Caution: Spoilers about the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre below.
The owner of the special effects studio behind Texas Chainsaw Massacre's design of Leatherface reveals the extensive creative process. The Legendary Pictures production, picked up by Netflix and released late last week, serves as a legacy sequel to Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic slasher The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Following in the footsteps of similar follow-ups like Halloween and Candyman, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a direct continuation of the original film and finds iconic villain Leatherface, nearly 50 years older, hiding out in a small Texas town before unleashing his wrath on a new group of unsuspecting youths.
Although development ran into several roadblocks, with principal photography beginning only a few months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the firing of the film's first directors, producer Fede Alvarez and new director, David Blue Garcia, eventually completed Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Mark Burnham took over Gunnar Hansen's prolific role opposite Olwen Fouéré as Sally Hardesty (the final girl of Hooper's film), Sarah Yarkin as Melody, and Elsie Fisher as Lila. Despite the visionary change following Legendary's dissatisfaction with the first Ryan and Andy Tohill, the cast and crew carried on shooting in Bulgaria, with all of the hardships that overseas film production during a pandemic could bring.
In particular, it was Leatherface's intricate design process that proved most difficult for the team behind Illusion Industries Inc. Bloody-Disgusting shares a discussion with the studio's owner, Todd Tucker, about how involved the entire operation was. Tucker mentions that Key Designer and Sculptor Martin Astles led a solo expedition to Bulgaria to act as the set makeup applicator due to travel restrictions at the time. "I think we made like twenty-something faces," says Tucker, alluding to the fact that Astles had to take numerous makeup pieces with him overseas to bypass shipping restrictions. He also had to outfit the otherwise gentle Burnham and his stunt doubles in different scenes to maintain continuity. Check out the full quote and images below:
I think we made like twenty-something faces. Because we knew that not only was Leatherface actor Mark Burnham going to be in the mask, but we knew that Martin would have to put all these other stunt guys in makeups too. They had to be able to fit them and look the same.
Creating so many applications sounds like an incredible amount of work, but it's the logical strategy when facing complications due to a global health emergency. Slashers, in particular, often feature a steady increase in blood and gore effects as the story progresses, and because so many cinematic productions film in non-sequential order, navigating continuity issues can be tricky. When these aspects are combined, it takes crafty planning to ensure that the scenes with Leatherface's progressively bloody mask look organized. The caveat for the Illusion Industries team during planning is that they only had to craft multiple versions of the same skin mask, not distinctive ones. Unlike other TCM franchise films, Leatherface only wears the visage of his dead caretaker, Ginny (Alice Krige), throughout the Legendary and Netflix version.
No matter what critical reactions say about Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a whole, they regard Leatherface's aesthetic and overall direction as one of its most favorable elements. As Tucker explains further along in the Bloody-Disgusting article, the infamous Texan's brutality that carries over from the 1974 production has layers due to the sad grimace of Ginny's face over his own. The new mask gives Leatherface the emotion that he only marginally demonstrated in fits of childish temperament about 48 years ago. Whether or not this gift of humanity is an objectively good quality to provide a mass-murdering serial killer is another topic of debate, but the special makeup effects department's determination to see the entire process through is admirable. It is also one of several attempts to shoulder the legacy of Hooper's film, like bringing back Leatherface's vintage chainsaw. See the character's new look in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, streaming now on Netflix.
Source: Bloody-Disgusting