Editorials
[Set Report] ‘Texas Chainsaw 3D’!
On January 4, 2013 Lionsgate will gas-up their chainsaw and pull the cord on Texas Chainsaw 3D, the John Luessenhop-directed “sequel” to Tobe Hooper’s classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre that stars Dan Yeager, John Dugan, Bill Moseley, Alexandra Daddario, Sue Rock, Tania Raymonde, Scott Eastwood, Gunnar Hansen, Tobe Hooper, Paul Rae, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, Ritchie Montgomery, Trey Songz, Marilyn Burns, Shaun Sipos, Thom Barry and Richard Riehler.
It’s hard to believe the film is finally hitting theaters as we sent Bloody Disgusting correspondent Alyse Wax to the Louisiana set back in August of 2011 (when it was titled Leatherface 3D). This morning we’re excited to finally bring you Alyse’s set report, along with two images exclusive to those who attended!
In addition to this report, Evan Dickson has interviews with John Luessenhop and Alexandra Daddario hitting later this week and early next week. Watch for more leading up to the Leatherface’s return right here on Bloody Disgusting.
By: Alyse Wax
Shreveport, Louisiana in the dead of August was not a thrilling thought for this city girl whose entire knowledge of Louisiana (outside of New Orleans) comes from “True Blood”. But the idea of checking out the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre film definitely piqued my interest. After all, early word was that this installment – which they were calling Leatherface 3D on set – was meant as a sequel to Tobe Hooper’s original classic, and completely ignored every other Chainsaw-related flick.
The studio picked a good day for ten journalists to come visit the set (aside from the 98 degree heat and 50% humidity). The film opens right at the end of the original Chainsaw, and “moves into modern time,” according to producer Carl Mazzocone. “Our version opens on the last scene of [Tobe Hooper’s] original, and shows the Sawyers’s arrest. All the other Texas Chainsaw Massacres don’t exist to us,” Mazzocone tells us. It’s not so much what they are shooting – bits and pieces of the police standoff – but where. We are actually at the Sawyer farmhouse. The design team worked with “forensic precision” to recreate the original Chainsaw house in a barren field in the middle of a military base. From the swing out front to the slashes in the front door, it really feels like we are in 1974.
“It feels like home,” said Marilyn Burns. The original “Last Girl,” Burns played Sally in Hooper’s Chainsaw and has a cameo in Leatherface 3D as Grandma Verna. Gunnar Hansen, Hooper’s Leatherface, also has a cameo in the film as the Sawyer family patriarch (“Boss Hog” as he calls him), and he was actually startled to see the house. “I was shocked at how real it was. It was creepy seeing it again.” A tour through the interior of the house revealed only one thing out of place. “A chicken cage was a little off,” Hansen laughed. “Otherwise, everything was perfect.” From a fangirl perspective, being at the house was overwhelming. The interior was slightly less impressive than the exterior; in the daylight, it didn’t have the griminess, that stench you can almost smell through the screen. Up close, the “arm chair” was very obviously created out of plastic limbs. But walking up that long dirt road towards the iconic house was positively breathtaking. It was chilling, surreal, and almost indescribable – like walking into a different universe. I was heartbroken to learn that the following week, the entire structure would be burned to the ground.
Burns and Hansen aren’t the only two Chainsaw alums to have roles in this film. John Dugan returns as Grandpa, and Bill Moseley – who was not in the original, but played Chop-top in Hooper’s sequel – appears as another member of the Sawyer clan. “What could be more fun?” Burns asks.
It is interesting to note that during our eight hours or so on set, the only “new blood” we got to interview was Scott Eastwood (yup, Clint’s son). All we got out of him was that he played a young cop. We didn’t get to speak to top-billed Alexandra Daddario (Bereavement), who plays Heather, the girl who comes out to Texas to collect a mysterious inheritance and discovers she is related to the Sawyer clan because she wasn’t on set. [She was offered at a later date, and Evan Dickson will be posting his interview tomorrow!] We also didn’t get to speak to Dan Yeager, who plays Leatherface in this film due to scheduling issues.
