Leatherface

The film which you are about to read about is the account of a young man who grew up to be a chainsaw wielding, cannibalistic maniac who was responsible for one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history.

Why we’re looking forward to this: We’ve got to be honest from the get go here. If you’d told us three years ago that there was going to be another Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or Chain Saw for the purists) film that was set during Leatherface’s teenage years then we’d have probably laughed in your face and told you never to darken our door again.

Since then, however, we’ve had Bates Motel and Hannibal which have successfully taken the early years of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter (though admittedly we join the latter some way past puberty) and turned them into very entertaining television series.

Given that we’re partially to a bit of Texan chainsaw mayhem here, though we’re happy to admit that not all of the films in Tobe Hooper’s forty year legacy have been great, we’re actually kind of looking forward to seeing where this prequel might go, particularly as it’s being directed by Julian Maury and Alexandre Bustillo who brought us the brilliantly disturbing Inside a few years back.

There are no details on plot, or casting, or anything much beyond the directors attached but like Jason, Freddy and Michael there’s something about Bubba Sawyer (or whatever they’re going to call him this time) that piques our interest and imagination and reels us back in for one more spin around the block.

Whether this prequel will attempt to shoehorn itself into the somewhat confusing canon of the existing seven entries (can you name them all?) remains to be seen, but I can pretty much guarantee that when our boy pulls on the dead skin mask and fires up the old saw we’ll have an ear to ear grin on our faces.

Leatherface is currently in production and we’ll bring you more buzz on this in due course.

 RICH COSGROVE