Why Leatherface’s Killings Are Reasonable
The following content contains written representation of violence and gore.
I would like to say at the beginning of this, I don’t condone or support murder in real life. This film is fictional and I love horror films and analyze them heavily. Now let’s get to the rant for the day.
Recently Netflix released another adaptation of the infamous Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There are 10 movies all together for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. It’s full of adaptations, remakes, and sequels. But this new film is a sequel directly to the original 1974 film. The new film does Leatherface justice for the gore factor. In the original 1974 film, there was not enough gore. It was just a girl running for half of the movie away from Leatherface and other people in that town. Leatherface is a man wielding a chainsaw hunting people who come across him; of course, there needs to be gore. I will give props to the 2022 version, they did a wonderful job with the casting for Leatherface. He was a menace and I honestly was scared every time he killed someone brutally or came back for more killing.
Now I want to say spoilers to anyone who hasn’t watched the film. A quick rundown of the film: Dante, Dante’s fiance, Melody, and her sister, Lila have bought land in Harlow, Texas so they can live a better life and be away from the violence from their past homes. It seems like a cult, to be honest, and is even mentioned in the film by the Texan character, Richter. They get to the town and Dante and Melody find an orphanage with a woman still inside. They tell her to leave but she still has the title to the building. They kick her out of her own place with the help of the police. Leatherface lives at the orphanage too, so he was kicked out with her as well. As they leave, the woman dies and Leatherface is distraught because his orphanage mother, who has been taking care of him, just died. So then his killings begin quickly after her death.
Now, I think his killings are justified because these random new Gen Z people come to his town demanding him to leave. He didn’t even need to leave the orphanage because his mother had the title of the orphanage. If Dante and Melody would have checked that they had the title to the orphanage or not then the mother probably wouldn’t have died. Also, Leatherface would not have killed almost everybody. His orphanage mother was the one holding him back from his mental tendencies to want to kill and these new people messed it up by kicking her out.
I didn’t feel remorse for any of the killings except Richter. I really wanted him to live. He was concerned for Dante after he was killed even though he knew Dante and Melody were responsible for the death of the mother. Richter punished them by taking the bus and car keys. But still gave the keys to Melody as he died. I was hoping that Leatherface would have killed Melody faster because she was being problematic the whole time. She was shaming Richter, very loudly, for having a gun at the gas station. But they are in Texas, it’s a common thing. She was yelling at her sister saying she doesn’t know what she wants. She was crying and whining with guilt the whole movie after they found out they caused the death of the mother. She even had the audacity to say sorry to Leatherface for killing his mother. It’s too late now, Melody. I was glad she got her head sawed off in the end.
The scene on the bus with all the people with Leatherface. It was a bloodbath and I loved it. I cringed on the gore but I think all his kills were right because they are trying to take over his town. They had all the audacity to record him and that was the moment I was like, “Yup they are all going to die and I don’t feel bad”. People went live on social media while Leatherface was killing them and the comments were terrible. People wanted to be there or they thought it was fake. I think if this actually happened people today would act like this.
I liked how they brought the original woman who survived Leatherface from the original film. But she was useless in a one-on-one fight with Leatherface. She was too worried about Leatherface remembering all her friends that were killed by him. Leatherface is old and has killed so many people in his films, do you think he is going to remember every person he kills? I disliked the film a little more when she was chainsawed in the stomach and lifted in the air during that whole motion by Leatherface. He threw her in the trash and she should have died on impact. But she ended up monologuing to Lila about killing Leatherface for good. She shot Leatherface with a shotgun, which should be impossible because she is supposed to be dead. She loaded up the shotgun and gave it to Lila. She shouldn’t have any strength to do any of this. I was lowkey glad that she was killed because she was annoying in the film.
Overall, Leatherface did the right thing killing all the people invading his town. Although I do not think it is morally right to do that in real life, this is pure fiction. I sympathize with him because he lost someone close to him and these Gen Z people killed her. I do feel bad about Richter getting killed but everybody else doesn’t matter to me. And to end this off I would like to say again, I DON’T CONDONE MURDER IN REAL LIFE LIKE LEATHERFACE, THIS IS FICTIONAL THINKING.
