'Texas Chainsaw' Gives Leatherface Evil Backstory

Leatherface, the frightening face of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, now has a reason for some of his extra-curricular killing.

Texas Chainsaw, the latest film in the horror series out on home video this week, shows the masked man doing his usual slayings but adds a twist to the proceedings.

The film follows the kin of the famed killer, a young woman (Alexandra Daddario) who has no idea her family tree has such rotted roots. The poor pretty woman gets a crash course in her biological lines long before the credits roll.

The story eventually reveals some of the reasons why Leatherface is so darn angry, part of a recent horror movie trend that tries to explain away what makes some modern monsters tick.

Consider Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, a film which depicted young Michael Myers’ oh, so dysfunctional family which helped turn him into a killing machine. And then there was Hannibal Rising, the unsuccessful Silence of the Lambs prequel which revealed how film’s most famous cannibal got a taste for human flesh.

Consider the new Texas Chainsaw part of this horror movie continuum. Horror movie villains will still slice and dice our heroes to appease the genre’s most faithful fans. But, like it or not, we’ll also see some of the reasons why these nightmarish souls started slaying in the first place.