Returning cast members were drawn back to the Massacre because they loved the script. “I heard it was going to be in 3D, and that was exciting,” said Burns. “Then I read the script and I loved it. I can’t tell you how many [Chainsaw] scripts I have read, tried to write, tried to produce… how many attempts from my friends…. I’ve seen so many millions of tries. I even went to see one of the remakes, because they told me it would be exactly like Chainsaw 1. But then I watched it and thought, ‘Wait a minute. This isn’t my movie.’ These people were dying, they came back to life, they added family, another town… forget it! But when I read this script, I was interested right from the beginning. I was amazed at what they had accomplished, all the twists and turns, all the surprises. It excited me!”
Hansen thought it was a good script as well, but it wasn’t what he imagined. “Years and years ago – before there ever was a second Chainsaw, I had a notion of what would make a good Chainsaw 2. Years have gone by. The older brother has escaped with Leatherface and the cook – who is not dead, but a pile of crumpled bones. They are living in an abandoned hotel at the edge of a small city in the Midwest. He has made a deal with the hotel owner to stay in residence and make sure the hotel doesn’t get vandalized. No one knows he is there with his brothers. Leatherface spends a lot of time just staring out the window, and at night he will take the cook and put him on his shoulders and go roaming through the forest. Some people decide to pull a scam on the owners and show up, and tell the cook that they are prospective buyers and have made this arrangement to stay a couple days at the hotel, to make sure it is what they want to buy. So this sets up, basically, another ‘teenagers trapped in an old house’ plot.”
What of this new Leatherface, anyway? We got to see one hazy iPhone photo of Yeager in full costume, and a few of us journalists got a split-second glance at a mask being transported – obviously a mistake, for it was quickly covered with Duvateen. Mike McCarty of KNB FX was heading up the effects on-set, and he promised that we would see the original Leatherface mask (no surprise since the beginning of this film overlaps with the end of the original). He also revealed that there would be “three new masks.” “The masks definitely have a lot to do with the story,” McCarty promises, as each new mask is the face of a new victim. “There is a mask that is one of his favorites, and there is a mask he wears at the end of the film.”
Naturally, the gore level was of particular interest. Though most of the violence and gore in Hooper’s original took place off-camera, the mind’s eye tricks most people into believing they are actually watching every gruesome detail. But in today’s age of torture-porn and shortened attention spans, you have to assume Leatherface 3D will be a bloodbath. McCarty says that his team arrived on set with about 20 gallons of blood, and that day he ordered more. “It’s a Chainsaw Massacre buffet,” he said simply. With hands stained red, I don’t doubt that.
I am a little concerned about the use of 3D. Mazzocone went with 3D because “I think 3D is cool.” He promises it will be “user-friendly” 3D that won’t cause nausea or eye strain, and that the movie was “written for 3D.” I strongly believe that 3D only works in more gimmicky situations (My Bloody Valentine 3D and Piranha 3D are both good examples) so I fear Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D will either become silly (not necessarily bad, but not the effect you want when trying to recapture the original) or the 3D will be pointless and a mere annoyance (as in the Fright Night remake).
It all sounds good on paper. The house looks phenomenal; the original cast approves. Mazzocone says that Tobe Hooper has been very supportive of their endeavor, and was going to make a cameo, but couldn’t make it work with his schedule. The producer speaks with a lot of love for Texas Chainsaw. “It’s a fine line between copycat and homage,” he explains. “I like the simplicity of Tobe’s. We respect his style, but don’t want to copy it.” Mazzocone specifically brought in Gunnar because he felt that after the original film, Gunnar was overlooked and typecast as an actor. “I wanted to show him respect.”
Curiously, in his deal to acquire the rights to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mazzocone bought the rights to six sequels. How many franchises can you think of that were still worthwhile by the time they got to sequel six? Ultimately, we will have to wait until January, 4 2013 before passing final judgment. – Alyse Wax
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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