(Or: “My family’s always been in meat.”)
Yes, I know, that quote wasn’t actually from Leatherface, but other than grunts and screams, he doesn’t really have any lines.
Anyway, I already mentioned a couple weeks ago how much I like this movie. Yes, there are some things that are problematic about it (especially its treatment of women), but it’s still a truly great, exceedingly well-shot slasher film. I’ve known since I first started planning the Halloween posts that this would be one of them, and I was really excited to try my hand at making the costume.
At minimum, you’ll need the following items:
- chainsaw (real or fake)
- suit
- black wig
- any pale, flesh-toned mask of your choosing, so long as the inside of the mask is also flesh-toned
I had more trouble making this mask than I’d anticipated. A few weeks ago, while prepping for these posts, I picked up a number of masks from the dollar store. I’m not sure exactly what they were supposed to be… possibly witches or some sort of weird demon? I didn’t really care; I just wanted them for the underside of the mask, which had a pale flesh tone to it.
I cut up one of the masks and tried gluing it to a plain white plastic mask to create a barrier between my skin and the fleshy mask (it had a very strong rubbery, chemical smell), but the surface of the white mask was too smooth, and the glue wouldn’t stick. Instead, I ended up turning another one of the masks inside out, and then cutting a mouth hole (for some reason, none of these masks had mouth holes?) and extending the eye holes a bit (they were even tinier than in the pictures before I started). To mimic the stitches on Leatherface’s mask, I used a yarn needle and some black yarn to add some “detailing” near the forehead.
None of the wigs I had were the right length, so I ended up hacking away at an old black wig that I used last year for Jessica Jones (I’d already hacked at it to get the Lydia Deetz bangs last week). Once I had my suit on (I’ve always found it hilarious that Leatherface wears a tie throughout the film, and then a suit in the final scenes), I put on the wig and then put the mask over top.
Once I grabbed my chainsaw, I was ready to go.
And, because it makes me laugh, a Texas Chainsaw Glamour Shot:
