Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 14, 2012, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Gunnar Hansen, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s original Leatherface, revealed to Fango an exciting new work in progress: Chain Saw Confidential, a memoir about Tobe Hooper’s groundbreaking horror classic. Hansen gave us the full scoop on the book.
The horrifying tale of Chainsaw’s production and distribution fate has been oft-told, but Hansen reveals that his tome takes a different tack. “Over the years, people have asked me if I would write a book about Chainsaw, and I thought about it a lot, and I decided I’d like to but didn’t want to do a book that was just about making the movie,” he tells us. “I wanted something broader. So finally, I thought this would be a good time to write one that tells the inside story of Chainsaw but also talks about the film’s place in horror—why there are people who absolutely despise the movie, why there are people who absolutely adore the movie. What is it about Chainsaw that makes people react this way? That means that I wind up talking about what horror is, and about Chainsaw’s place in that context of horror films.”
Which is not to say that Hansen won’t also take readers back to the 1973 production. “We’re certainly gonna talk about the details of the shooting; all of the actors have agreed to let me interview them, plus a number of people involved with the film who weren’t in front of the camera. So it will be a very detailed, true account of that.” What he won’t get into is Chainsaw’s notorious distribution and financial woes. “I’m not really interested in the money issue; I have to mention it, but I believe that’s a very narrow question about this movie. What I’m interested in is, what is Chainsaw’s place? The money issue is irrelevant to that. I want much more to talk about, ‘How did we end up with this movie?’ That’s the big question, and the one that most of us who were involved with it sometimes ask: ‘How did we do this?’
“My answer is, look at all the details,” he continues. “Look at the fact that even though everybody thinks this was a college-student movie, there’s nothing accidental about it. Plus we have this strange phenomenon of it being more than its parts. The sum of the movie is more than everything that was put into it. In the new preface to his 2010 Danse Macabre, Stephen King wrote that Chainsaw was a one-off fluke, which I think is really unfair to the movie, like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, we didn’t know what we were doing.’ I don’t believe we all presumed to be geniuses of film, but we really worked hard to make that movie happen. And then you add all the misery… So that’s what I want to talk about: how this movie came out of that mess, and now that we have this film that came out of this experience, what is its significance? To talk about that, you have to talk about the broader question of what is horror, what is the horror phenomenon? And then you can talk about Chainsaw.”
Hansen has been in constant touch with his Chainsaw cohorts over the years, and the Maine resident will be heading back to Texas soon to speak with them first-hand for Confidential. His insider status, he believes, will give him an advantage among the many who have charted the movie’s story. “That will make it much easier for the interviews, because we’re all in the same boat,” he notes. “I’m hoping to get all of us together; instead of doing single interviews, one-on-one, I want to get several of us in one room, and just turn on the tape recorder and see what happens when we start trading stories. Obviously, it’ll be told from my point of view, but what I’m trying to do is deepen and broaden the account, so not only will people talk about the same things I’m going to talk about from their points of view, but some will share experiences that have nothing to do with my being there. I’m hoping those things will make the story much more compelling.”
As for his Chainsaw director, “I haven’t talked to Tobe yet. I’m hoping that he’ll agree to an interview. We seem to have a good relationship. A couple of years ago, we were at Universal together for the EyeGore Awards; they put us at the same table, and we had a great time. We had an absolute blast, and our agents have kept in touch with each other since then [laughs]. It’s a strange business. So I’m hoping he’ll let me come out to LA and talk with him, but at this point, I don’t know yet.”
Hansen has already signed a contract with Chronicle Books, and says, “The plan is for it to be released in hardcover this fall, and then probably in paperback in the fall of 2014, which will be the movie’s 40th anniversary.” He adds that the book will be fully illustrated, but isn’t sure yet about what exactly we’ll be seeing. “I’m very early in the process and I don’t know what I’m going to find. A couple of treasure troves have been promised to me to look through, and I’m hoping to find stuff that hasn’t been out there before.”
