Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you a crime, horror film from 2003, titled The Texas Chainsaw Màssacre.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
The black and white footage of a police investigation is played as the narrator explains this story
is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths.
Cops can be seen finding bodies and taking them away on stretchers, a baby can be heard
in the distance as well.
The numbers are staggering: case files have been collecting dust for thirty years in the
cold case department, and over thirteen hundred pieces of evidence were collected from the
crime scene.
The most astonishing fact of all, however, is the recordings of the investigation itself:
officers have gone inside the house and found scratch marks on the walls plus blood and
body parts lying around every corner.
This crime became infamous in American history and known as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The story behind the tragedy began on August 18, 1973.
A group of five friends is coming back from a quick trip to Mexico and is now heading
towards a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.
There's Erin, her boyfriend Kemper, their friends Andy and Morgan, and Pepper, a hitchhiker
they picked up the previous day.
Erin teases Kemper about the possibility of getting married, but when Kemper doesn't take
it well, she decides to throw his joint out the window.
Morgan tells them not to worry because they have two more pounds of it hidden in a piñata,
accidentally revealing to Erin that the reason why they went to Mexico was to buy a huge
amount of pot.
Erin isn't very happy with this news, so Kemper tries to make up with her with a kiss.
Since he's turning around, he almost doesn't see a woman absently walking in the middle
of the road and almost runs over her, dodging her just in time thanks to his friends' warning.
They stop the van and the girls approach the woman to offer help, she tells them she just
wants to get away and go home.
Erin and Pepper take her back to the van with them, promising her they'll give her a ride
home.
During the ride, the woman sits at the back and constantly cries, answering their questions
with "they're all dead".
When Kemper drives by a slaughterhouse, the woman freaks out and tells him he's going
the wrong way, she even jumps on him to try to take control of the wheel.
The van stops as they push her back and the woman tells them she can't go back there because
"he's a bad man".
Blood can be seen on her thighs as she reaches between her legs and takes out a gun that
she uses to shoot herself in the mouth after telling the group that they're all going to
die.
Upset and freaking out, the friends get out of the van and try to decide what to do.
Kemper wants to go to the police, but Morgan, who is already regretting having picked the
woman up, thinks that's a bad idea because the cops would find the pot in the van.
Kemper decides to solve this issue by grabbing the piñata filled with pot and throwing it
out in the open field, then he apologizes to Erin, telling her he only bought the drugs
so they could start a new life.
The group gets back in the van and drives until they come across a gas station and diner.
While the girls go to the bathroom, the boys enter the diner and meet the woman at the
counter, Luda Mae, who calls the sheriff for them while they stare at the old meat covered
with fleas in the fridge.
Luda tells them the sheriff will be waiting for them at the mill, and it may take him
two hours.
This angers the boys, who think the sheriff should come to them instead of making them
drive around with a dead body, but they have no other choice.
They make it to the mill a couple of hours later; the place looks empty and abandoned,
and the sheriff is nowhere in sight.
The boys want to dump the body there and leave, but Erin convinces them to wait.
They're suddenly startled by someone moving in the shadows, so they enter the building
to investigate.
There are all kinds of creepy decorations hanging on the walls made of old dolls and
plastic skeletons, and some weird noises coming from a closet.
Kemper opens it and everyone screams, but it turns out to be just a possum.
There's another noise coming from further in the building, though, so they go check
it out and find a little boy, Jedidiah, that makes them promise they won't hurt him.
After they do, Jedidiah accepts to leave the building with them and answer their questions.
He tells them the sheriff is home getting drunk and that he lives nearby, they can't
drive there because there is no road but it is a short walk.
Ignoring Morgan's plea to just drop the body and leave, Erin and Kemper decide to go looking
for the sheriff while their friends wait at the mill.
Jedidiah tries to poke the woman's body with a stick, but Andy drags him off the van, causing
Jedidiah to run away.
After crossing the woods, Erin and Kemper find an old house belonging to an amputee
on a wheelchair called Monty, who definitely isn't the sheriff.
He allows Erin to come in and call the sheriff, but Kemper must wait outside.
Monty dials the number for Erin and lets her talk, which is rather curious because back
at the mill, Sheriff Hoyt is currently arriving to check on the ban.
After Erin is done with the call she tries to leave, but Monty asks for help to get back
on the wheelchair, so she joins him in the bathroom while a mysterious figure lurks in
the shadows.
Since Erin is taking so long, Kemper decides to enter the house to look for her.
He searches around various rooms, following a noise that turns out to be a tv playing
some old cartoons.
When he crouches to pick up a bracelet that fell from the door, a man wearing a creepy
mask appears behind him: it's Leatherface, who hits him with a sledgehammer and drags
his body into the basement hidden behind a metal door.
Erin hears the door closing and leaves Monty to go looking for her boyfriend.
She notices the peephole on the metal door moving but she can't open it, and her search
is interrupted by Monty, who got back on the wheelchair on his own and tells her Kemper
isn't in the house.
Erin thanks him and leaves.
Meanwhile, at the mill, Hoyt continues to inspect the body while interrogating the group.
