Leatherface in this continuity suffers from al disfigurement, a skin disease, that caused severe deformities and tumors to his face. Due to this disfigurement, his muteness and mental disability, other children bullied the boy.
During his first meeting with the filmmakers, Hooper explained the character in detail for Hansen; describing Leatherface as being severely mentally impaired, and insane, which made the character violent and unpredictable.
He is also extremely mentally ill. He does not talk that much, though he does make vocal sounds. He wears a mask made from a person's skin, which he uses to express a personality. It is also notable that director Tobe Hooper has stated that Leatherface kills out of fear, not malice.
Despite all his strength, Leatherface seems to suffer from some unidentified mental illness, possibly Down syndrome. He is unable to speak, communicating soley through cries and grunts, seems to be entirely controlled by his family, and often throws childish tauntrums.
Scared that others will hurt him; scared that his family will be displeased with him, scared that their shared willingness to eat human flesh will be discovered. He does as he is told. His family loves him and that is all that matters.
He also had a tendency toward self-mutilation, and a doctor diagnosed him as suffering from a type of neurodegeneration at age 12. Although Leatherface's family still manipulate him in this interpretation, they do show themselves somewhat more caring for him and less abusive than in the original film.
He is a mentally handicapped and disturbed serial killer who wears a mask made out of human skin and is often depicted with his iconic chainsaw, but is also known to use a large sledgehammer as well.
Leatherface never speaks, and of course you never see his face, but he's by far the most expressive and unforgettable character in the movie. This is not only because he carves up most of the cast with a chain saw.
Sally and Franklin's uncle Lefty Enright was searching for the cannibals to get his revenge. When he got Stretch to play the deaths on the radio, Leatherface and Chop Top went over to the station to kill her. However, Leatherface fell in love with her.
By the end of TCM 2, everyone — including Leatherface — is dead, with the exception of Stretch. This was the last TCM movie Hooper would direct, so he went out with a bang and killed the whole damn family. But the third movie, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, retcons that conclusion.
In the Texas chainsaw massacre Leatherface is 27 and the 2022 chainsaw Massacre is 50 years later making him 77, how would a 77-year-old still have the strength to commit more massacres? The explanation implied by David Garcia is that living this recluse life in a small town has kept him fit in a way.
In addition to the visual rhetoric, sound cues associate cannibalism and carnism to produce the conception of the two being the same or analogous. When Leatherface knocks down a victim with the mallet, a non-diegetic sound of a pig squealing dubbed over this image recalls pigs brutally killed in slaughterhouses.
In this continuity, Leatherface is raised by the Hewitts, a family of inbred cannibals. The family is loosely based on the Sawyer Family from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. The Hewitt family consists of Luda May Hewitt, The Tea Lady, Jed Old, Charlie (aka Sheriff Hoyt), Emma Hewitt, and Hannah Hewitt.
Leatherface, portrayed by Gunnar Hansen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), is 6 foot 4 inches (1.93 m) tall. Leatherface is the main antagonist of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, even though he commits his murders alongside his family. Leatherface wears a mask made of human skin, which is where he gets his name from.
For Leatherface, the domestic sphere is the only one he knows. Therefore, this asexual, almost childlike man has become the family's necerssary feminine presence, and his commitment to such a role shows how absurd the limitations of gender are within the traditional family.
After Leatherface kills Franklin in the woods, Sally escapes him by reaching the gas station the group visited earlier in the film. During The Texas Chain Saw Massacre DVD's commentary, Gunnar Hansen revealed this chase sequence was the origin of his Leatherface chainsaw dance.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface is responsible for 31 deaths across all movies in the franchise, while Freddy Krueger's kill count seems to be between 42 and 48. Jumping to the 1990s, another famous slasher, Scream's different Ghostface killers, have a total of 46 kills.
Sam Strike plays Jackson, born Jedidiah Sawyer, as one of the four inmates that escape the mental institution, before ultimately becoming the eponymous Leatherface after enduring tragedies that destroy his cognitive stability.
Grandpa Sawyer is the grandfather and oldest living member of the Sawyer Family. He is a supercentenarian, former butcher/slaughterman and mass murderer. Director Tobe Hooper stated on the audio commentary for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, that Grandpa is kept alive by drinking the blood of his family's victims.
Leatherface, inspired by serial killer Ed Gein, portrays intellectual disability in how he lacks the ability to properly communicate and care for himself. He can't fully think for himself and obeys the orders given to him by his family out of fear.
Leatherface is quite possibly the single most fearsome, horrific slasher movie villain of all time. He is the hulking, chainsaw-wielding butcher for his family of deranged backwoods cannibals. He is a monster. Nothing about what he does is in any way justifiable or redeemable.
Leatherface's need to wear a mask, though, was a reaction to him having a skin disease that disfigured his face and made him the victim of ridicule among his peers. He began wearing a leather mask to draw less attention to his face, and over time, this practice became normal for him.
