Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel Leatherface to arrive this October

May 13th 2017, 2:22pm

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

When watching some of cinemas most iconic villains one can’t help but wonder what happened in their childhood that made them that way. Was Hannibal Lecter forced to eat nothing but raw meat while listening to Beethoven? Did The Joker have a bad experience with a birthday clown? Many movies have gone back to the past to explore the history of the movie business’ most villainous characters, and we can add one more to that list this year with the new origin story, LEATHERFACE.

It was announced via Twitter by the movie’s producer, Christa Campbell, that the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE prequel will arrive in theaters this October just in time for Halloween. The tweet came with a pretty creepy photo of the young child presumably playing the chainsaw-wielding character before he goes all…chainsaw-y:

To all our leatherface fans out there. The movie will be released in October #texaschainsaw @latigrobman #LEATHERFACE pic.twitter.com/WFbuzyVJSX

— christa campbell (@christacampbell) May 13, 2017

There’s no specific day set for the release, but one can assume it could fall closer to the end of the month. The movie will focus on the early days of the killer, acting as a direct prequel to the original 1974 film by Tobe Hooper. The movie will ignore the events and characters from the remakes, the 2003 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING. The movie will star Stephen Dorff and Lili Taylor and is being directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury.

The HALLOWEEN franchise famously went to the roots of Michael Myers’ childhood with the Rob Zombie prequels, focusing on his early days as an angry little teen. The style varies here, revolving a mystery around several teens who are escaping from a mental institution with a nurse, with one of them ultimately becoming the legendary Leatherface. Horror prequels always freak me out, and not in a good way, so maybe this one can subvert the format a bit and make it something we actually feel like we need to see.