Texas Chainsaw Massacre recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1974 · Film

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre recap

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) strands five friends in rural Texas near a family of cannibals and their masked, chainsaw-wielding son. Tobe Hooper directs and co-wrote it with Kim Henkel on a budget of under $140,000, and it was sold as a true story. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) and her brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain), who uses a wheelchair, drive out with three friends to check on their grandfather's grave after reports of grave robbing. They pick up a hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who slashes his own hand, then Franklin's arm, and is thrown out of the van. Low on fuel, they visit the old Hardesty house, and two of the friends walk to a neighbouring farmhouse to ask for gas. A huge man in a mask of human skin, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), kills them with a hammer and a meat hook. It starts the series, and most later films return to this night.

How The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ends

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ends with Sally the last one alive, captured and seated at the family dinner table, where the hitchhiker, Leatherface and the gas station cook (Jim Siedow) try to let their frail Grandpa kill her with a hammer. She jumps through a window and reaches the road. A truck runs over the hitchhiker, and Sally escapes in the back of a pickup, laughing, while Leatherface swings his chainsaw in the dawn light.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1986 · Film

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 recap

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) follows a radio DJ who airs a tape of a chainsaw murder and draws Leatherface's family to her station. Tobe Hooper returns to direct, with much more black comedy than before. Thirteen years after the first film, two drunk students die on the highway while on the phone to DJ Vanita "Stretch" Brock (Caroline Williams). Lieutenant Boude "Lefty" Enright (Dennis Hopper), uncle of Sally and Franklin Hardesty, has spent the years tracking chainsaw killings and asks Stretch to play the tape on air. Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow), now an award-winning chili cook, sends Leatherface (Bill Johnson) and his brother Chop Top (Bill Moseley), twin of the hitchhiker, to the station. Leatherface becomes smitten with Stretch and spares her, and she follows the family to their lair beneath an abandoned amusement park, where Lefty arrives armed with chainsaws. It follows the 1974 film.

How The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ends

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ends with Lefty and Leatherface fighting with chainsaws in the lair until Drayton, beaten, pulls the pin on a grenade and blows up himself, Lefty, Leatherface and Grandpa. Chop Top chases Stretch up a tower, where she takes a chainsaw from the family grandmother's mummified corpse and sends him over the edge, then swings the saw above her head as Leatherface did in the first film.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 1990 · Film

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III recap

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) follows a couple lost on Texas back roads who stumble onto a new branch of Leatherface's family. Jeff Burr directs for New Line Cinema, which bought the series after part 2. Michelle (Kate Hodge) and her boyfriend Ryan (William Butler) stop at a gas station where the owner Alfredo seems to shoot a hitchhiker named Tex (Viggo Mortensen). Lost on back roads, they are attacked by Leatherface (R.A. Mihailoff) and after a crash team up with Benny (Ken Foree), a survivalist. Tex turns out to be one of the family, which now includes a hook-handed brother, Tinker, a mother and a young girl, and Ryan ends up strung from meat hooks. Leatherface gets a new chrome chainsaw engraved "The saw is family". It follows part 2, though the family here is largely new.

How Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III ends

Leatherface III ends with Benny shooting up the house, killing Tex and the mother, while Michelle escapes into the woods and seems to kill Leatherface. At dawn Benny, believed dead, picks her up in Alfredo's truck and Michelle kills Alfredo. As they drive off, Leatherface rises nearby with his chainsaw. New Line cut the film to avoid an X rating, and the unrated version was later released on home video.

Post-credits scenes

No. Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 1995 · Film

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation recap

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) follows four teenagers who crash on a back road after their prom and meet Leatherface's family. Kim Henkel, co-writer of the 1974 film, writes and directs; it premiered as The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and was recut and retitled before a 1997 release. Jenny (Renée Zellweger), Heather, Barry and Sean wreck their car and split up to find help. Vilmer Slaughter (Matthew McConaughey), a tow-truck driver with a remote-controlled mechanical leg, runs Sean over, while Leatherface (Robert Jacks) takes Heather and Barry at an old farmhouse. Darla, the insurance agent who offered help, turns out to be in on it. Jenny wakes up at the family dinner table, where they explain they work for a secret society that stages terror to give victims a spiritual experience. Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain and John Dugan from the 1974 film appear in cameos. It loosely follows the original.

How Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation ends

The Next Generation ends with Jenny breaking free and using the remote to seize Vilmer's leg. Chased down the road, she is rescued by a couple in an RV, which the family runs off the road, before a crop-dusting plane clips Vilmer's skull and kills him. A society man, Rothman, collects Jenny in a limousine, tells her Vilmer had to be stopped, and leaves her at a hospital. Leatherface flails with his chainsaw alone on the road.

No. 05 · 2003 · Film

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre recap

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) remakes the 1974 film, with five friends driving through Texas in 1973 who are hunted by the Hewitt family. Marcus Nispel directs, produced by Michael Bay. Erin Hardesty (Jessica Biel), her boyfriend Kemper (Eric Balfour) and friends Morgan (Jonathan Tucker), Andy (Mike Vogel) and Pepper (Erica Leerhsen) are returning from Mexico when the hitchhiker shoots herself in their van. Waiting for the police at an old mill, they meet Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey), a sadistic fraud who belongs to the family. Erin and Kemper look for help at a plantation house, where Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski), here named Thomas Hewitt, kills Kemper with a sledgehammer and later wears his face. The family also holds the dead hitchhiker's stolen baby. John Larroquette again narrates the opening. It stands alone from the original series, and The Beginning is its prequel.