When he finds the woman's empty gun, he takes it and puts it in his sock.
Then he asks Andy to help him wrap the body with plastic wrap while they're watched by
Jedidiah, who just came back.
After the wrapping is done, Andy and Morgan put the body in the trunk of the sheriff's
car and Hoyt makes sure the group knows their way back before leaving.
Erin returns then and is surprised to hear the sheriff has already come by and that nobody
has seen Kemper.
A sudden noise interrupts their talk so they go to check it out, it's a stick that someone
put in a car to keep the horn constantly honking.
The group freaks out when they notice there are body parts on the ground and are starting
to get desperate to leave.
They continue looking for Kemper around the abandoned parking lot and Morgan suddenly
gets his arm stuck inside a hole in a car, the group worries and tries to get him out
until he shows them it's just a prank and he's fine.
He has found something in there, though: a jar filled with water and two pictures inside.
One photo is of the girl that shot herself, the other is of her with her family.
After arguing about who gets to keep the keys of the van, Erin puts them in her pocket and
takes Andy with him back to Monty's house to see if they can find Kemper there.
Back in the house basement, Leatherface is working on Kemper.
First, he puts him in a tub to cut some layers off him, then he hangs upside down with some
chains.
A little box falls out of his pockets and Leatherface opens it, finding the ring he
had gotten for Erin.
Andy and Erin make it back to Monty's and agree on a plan, Erin will distract Monty
outside while Andy sneaks inside to find Kemper.
He looks around and enters the kitchen while Leatherface spies on him through the peephole;
when he accidentally drops a box to the floor, Erin rushes inside to check on him.
Now that an angry Monty knows Andy is in there, he starts hitting the floor with his cane
to summon Leatherface, who suddenly opens the metal door and appears behind them with
a chainsaw in his hands.
Erin closes the door to try to stop him while Andy tries to recover the lug wrench he brought
with him from under Monty's wheelchair.
Leatherface destroys the door with his chainsaw, causing Erin to run out of the house, so he
goes after Andy, who stops his first hit with the wrench then kicks him to make him fall.
He runs out of the house as well, but Leatherface chases him and when he catches up with him,
he cuts off one of his legs before picking him up and taking him to his basement.
The scratches on the wall from the police report are left there by a desperate, scared
Andy, who Leatherface impales on a meat hook before rubbing salt on his leg stump, wrapping
it with butcher paper and tying it with human hair.
Afterward, he starts working on a new mask made of human skin.
When he takes off the one he's currently wearing to try on the new one, he shows his face is
completely deformed.
While he is busy with the masks, Andy tries to unhook his body, but the chains are boobytrapped
and he only manages to impale himself deeper.
At the mill, Pepper and Morgan are in the middle of cleaning up the van when Erin arrives.
Crying, she doesn't answer any of her friends' questions, she just gets in the van and tries
to start it, to no avail.
She asks for the gun, too, but Pepper tells her the sheriff took it.
As if he had been summoned, Hoyt shows up then, and at first, he tries to calm Erin
now, but when he notices the joint on the van's dashboard, his attitude changes.
Now behaving like an angry cop, he asks the three friends to leave the van and lie down
on the floor while scolding them for taking drugs.
When Erin tries to tell him about the murderer in the house, Hoyt says he thinks it was Kemper
that killed the hitchhiker and he shoots the floor when Erin tries to deny it.
Then he grabs Morgan and makes him enter the van so he can show him exactly what happen
with the lost woman.
Morgan is forced to sit on the spot covered with blood and guts, then Hoyt hands him a
gun and asks him to put it exactly on the same spot the hitchhiker chose, correcting
Morgan when he lies and points the gun at his chin, moving his hand to force it into
his mouth instead.
Then Hoyt asks him to pull the trigger, but Morgan doesn't dare.
When Erin gets off the ground and asks what's going on, Hoyt gets distracted, so Morgan
takes the chance to turn the gun on him and threaten him.
However, when he pulls the trigger, he discovers the gun is empty.
Hoyt calls him a murderer and takes back the gun before making Morgan leave the van while
pointing an actually loaded weapon at him.
After grabbing the van keys, Hoyt takes Morgan with him in his car, where he hits the boy's
face with a bottle and breaks his teeth, then he calls someone over the radio to tell them
there are two girls at the mill ready to go.
When they arrive at his house, Hoyt throws Morgan on the mud and kicks him a few times
before dragging him inside Pepper and Erin try to find an alternative way to start the
van.
Erin manages to hotwire it, but the van only advances a few steps before it gets stuck
again.
Leatherface shows up then, wearing Kemper's face as a mask, and starts cutting through
the van's roof and doors with his chainsaw, which the girls manage to dodge.
Eventually, however, Leatherface makes a hole big enough to insert his arm inside and grabs
Erin by the hair, so Pepper gets out of the van, panicking.
Leatherface wastes no time and goes after her, quickly reaching her and killing her
in seconds.
Erin sees him come after her next and gets out of the van to run through the woods, where
he finds an old trailer with two women leaving in it, Henrietta and the Tea Lady.
The women allow her to get inside and tell her that they don't have a phone.
