Is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre based on a true story?

Answer:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never happened in real life. Despite the disclaimer at the beginning of the original film, which touts the movie as "...an account of a tragedy which befell a group of five youths...For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare...This video cassette is based on a true incident and is definitely not for the squeamish..." in truth The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was not really based on a true story.

The filmmakers just wanted people to think it was a true story, so more people would go see the movie. It was also a bit of a joke on their part, to see if people would believe it was real. This is not an unheard-of tactic: for example, the 1999 movie the Blair Witch Project was also touted as a true story by the filmmakers, when in truth it is completely fictional and all the actors in it are alive and well to this day. The disclaimer at the beginning of the 1996 movie Fargo also asserts that it is a true story, when it is actually pure fiction.

The idea for the Leatherface character was inspired by the serial killer Ed Gein, but the entire storyline for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fictional. The truth is that the director, Tobe Hooper, got the idea for the Leatherface character from the real case of the serial killer Ed Gein. The rest is completely fictional. Ed Gein was only one man; he did not belong to a family of chainsaw murderers, and he lived in Wisconsin, not Texas.

Ed Gein murdered at least two women, one of whom was found hanging disemboweled and decapitated in his house, and also allegedly engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism with his victims' corpses. He did not, however, murder them with a chainsaw.

I have included a link to the snopes.com page about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I have also included a link to a page that compares the Ed Gein murders to the movie.  

Answer

No, it is NOT based on a true story. First of all, it is NOT based on any "true police files." This is a completely false statement.

Yes, the idea for the Leatherface character came from the serial killer Ed Gein. But that doesn't make it based on a true story! Everything -- EVERYTHING -- about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fictional, except for the fact that Ed Gein wore the skin of his victims, gutted them and hung them in his house, and may have eaten some of their remains.

Ed Gein did not live in Texas, he did not belong to a family of killers, he did not murder his victims with a chainsaw, and he never attacked a bunch of teenagers who were passing by his house.

All fiction writers get their ideas from real life. Occasionally, a great idea will just come to you, seemingly from out of the blue, and you honestly have no idea where it came from. But for the most part, writers don't come up with ideas from nothing. They get their ideas from things they see and experience in the real world, be it personal experiences, or newspaper stories.

For example, say you read a story in the newspaper about a notorious female drug dealer in New York City. This gives you the idea for a character named Stella Banx, a tough and powerful woman who, at the age of 55, is slowly dying of syphilis. With the Mayor's approval, she runs the most lucrative brothel in all of 19th century New Orleans, with the help of her two murderous yet loyal daughters, Kit and Marie.

Now, wouldn't it be silly to say that the story of Stella Banx is "based on a true story?" The real life story and the fictional story are nothing alike! Stella Banx isn't a drug dealer, she doesn't live in the 21st century, she doesn't live in New York City, she has two daughters, she's friends with the Mayor, she has syphilis...

When a movie/book is "based on a true story," it means that the author/moviemakers strived to make the movie/book as close to the truth as possible. No such attempt was made with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The moviemakers never made any effort to accurately portray the Ed Gein story. Instead, they just took a few teeny-tiny grains of truth, and everything else is fictional.

Again, just because the author/moviemaker got an idea from real life, doesn't mean the book/movie is based on a true story! As I said, ALL writers get their ideas from real life.

Just to name a few examples out of a million, many of Jane Austen's characters were based, at least in part, on herself or people she knew. But that doesn't mean Pride and Prejudice is based on a true story.

Nearly all of Stephen King's main characters (the male ones, anyway) are pretty much self-portraits. They're all variations of himself. But that doesn't mean Stephen King's novels are based on true stories, either!

Additionally, Stephen King got the idea for Ellen Rimbauer and the Rose Red mansion from Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mansion. But Ellen Rimbauer and Rose Red are still fiction: for one thing, no one has ever died or gone missing in the Winchester Mansion. And the life of Sarah Winchester was absolutely nothing like the life of the fictional Ellen Rimbauer.

The idea for the Freddy Krueger character came from a creepy vagrant who frightened writer/director Wes Craven when he was a child. The man wore a hat and sweater similar to Freddy's. But that doesn't mean the Nightmare on Elm Street movies are based on a true story!

And the plot of nearly every Law & Order episode comes from newspaper stories of real-life crimes. But they still can legitimately put the disclaimer that, "the events in this story are fictional and do not depict any real person or event," at the beginning of each episode, because they change so many of the facts that it becomes fiction.

Saying that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on a true story, because they got the idea from Ed Gein, is like saying that A Nightmare on Elm Street is based on a true story, because Wes Craven got the idea for Freddy from that homeless guy who scared him so many years ago.

