Leatherface has finally gotten itself an official release date. Cinema history is full of horror franchises that began on top of the pop culture world, only to end up descending into utter ridiculousness as their installments continued. For instance, Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees and Hellraiser's Pinhead both went into space, while Halloween's Michael Myers eventually abandoned stalking his relatives for the thrills of offing contestants on a reality TV show. All that said, perhaps no slasher icon has endured more indignities than Leatherface, lead villain of Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Oddly enough, the descent from horrifying bad guy to demented cartoon character would begin at the hands of Hooper himself in 1986's campy sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. While that film has its fans, it's certainly a far cry from the harrowing tone of the original. The third Texas Chainsaw installment tried to make things dark again, but failed to impress many. Then came 1994's Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, which starred Matthew McConaughey in his hammiest role to date, and revealed that Leatherface's murders were directed by mysterious government agents for some reason.

As silly as The Next Generation got, nearly as silly was the most recent entry, 2013's Texas Chainsaw 3D. From casting Alexandra Daddario as a character that should logically be pushing 40, to ultimately trying to paint Leatherface as a hero, Texas Chainsaw 3D was a disaster by most accounts - except when it came to making money, which is why the prequel Leatherface was then made. Leatherface has been sitting on a shelf since 2015, but Bloody Disgusting now reports that the film has finally received an official release date, or in this case dates. Leatherface will debut exclusively on DirecTV on September 21, with a limited theatrical release and wide VOD release following on October 20.

It had already been a fairly eventful day for Leatherface, as this morning brought the first batch of official images from the prequel. As one might expect, they were drenched in blood, because chainsaws aren't exactly a murder weapon that leads to easy clean-up.

With the wide release date of October 20 now official - which jives with producer Christa Campbell's previous proclamation on Twitter back in May - fans can finally rest assured that a new round of Leatherface action is incoming. That is unless studio Lionsgate opts to pull an Amityville: The Awakening, and delay things at the last minute, which would just be downright cruel.

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Source: Bloody Disgusting

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