How to Watch Chronologically and by Release Date
When thinking of Texas, most people probably think about cowboy hats and BBQ brisket but for horror fanatics, the first thing that comes to mind is the sound of a chainsaw revving accompanied by the chorus of screaming teenagers. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre made its box office debut in 1974, causing a wave of controversy over the violent and gory content. The movie made a killing despite being banned in a few countries and having several theaters pull it from their screens after numerous complaints.
The success of the 1974 slasher spurred on a franchise of sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes, and revised timelines. With a collection of eight Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies (soon to be nine!) it can get a little confusing trying to figure out what order to watch them in. This article should help clear a few things up for you.
The first four movies of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise are already in chronological order, nice and neat. After that… things get a little tricky. Let’s break it down.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre Movies in Order of Release Date
1974 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
1986 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
1990 - Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
1995 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
*2000 - All American Massacre
2003 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2006 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
2013 - Texas Chainsaw
2017 - Leatherface
2022 -Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Release date: February 18, 2022)
*This movie was never released but it still deserves acknowledgment.
The Original Timeline in Chronological Order
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Siblings Sally (Marilyn Burns) and Franklin (Paul A. Partain) are traveling through rural Texas with three of their friends to visit the grave and house of their deceased grandfather due to reports of suspected vandalism. They stop at a gas station, only to discover that there’s no gas, so they continue on to the familial homestead to wait for fuel delivery.
Pam (Teri McMinn) and her boyfriend Kirk (William Vail) wander off in search of a nearby pond to swim in and come across another farmhouse. There, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), a large, hulking man wearing a mask made of human skin, makes his first appearance. He attacks the couple savagely, killing Kirk and goring Pam with a meat hook. The rest of the group is subsequently killed off in increasingly horrifying and grotesque ways by Leatherface and his backwoods, cannibalistic family, the Sawyers. A perfect movie to watch on a first date.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
More than a decade after the initial Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper returns as director to create the sequel. Departing from the atmospheric style of the first movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 delves into campy black comedy and gore. Audiences cringe and squirm as they watch Leatherface (Tom Morga and Bill Johnson) torment and dismember teenagers with his trademark weapon of choice.
Dennis Hopper stars as Lieutenant Boude “Lefty” Enright, the uncle of the victims Sally and Franklin Hardesty of the first movie. He helps track down Leatherface and his homicidal family members (who may or may not have won the Chili Cook-Off by using human flesh) with the help of radio DJ Vanita “Stretch” Brock (Caroline Williams). The movie ends with Leatherface and his family meeting a terrible end… but we all know better than that.
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
In a brazen act of retroactive continuity by the new director, Jeff Burr, Leatherface (R.A. Mihailoff) lives on to wreak havoc on a young couple traveling through Texas. Michelle (Kate Hodge) and Ryan (William Butler) witness a hitchhiker, “Tex,” (Viggo Mortensen) engage in a fight with the owner of a remote gas station, Alfredo (Tom Everett). They drive off, only to get into an accident with survivalist Benny (Ken Foree) after Tex runs onto the road in front of them.
The trio search for Tex, but soon find themselves in the clutches of the Sawyer family, who stalk the local roads in search of new victims. Benny tries to escape and runs into Leatherface himself, only to be saved by one of the surviving victims from the opening scene of the movie. Without giving away too many of the gritty details, the movie ends with Benny and Michelle barely escaping in Alfredo’s truck, assuming Leatherface and the Sawyers are all dead. Of course, the last thing audiences see is Leatherface angrily revving his iconic chainsaw in the distance.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995/1997)
This is where things start to get a little tricky. The movie was originally released as The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1995 but was then shelved by Columbia Pictures. It was then re-released in 1997 after co-stars Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey became more famous.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation introduces a secret society involved with Leatherface (Robert Jacks) and the Sawyer family that compels them to do what they do to unsuspecting travelers. It also brings up the concept of Leatherface having a proclivity for cross-dressing which is a nod to the real-life inspiration of the character, serial killer Ed Gein, who was also the inspiration for Silence of the Lambs’ villain, Buffalo Bill. Unfortunately, this movie and its prequel were ultimately flops, which leads us to the rebooted timeline.
How to Watch This Timeline in Chronological Order:
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
- Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995)
The Rebooted/Hewitt Timeline in Chronological Order
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is where the release dates diverge from the original timeline. It is a prequel to the events that take place in the original 1974 film. Starting in 1939 when a woman dies giving birth to a premature son. Another woman, Luda Mae Hewitt (Allison Marich) finds the infant discarded in a dumpster behind a slaughterhouse and takes him in as her own, naming him Thomas.
30 years later, Thomas Hewitt, a.k.a Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) works at the same slaughterhouse he was found at as a baby. His first murder (that audiences are aware of) is that of the manager when the factory is shut down, and that’s when he discovers an old chainsaw that he takes with him. Sheriff Hoyt attempts to arrest Thomas but is killed by the adoptive brother, Charlie (R. Lee Ermey), who then takes on the identity of the sheriff, showing how the family is able to trick unsuspecting victims deeper into their snares.
Following the standard plotline of all the TCM movies, this one follows a group of young adults (Matt Bomer, Taylor Handley, Jordana Brewster, and Diora Baird), as they travel cross-country and find themselves in Leatherface’s territorial hunting grounds. Chaos and carnage ensue, as Leatherface and his diabolical family pick off the victims one-by-one in a grisly manhunt that ends with the not-so-unexpected death of the last survivor, Chrissie (Brewster) as she tries to escape. The movie ends with Leatherface walking down the road back to the Hewitt homestead, carrying a bloody chainsaw.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
As the fifth installment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, this is the first remake of the original 1974 film. The movie brought in plenty of fresh blood as younger generations surged into theaters bringing in a whopping $29.1 million during the first weekend of the North American release, resulting in a number 1 spot in U.S. box offices. With a budget of 9.5 million, this movie is the highest-grossing film in the franchise, inflation rates included.