They also explain Leatherface would never enter their home, that he's always been a
sweet boy that he kept to himself because of a skin disease he's had since he was a
child.
Henrietta forces Erin to drink some tea before she goes to check on her now crying baby.
Erin starts feeling dizzy while walking around the place and finding more of the hitchhiker's
pictures, and she's startled when she suddenly hears a ringing phone.
Henrietta had lied about not having one, she also drugged the tea.
As Erin realizes the baby belongs to the dead hitchhiker and they had stolen it, she passes
out on the floor.
She wakes up sometime later in the main house, surrounded by the whole family: Leatherface,
Luda Mae, Hoyt, and Monty.
Jedidiah is also there, begging his grandma not to hurt Erin, but he isn't allowed to
go inside.
Luda Mae explains that people have always bullied Leatherface for his condition, and
she thinks Erin isn't different.
She calls out for his boy to take her out of there, so Leatherface grabs her and throws
her into the basement before locking the door.
Erin looks around the basement and is disgusted to find all the remains of Leatherface's victims.
She also finds Andy, who is still alive and asks her for help; Erin tries to take him
off the hook to no avail.
Seeing as it is impossible for him to escape, Andy asks her to end his suffering.
Erin grabs a knife and, after some hesitation, kills him.
She cries over him and asks for his forgiveness before going back to searching for an exit,
this time he finds Morgan handcuffed in a tub, also still alive.
While Leatherface spies on them through a hole, Jedidiah finds the friends and tells
them to follow him because he can guide them out through a secret passage, Erin does so
slowly because she's carrying Morgan's weight.
Leatherface enters the basement with his chainsaw at the ready and starts chasing them through
the passage.
The trio runs as fast as they can until they make it to the stairs, where Morgan's leg
gets stuck in the wood when it breaks under him.
While Erin helps him get out, Leatherface faces various delays, first because of his
chainsaw shutting down, then by Erin kicking him off, and afterward, by Jedidiah biting
his hand to distract him.
Morgan and Erin make it out and close the door behind them, but soon Leatherface breaks
it down with his chainsaw and starts chasing them again.
The friends find an abandoned shack in the woods and enter it, using an old coach to
barricade the door, but they quickly need to move away as Leatherface uses his chainsaw
to break down this door as well.
While still dragging Morgan around, Erin tries to escape through the windows, but they're
all blocked; eventually they find a room with spots to hide.
Morgan gets inside a closet and Erin crawls into some wooden crates right before Leatherface
arrives at the room as well and starts looking around.
Erin spies on him through a hole in the wood and when he thinks he's left, she begins to
stand up, only to suddenly be grabbed by Leatherface's arms that break through the wood from behind.
He drags her back into the room by the hair and drops her on the floor, Morgan chooses
that moment to jump on him and make him drop the chainsaw.
The two men struggle until Leatherface finally overpowers Morgan and picks him to impale
him on the chandelier and cut through his groin with his chainsaw.
While he's busy with Morgan, Erin rushes out of the house and runs through the woods again,
gaining some advantage when Leatherface trips over a fence and hurts himself with the chainsaw.
She reaches a road and tries to ask an incoming car for help, but it ignores her and drives
away.
After some more running, she comes across a slaughterhouse and hurries to get inside,
where Leatherface manages to grab her.
She kicks him off and starts running again, this time she enters the fridge and hides
behind a meat carcass.
The hiding spot doesn't last long, though, because Leatherface starts moving the chains
that control the meat hooks and hits her with the carcasses, her screaming allows him to
find her and start chasing her again.
After dodging a hit from the chainsaw that falls between her legs, Erin makes her way
out of the fridge and enters a room filled with pigs where she finds a meat cleaver that
she grabs to defend herself, then she rushes to hide inside a locker.
When Leatherface arrives, she makes noise on purpose so he can find her, and when he
comes closer and opens the door of the locker across from hers, she jumps on him from behind
and cuts off his arm.
It's impossible for him to pick the chainsaw now, and while he struggles with it, Erin
escapes the building and goes back to the road.
The truck that drives by this time does stop for her and allows her to get in.
In a manner that parallels her meeting with the hitchhiker, Erin looks absent, only saying
she wants to go home and reacting badly when the trucker takes her back to the crazy family's
house.
Her attempt at gaining control of the wheel is unsuccessful, and the trucker parks in
front of the old house regardless of her pleading.
Edin gets off the truck after he does and sneaks behind the house to watch him talk
to the family, who still have the hitchhiker's baby.
While Erin moves to start hotwiring a vehicle in order to escape, Hoyt approaches the truck,
ignoring Henrietta's sudden screams when she realizes the baby is gone.
To the sheriff's surprise, the truck is empty, because what Erin has been hotwiring is his
own car, which she now uses to run over him three times before driving away with the baby
on the passenger seat.
Without warning, Leatherface appears out of nowhere on the road and tries to stop the
car with his chainsaw, but with only one arm, he lacks control to aim it right and Erin
manages to escape anyway.
The police arrive at the residence to investigate two days later, on August 20.
When the recording cop and his cameraman go down the basement, they're attacked and killed
by Leatherface, who is still around.
The case still remains open today.