The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – By Gabz
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Gabz: Being a huge fan of what Jason Edmiston and Florian Bertmer did for the same title before me, as hard is it was, I wanted my piece to be something completely different. I’ve been wanting to work on something more editorial-looking for months, and with a title as long as this one, I felt it’s a perfect opportunity not to be wasted.
Since viewers of this classic horror flick are meant to believe it’s based on a true story, custom-designed typo that looks like a front page of some crazy newspaper seemed like a right thing to do.Instead of focusing on just one scene or character, I included several plot points and all the essential characters destined (or not) to end up on Sawyer’s dining table.
Prints available on Thursday April 30 between 1-2 p.m. EST HERE
Tools – Poster Art
I love these simple designs for series titled ‘Tools’ featuring 4 classic films. Would have all of them on my wall. Check out more from the artist Javier Vera Lainez on his site HERE
Texas Chainsaw Massacre – By Jason Edmiston
Grey Matter Art is proud to announce their next release for the 4 part artist series for the 40th Anniversary of the film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This poster is by the very talented Jason Edmiston… I need this…
Bernie Wrightson – Dark As A Dungeon
Just bought this new release print by the legendary Bernie Wrightson – Dark As A Dungeon. Limited print run of 75 only, signed by the man himself. Check them out HERE
Leatherface – The Early Years…
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre seems to be in the news quite a bit of late, with the imminent re-mastered 4K 40th Anniversary rerelease and sadly, the death of Marilyn Burns. Now more news of yet another film to the Chainsaw canon…
Up-and-coming genre scribe Seth M. Sherwood has been hired to write a prequel to the original 1974 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre titled simply Leatherface, (haven’t we already had that title..?) an individual familiar with the Millennium Films project has told The Wrap.
Official plot details are being kept under wraps, though the new film is expected to serve as an origin story that follows Leatherface’s early years in the 1970s (Didn’t we already see that in TCM:The Beginning..?)
Alexandra Daddario starred in last year’s Texas Chainsaw movie as Leatherface’s long-lost cousin, but it’s currently unclear whether she would return, given the bloody timeline of the series. If she does, it would likely be a cameo appearance as another character, such as a different member of Leatherface’s extended family.
Carl Mazzocone is producing Leatherface, while Christa Campbell and Lati Grobman will serve as executive producers. Campbell and Grobman fought hard to resurrect the franchise and being self-professed genre buffs they are excited to get started on the next installment.
Millennium Films is financing the project and will sell international rights. Millennium executives Beth Bruckner and Christine Crow are overseeing Leatherface for the studio. Production could start as soon as this winter, with a director expected to sign on in the coming weeks.
Sherwood has several projects percolating around town including a supernatural thriller at Blumhouse that will be directed by Greg Plotkin (Paranormal Activity 5). He also wrote a psychological thriller titled Interstate 5 that was voted to the 2012 Blood List. Described as a cross between Jacob’s Ladder and Natural Born Killers, the story follows a serial killer’s son and the daughter of one of his victims as they team up to find the maniac, only to be haunted by demonic forces intent on driving them mad.
I hope it’s good, it probably won’t be, but we live in hope. Some originality would be great…
Marilyn Burns R.I.P.
Incredibly sad news today, Marilyn Burns, one of the original “scream queens” who starred in Tobe Hooper’s original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, died Tuesday in Texas. She was 65 and was found dead in her home near Houston.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was her first lead role; in it she played teenager Sally Hardesty, who goes with her brother and friends to the cemetery where her grandfather is buried and ends up as the only survivor of an encounter with the insane family led by chainsaw-wielding Leatherface. Her iconic screaming throughout her prolonged capture and escape is horror legend.
Burns was born in Erie, Penn., raised in Texas and had small parts in films including Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud while she was still in high school, and George Roy Hill’s The Great Waldo Pepper.
But she was most known for horror films including Hooper’s 1977 “Eaten Alive,” about an insane hotel proprietor who feeds his guests to his pet alligator. Among her other films were “Kiss Daddy Goodbye” and “Future-Kill.”
In 1976, she appeared in TV movie Helter Skelter as Charles Manson follower Linda Kasabian. She had a cameo in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation” and was seen in her original role in archival footage in “Texas Chainsaw 3D.”
She talked to Terror Trap in 2004 about her experience shooting the gruesome “Chainsaw”: “Afterwards, I was just so grateful it was over. I probably was the happiest girl alive. During it, I was 100% focused and I probably wasn’t a joy to be around. It was an interesting shoot for sure.”