Of course, being a remake, this movie was set in the same era of the 1970s but added certain events, characters, and plot twists. Cast and crew members of the original 1974 film such as Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel, (Director and Writers, respectively) were co-producers as well as cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and narrator John Laroquette. Despite all the new elements that were introduced in this remake, the movie still ends with a frustrated Leatherface (Bryniarski) waving his chainsaw in the air as the lone survivor, Erin (Jessica Biel), makes her escape.
How to Watch This Timeline in Chronological Order:
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Revised Sawyer Timeline in Chronological Order
Leatherface (2017)
This terrifying movie serves as a prequel to the original 1974 movie, keeping the Sawyer family name, but explaining the events that caused young Jedidiah Sawyer (Boris Kabakchiev) to evolve into Jackson, a.k.a “Leatherface” (Sam Strike). A young couple in 1955 find a young boy in the street, and Betty (Lorina Kamburova) follows him back to a barn because she is worried about his well-being. As a result, she dies a horrific and violent death at the hands of the Sawyer family, Jedidiah being the young boy she followed. Her father, Sheriff Hal Hartman (Stephen Dorff) is called to the scene and because he can’t prove that it was murder by the Sawyer family, he has young Jedidiah taken away to a mental institution.
At this institution, the “Gorman House for Youth Reformatory,” Jedidiah is given a new name, “Jackson,” to protect his identity. He and other patients undergo a variety of terrifying and cruel procedures under the watch of Dr. Lang (Chris Adamson). A decade later his mother Verna (Lili Taylor) comes to visit him but is turned away by Lang. She evades the security detail and causes a riot, resulting in the deaths of most of the staff and the escape of many of the patients.
Jedidiah and a small troupe of his fellow escapees go on a killing spree shortly after, with scenes involving the deaths of multiple innocents as well as those in the group that escaped from the Gorman House. The last event leaves Jedidiah with severe facial disfigurement, after which Verna stitches his face back together and holds the pieces in place with a leather “muzzle” of sorts. The ending sequence shows Jedidiah losing the last shred of his humanity in the name of protecting his family, with him donning a mask stitched together from the skin of his latest victims. He views himself in a mirror, applies lipstick, and then smashes the mirror.
This is all the lead-up to where audiences were first introduced to the character “Leatherface,” and the events in the original 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie. The next film is to be viewed as a direct sequel to the 1974 movie, replacing the original consequential movies from 1986, 1990, and 1995.
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)
This movie is supposed to be a direct sequel to the 1974 Texas Chain Saw Massacre, essentially re-writing the timeline that was established in the three subsequent movies released in the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s.
Texas Chainsaw 3D starts off with the sheriff coming to the Sawyer homestead to capture and arrest Leatherface (Dan Yeager) but before he is secured, the townsfolk arrive in a mob and burn down the house, killing the remaining Sawyer family members. One member of the mob discovers an infant girl in the arms of her mother, Loretta Sawyer, and kills the woman. He and his wife take in the girl and raise her as their own, naming her Heather (Alexandra Daddario).
Later, when Heather is an adult, she receives a letter stating she has an inheritance from her recently deceased relative, Verna Sawyer Carson. Upon learning that she was adopted, she decides to drive out with her boyfriend, Ryan (Trey Songz), her best friend, Nikki (Tania Raymonde), and Nikki’s boyfriend, Kenny, (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) to collect her inheritance. As usual for any Texas Chainsaw movie, the group comes across a hitchhiker, Darryl (Shaun Sipos).
Upon arriving at Verna’s home, Heather and her friends go to buy groceries, leaving Darryl alone. He starts to ransack the house, stealing valuables. He finds a large reinforced door in the basement but is killed by Leatherface before he can enter. As Heather’s friends are slowly picked off, she learns more and more about her family background and discovers Leatherface is essentially protecting her as they are family. During a pivotal moment between Leatherface and Deputy Carl (Scott Eastwood), she chooses to help Leatherface, tossing his chainsaw to him.
There’s a lot to unpack in this movie, but it might just be the most pivotal sequel to the original 1974 film… so far.
How to Watch the Revised Sawyer Timeline in Chronological Order:
- Leatherface (2017)
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
- Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)
Coming Soon:
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Coming to Netflix on February 18, 2022, the ninth addition to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise comes as a sequel to the 1974 film of the same name. Directed by David Blue Garcia and the screenplay written by Chris Thomas Devlin.
All we know so far is that it takes place decades after the events from the original film. Leatherface (Mark Burnham) stalks and attacks a group of young influencers who are attempting to revitalize an old and (somewhat) forgotten town in rural Texas. As they struggle for survival, they are introduced to Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré), the female protagonist from the 1974 movie, and team up to end Leatherface’s reign of terror.
How to Watch the Revamped Texas Chainsaw Timeline:
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Honorable Mention:
All American Massacre (2000)
All American Massacre was intended to be a spinoff of the 1986 movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 directed by William Hooper, son of 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director, Tobe Hooper. This movie is focused on (presumably) Leatherface’s (Buckethead) recollection of his childhood experiences in an interview with a tabloid news journalist. Originally meant to be a 15-minute short film, All American Massacre progressed into a 1-hour featurette. It was completed but never released.
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