Eye For Film >> Movies >> Leatherface Speaks (2000) Film Review
Leatherface Speaks - the title is an in-joke referring to the character's muteness - presents a 20 minute informal conversation with the man who played the chainsaw-wielding, dead-skin-mask-wearing maniac in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Gunnar Hansen.
Careful to apportion credit where due to others - like the film's director Tobe Hooper and writer Kim Henkel - Hansen displays a keen awareness of the horror genre, its critics and its subculture, clearly the product of long experience on the festival/event circuit.
In explaining how he prepared for the role by observing how the mentally retarded carried themselves, Hansen carefully makes it clear that he is not saying the retarded are in any way like Leatherface. Or, in discussing the film's enduring appeal, he contrasts The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's carefully edited, suggestive horror - scarcely a drop of blood is spilt on screen - with the lingering, "pornographic" approach frequently taken by its lesser imitators.
Though not terribly filmic - it would work equally well as a radio programme - Leatherface Speaks is an informative little documentary that should help dispel misunderstandings about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Leatherface cults.
Reviewed on: 29 Mar 2002