I really cannot stress this enough: ALL writers get their ideas from real life. A movie/book is only "based on a true story" when the writer tries to depict the truth as accurately as possible. If the author just uses something in real life as inspiration, but the book/movie they produce is totally different from what really happened...then it's not based on a true story.

In other words, a movie/book is not automatically "based on a true story" just because one or two things are similar to something that really happened.
If we say that a movie/book is "based on a true story" just because the author/moviemaker got the idea from something in real life, then we are basically saying that every movie/book is based on a true story.

I repeat: Ed Gein is NOT the Texas Chainsaw Massacre killer. He's just the guy who inspired the character Leatherface.

Answer:

• Note: REEL FACES content below is slightly graphic in nature as the real individual is separated from the movie's fictional elements. Reader discretion is advised.

Questioning the Story:


How much of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on the real life murderer Ed Gein? Despite being heavily touted as "inspired by a true story," both Tobe Hooper's original 1974 film and the 2003 Marcus Nispel remake are only lightly based on the real-life murderer Ed Gein, who is suspected to have taken several victims between 1954 and 1957. Perhaps the most recognizable similarity is the film's house, whose gruesome content was similar to that found in Ed Gein's home in 1957.


Did the real Ed Gein ever wear a human's face as a mask like Leatherface did in the film? The real Ed Gein did wear a human's scalp and face. The real Ed Gein did this however, to help quell his desire to be a woman, not because of a skin disease as with Leatherface in the film. Also included in his uniform, Ed Gein wore a vest of skin complete with breasts and female genitalia strapped above his own.


Did the real Ed Gein use a chainsaw to kill his victims? No, both of Ed Gein's identified victims, Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden, were shot with a pistol. In November of 1957, police found Bernice Worden hanging from the rafters in a shed behind Gein's house. Her body had been gutted like that of a deer, and the head had been removed. Ed Gein was also the suspect in several other missing persons. The element of the chainsaw that was added for the film's story once again emphasizes the loose connection of the film to Gein.


Who exactly was Ed Gein and why did he commit such atrocities? Eddie Gein was the son of Augusta and George Gein. Augusta was a deeply religious woman, who preached the Bible to Eddie and his brother Henry on a daily basis. She warned them about the dangers of loose women, in an effort to keep them from being cast down to hell. She was a strict, hard woman, who never wavered from her own beliefs, which she ingrained into the family. Eddie's father, George, was an alcoholic, and Augusta viewed him as being worthless. She began a grocery business in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and when she had saved enough money she moved the family away from the sin of the city to a farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin. Eddie grew up shy and was ignored by the other kids at school, who saw him as quiet and feminine. If he did try to make friends, his mother scolded him. As a result Eddie turned inward and began to reside in the dark corners of his mind.


He worshipped his mother, and grew upset when his brother Henry criticized her. On May 16, 1944, while fighting a brush fire near the farm, Eddie and Henry split up and went in different directions. After the fire had been extinguished, Eddie grew concerned because his brother had not returned. When police arrived Eddie lead them directly to his "missing" brother Henry, who was lying dead in an area untouched by the fire with bruises on his head. The shy and seemingly harmless Eddie was quickly dismissed as a suspect, and the coroner listed asphyxiation as the cause of death.


Were any other films based on Ed Gein? Both Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) were also loosely based on Ed Gein: � Psycho (1960): Norman Bates, the main character in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, was loosely based on Ed Gein. Hitchcock had adapted Psycho from a story by author Robert Bloch, who had modeled the character of Norman Bates after Ed Gein. The main similarities include the feminine qualities of both Norman Bates and Ed Gein, as well as both individuals' attachments to their domineering mothers.


� The Silence of the Lambs (1991): The movie famed killer from The Silence of the Lambs, Buffalo Bill, perhaps most closely resembles Ed Gein. Buffalo Bill as well desired to be a woman, and he displayed actions that could categorize him as a transvestite. They both skinned their victims and enjoyed parading around in garments of flesh. They both also preyed on women. However, Buffalo Bill chose somewhat younger women for his victims than Ed Gein did.


How many Chainsaw films are there and have there been any spin-offs? Including 2003's remake, there are a total of five Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. The first four are The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - directed by Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) - directed by Tobe Hooper and starring Dennis Hopper, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) - directed by Jeff Burr, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994) - directed by Kim Henkel and starring Matthew McConaughey and Ren�e Zellweger.


Of course there have been spin-offs, including 1988's Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, which is about a private eye named Jack Chandler who stumbles upon a cult of chainsaw wielding prostitutes in his search for Samantha the runaway. The biggest star of this B-movie is the original Leatherface himself, Gunner Hansen. He plays the master of the women, who serve him the fresh limbs of their victims. Oh, and what's the tagline for Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers? "They charge an arm and a leg."

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Opening Narrative of the 1974 film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
"The film which 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 Chainsaw Massacre." - August 18th, 1973