How The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ends

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ends with Erin cutting off Leatherface's arm with a meat cleaver in a slaughterhouse, then rescuing the baby from the family's diner and running Hoyt over repeatedly in his own car. Leatherface slashes at the car, but she gets away. A closing police film shows Leatherface killing two officers at the house days later. The Beginning goes back to 1969.

No. 06 · 2006 · Film

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning recap

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) shows how Thomas Hewitt becomes Leatherface and his family turns to cannibalism in 1969. Jonathan Liebesman directs, with Andrew Bryniarski back as Leatherface and R. Lee Ermey as the man who becomes Sheriff Hoyt. In 1939 a woman dies giving birth on a slaughterhouse floor, and Luda Mae Hewitt finds the baby in the trash and raises him. In 1969 the plant closes and Thomas kills his boss, taking a chainsaw. When the real Sheriff Hoyt comes to arrest him, Luda Mae's son Charlie kills the sheriff and takes his name and badge. Brothers Eric (Matt Bomer) and Dean (Taylor Handley), heading off to enlist for Vietnam with their girlfriends Chrissie (Jordana Brewster) and Bailey (Diora Baird), crash on the highway and are brought to the Hewitt house. It is a prequel to the 2003 film.

How The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning ends

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning ends with Thomas killing Eric, Bailey and Dean, wearing Eric's face as his first mask. Chrissie escapes the slaughterhouse in a car and stops for a state trooper, but Leatherface is hiding in the back seat and runs her through with the chainsaw. He walks home along the road, setting up the family seen in the remake.

No. 07 · 2013 · Film

Texas Chainsaw 3D recap

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013) follows a young woman who inherits a Texas mansion from a grandmother she never knew, unaware that Leatherface lives in its cellar. John Luessenhop directs this direct sequel to the 1974 film, released in 3D. It opens just after Sally Hardesty's escape, when townspeople of Newt led by Burt Hartman (Paul Rae) burn the Sawyer house and kill the family; one man takes a surviving baby girl. Decades later, that baby, Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario), drives with her boyfriend Ryan (Trey Songz) and friends to collect the estate of a grandmother she never knew. A hitchhiker they pick up loots the house and lets out Leatherface (Dan Yeager), who has lived there in Verna's care. As her friends die, Heather learns what the town did to her family. Gunnar Hansen, Marilyn Burns, John Dugan and Bill Moseley appear. It follows the 1974 film and ignores the other sequels.

How Texas Chainsaw 3D ends

Texas Chainsaw 3D ends at the Sawyer slaughterhouse, where Leatherface, seeing Heather's family birthmark, spares her instead. When Burt and his friend try to feed him into a meat grinder, Heather throws Leatherface his chainsaw, and he sends Burt into the machine. Heather reads her grandmother's letter, learns her real name is Edith Rose Sawyer, and agrees to look after her cousin. Leatherface (2017) is its prequel.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. A post-credits scene shows Heather's adoptive parents arriving at the house, where Leatherface answers the door with his chainsaw.

No. 08 · 2017 · Film

Leatherface recap

Leatherface (2017) follows four young inmates who break out of a Texas asylum with a kidnapped nurse, one of whom will grow up to be Leatherface. Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo direct this prequel to the 1974 film and Texas Chainsaw 3D. In 1955 the Sawyer family kills the daughter of Ranger Hal Hartman (Stephen Dorff), who takes young Jedidiah Sawyer from his mother Verna (Lili Taylor) and puts him in a reform home under a new name. Ten years later, Verna's visit sparks a riot, and four inmates, Jackson (Sam Strike), the gentle Bud, and the violent couple Ike and Clarice, flee with the nurse Lizzy White (Vanessa Grasse). Hal hunts them across the state and shows little regard for who gets hurt. Which inmate is Jedidiah stays hidden until the final act. It is set before the 1974 film, in the same timeline as Texas Chainsaw 3D.

How Leatherface ends

Leatherface ends with Jackson revealed as Jedidiah, his face torn by Hal's bullet. The Sawyers rescue him and capture Hal and Lizzy; Verna hands Jedidiah a chainsaw and he cuts Hal in half, then kills Lizzy when she insults his mother. Alone in the basement, he puts on a mask made from their faces and smashes the mirror at his reflection. The delay in its release cost Lionsgate the rights to the series.

No. 09 · 2022 · Film

Texas Chainsaw Massacre recap

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) sends young entrepreneurs to gentrify a near-empty Texas town, where evicting an old woman wakes the man who lives with her. David Blue Garcia directs from a story by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, and Netflix released it. Melody (Sarah Yarkin), her sister Lila (Elsie Fisher), who survived a school shooting, Melody's business partner Dante and his girlfriend Ruth drive to Harlow to auction its buildings. The old woman, Ginny, insists she still owns the orphanage, collapses and dies in an ambulance, and the huge, silent man riding with her turns out to be Leatherface (Mark Burnham). He cuts off her face and returns to town. Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), the 1974 survivor, now a Texas Ranger, has waited 50 years for him to resurface. It is a direct sequel to the 1974 film that ignores every other entry.

How Texas Chainsaw Massacre ends

Texas Chainsaw Massacre ends with Leatherface killing a busload of investors and fatally wounding Sally. Melody knocks him into a pool with his own chainsaw, and the sisters drive off, Lila wearing Sally's hat. Leatherface rises, drags Melody from the self-driving car and beheads her in the street as Lila is carried away, and he dances with the chainsaw. Netflix released it straight to streaming in February 2022.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. A post-credits scene shows Leatherface walking down the road toward his childhood home.