Horror Icon Art From VHS Tapes
Old VHS turned into… old VHS Horror icons by artist Patrick Massobrio. Click on the image to scroll through larger individual images of each Horror Icon. Check out his site for more weird and wonderful art HERE
KISS – Horror Icons Mash-Up
KISS and Slasher legends… well, apart from Chucky who I always hated, it should have been Michael Myers. But then again, Peter Criss was quite short. Available from Fright Rags HERE
Jason-Leatherface Stick Figure Sticker
Awesome riposte to all those annoying stickers in the back windows of cars…
The Loved Ones
“Sixteen Candles meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre” FlickSided
“Brutal, bloody and black as all Hell…” Ed Gibbs, Rolling Stone
“She is one of the greatest villains in horror history” Gordon and the Whale
Check out my review HERE.
The Loved Ones is finally getting a US Theatrical release… and a new US Poster. One of the best horror/thrillers of the last year is out in the US in June.
Click on the LINK to bring this fantastic Australian flick to your town.
Tobe Hooper’s DJINN Trailer
Director Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem’s Lot, Poltergeist) is back with a new ‘haunted house’ movie called ‘Djinn’. Scripted by David Tully, Hooper’s Djinn centers around an attractive young Emirati couple (Khalid Laith and Razane Jammal) who return to their brand-new luxury apartment after a trip to the U.S., only to learn that the building’s site also happens to be home to malicious spirits known as Djinn. It looks like a typical haunted house tale in most respects, right down to the shot of Jammal standing terrified in her living room, but the sleek, modern Abu Dhabi setting and Djinn mythology seem like they’ll provide some refreshing updates to the formula.
Despite the rumours over the weekend that the Abu Dhabi royal family had objected to the film’s “politically subversive” nature and demanded it be shelved, production company Imagenation Abu Dhabi confirmed to ‘Shock Till You Drop’ yesterday that Djinn “is in active post-production” and will hit theaters sometime this year. However, no opening date has been announced at this time.
Check out the trailer, unfortunately, some subtitles are missing, however it looks interesting…
Ed Gein
Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein (August 27, 1906– July 26, 1984) was an American murderer. His crimes, which he committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, garnered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin.
After police found body parts in his house in 1957, Gein confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, in 1957. Initially found unfit to stand trial, following confinement in a mental health facility, he was tried in 1968 for the murder of Worden and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he spent in a mental hospitals, the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. The body of Bernice Worden was found in Gein’s shed; her head and the head of Mary Hogan were found inside his house. Robert H. Gollmar, the judge in the Gein case, wrote: “Due to prohibitive costs, Gein was tried for only one murder — that of Mrs. Worden.”
With fewer than three murders attributed, Gein does not meet the traditional definition of a serial killer. However it is the insane collection of human body parts that has given rise to the Ed Geinmythology. Searching the house, authorities found:
Four noses- Whole human bones and fragments
- Nine masks of human skin
- Bowls made from human skulls
- Ten female heads with the tops sawn off
- Human skin covering several chair seats
- Mary Hogan’s head in a paper bag
- Bernice Worden’s head in a burlap sack
- Nine vulvas in a shoe box
- A belt made from human female nipples
- Skulls on his bedposts
- Organs in the refrigerator
- A pair of lips on a draw string for a windowshade
- A lampshade made from the skin from a human face
These artifacts were photographed at the crime lab and then were properly destroyed.
Regardless, according to the creators Robert Bloch, Tobe Hooper and Thomas Harris, his real-life case influenced the creation of fictional serial killers Norman Bates from ‘Psycho’, Leatherface from ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, and Jame Gumb from ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.
The story of Ed Gein has had a lasting impact on western popular culture as evidenced by its numerous appearances in movies, music and literature. Apart from influencing 3 of the horror genres most iconic movies, Gein’s story was adapted into a number of movies, including ‘Deranged’ (1974), ‘In the Light of the Moon’ (2000) released in the U.S. as ‘Ed Gein’ (2001), and ‘Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield’ (2007). Deranged is disturbingly creepy, the others, as is usual with this fare, are awful. A biographical musical titled ‘Ed Gein: the Musical’ 
premiered on January 2, 2010 in Menasha, Wisconsin. Haven’t seen it…
On July 26, 1984, Gein died of respiratory and heart failure due to cancer in Stovall Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. His grave site in the Plainfield cemetery was frequently vandalized over the years; souvenir seekers chipped off pieces of his gravestone before the bulk of it was stolen in 2000. The gravestone was recovered in June 2001 near Seattle and is now in a museum in Waushara County. Rot in Hell.
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