"Based On a True Story": The Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

Remember that time at summer camp when the counselors warned you not to wander around the camp at night, because you might run into Cabin 18? You know, the one where the little girl died, and where people have been hearing strange noises ever since, and where one kid actually went insane after venturing in for an hour? Remember how the counselors swore that that was all true? Hollywood is kind of like them, except richer and less concerned about kids getting eaten by bears.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Plot:

In the 1974 original, a bunch of young people traveling in a van (not the Mystery Machine, unfortunately) get slaughtered by a family of hillbilly cannibals. One of the cannibals, named Leatherface, wears human skin and wields the titular chainsaw. The 2003 remake followed the same formula (keeping the 1973 setting), except that it upped the ante by giving Leatherface the disease from Cabin Fever. It also more or less implied that the entire American South is involved in a cannibalistic conspiracy, raising some questions about the Waffle House menu.

The True Story:

The face of evil.

In the 1950s, disturbed Wisconsin loner Ed Gein decided that the feng shui of his isolated farmhouse would be incomplete without the addition of countless human body parts. Gein began making regular grave-robbing expeditions to local cemeteries, using the bodies he dug up to create such items as skull bowls, shrunken heads, nipple belts and an entire suit made out of women’s skin. His house was sort of like a Body Worlds exhibit, except worse-smelling. By the time Gein was apprehended in 1957, he had killed two local women to satisfy his urges and may have been responsible for the disappearances of several more.

Hollywood looked at that story and decided that it was too tame.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre certainly deserves credit for inauthenticity, given that the actual true story contained no Texas, no chainsaw (Gein used a rifle to commit his murders), and just barely any massacre. With the remake, however, Michael Bay treated the truth the same way Gein treated his victims. For example, the end of the 2003 film contains narration stating that “The case today still remains open,” which is true, if by “still remains open” they mean “has been completely closed for half a century.”

Also, look at the picture above. In a truly accurate film, Gein would have been played by Jim Varney.