power tools.
Leatherface: The Boy Who Lost His Face
Sam Strike’s portrayal of young Jed/Leatherface is the secret engine of the movie. He plays him not as a monster, but as a damaged soul stumbling through a world that keeps choosing violence for him. When he’s finally mutilated—shot in the face, stitched up by Mama Sawyer, and reborn with the personality of a confused puppy trapped in a slaughterhouse—it feels inevitable, not absurd. You don’t watch him become Leatherface; you watch him give up on being anything else.
There’s genuine tragedy here, hiding beneath the arterial spray. The movie argues that monsters aren’t born—they’re crafted, stitched together by cruelty and neglect, one bad day at a time. By the time Jed carves his first face, you’re not cheering—you’re sighing. You understand him. Which, in a horror film, might be the most unsettling reaction of all.
Chainsaw Ballet: The Art of Gore
Bustillo and Maury don’t rely on cheap jump scares; they trust the audience’s stomach to do the work. The violence is shocking but precise—like someone used a scalpel to carve a meat sculpture. There’s a rhythm to it, a grotesque ballet of violence where every scream feels earned.
When the film finally gets to its title weapon, it’s not an applause moment—it’s a requiem. The chainsaw doesn’t roar in triumph; it wails. Watching Jed carve up Sheriff Hartman isn’t cathartic—it’s pitiful. The scene plays like a symphony of futility: vengeance, justice, and destiny all bleeding into one buzzing blur.
Road Trip Through Hell
The middle stretch of Leatherface plays like a blood-soaked Americana fever dream. There’s a diner massacre that manages to be both horrifying and absurdly funny (the cook’s last line—“Order up”—is morbidly perfect). Ike and Clarice, the Bonnie and Clyde wannabes, steal the show for twenty glorious minutes, bickering and murdering like it’s foreplay. If Natural Born Killers had been written by someone who just got off a Tilt-A-Whirl, it would look like this.
There’s even a strange beauty in the quieter moments: Jackson’s fleeting kindness toward Elizabeth, Bud’s protective growls, the brief illusion that they might escape their destiny. But this is Texas Chainsaw territory—hope is just another thing to carve up.
A Prequel Nobody Asked For, but Maybe Needed
It’s easy to roll your eyes at the concept of a Leatherface prequel—after all, explaining a monster usually ruins the mystique. But against all odds, Leatherface pulls off the impossible: it makes the myth human again. It dares to ask whywithout softening the what. The Sawyers aren’t cartoon villains here—they’re a generational tragedy, a family tree fertilized with blood.
Sure, the timeline is as wobbly as a drunk chainsaw juggler, but who cares? This isn’t a history lesson—it’s a descent. The movie doesn’t need to line up perfectly with Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic; it just needs to feel like it could. And in that respect, it does.
The Beauty of Ugly Things
By the end, Jed’s transformation is complete. His face is gone, replaced by a stitched leather grin that could launch a thousand nightmares. He applies lipstick in front of a shattered mirror—a moment equal parts grotesque and heartbreakingly sad. It’s Silence of the Lambs meets Goodnight Mommy, filtered through Southern Gothic despair.
There’s a strange poetry to it all: Leatherface, the ultimate mute killer, born not out of hatred but of loss. The mask doesn’t hide the monster—it’s the only thing holding him together.
Final Thoughts: A Cut Above
Leatherface may have limped into theaters with barely a whisper, but it deserves more love (and perhaps a tetanus shot). It’s the rare horror prequel that doesn’t insult your intelligence or your nostalgia. The film balances grime and grace, horror and heartbreak, blood and bizarre beauty.
Yes, it’s violent. Yes, it’s grim. And yes, it was filmed in Bulgaria pretending to be Texas—but damned if it doesn’t work. The Spierig Brothers’ Jigsaw tried to revive a corpse; Leatherface digs into the corpse’s past and finds a pulse.
So let’s give credit where it’s due: Leatherface is a macabre fairy tale about identity, madness, and family loyalty—where “home sweet home” means never leaving the basement alive.
In a franchise built on noise, this one hums like a chainsaw played as a lullaby. It’s grotesque, it’s heartfelt, and—most shockingly—it’s kind of beautiful.
