DELETED SCENES
VAN OUTTAKE (1:22)
1. As the group is leaving the cemetery in the van, they drive past a slaughterhouse and note the horrible smell. Originally, this scene was longer and gave us a stronger impression that Franklin annoyed the others. Part of this scene exists as a voice-over in the final film.
THE CAMPSITE (1:26)
2. The first draft of the original script contained a scene involving Pam and Kirk stumbling across the rotting remains of an abandoned campsite and was to immediately follow Franklin looking up at the skeleton mobile. The campsite was the leftovers from campers that were attacked by the Sawyer family but the scene was deemed unnecessary to the film's plot. There is a bit of this scene left in the finished film, however. Look for the pocket watch nailed to the tree.
TANTRUM OUTSIDE SERVICE STATION (1:28)
3. After the death of Franklin, Sally is pursued by Leatherface. In the finished film, as Sally runs into the service station and The Cook, Leatherface, we assume, is left outside, The script excerpt and the footage explain why Leatherface ends his pursuit of Sally so abruptly. "It was a great scene because it added more impact to the final shot of the movie. You see a bit with Leatherface swinging the chainsaw in anger here, then at the end of the movie it comes full circle. Marilyn (Sally) gets away a second time and you see it again. I think without the first tantrum by the gas station, the final scene loses a bit of impact," Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface) said.
MAKE-UP SCENE (1:51)
4. The make-up scene is probably the most infamous of all the footage missing from the released version of the film. Copies of the script that are circulating don't include this scene at all because the script was re-written after the scenes were shot, removing any reference to the segment. The make-up scene would have been inserted while Sally is passed out at the dinner table just after the Grandfather has sucked her finger. Gunnar Hansen remembers the scene well. "The problem I had with the removal of the scene is that, in the finished film, there is now a continuity error. When I feed Grandpa with Sally's finger I'm wearing one mask and during the dinner scene the mask I'm wearing is completely different. It has lipstick and eye shadow on it. The missing scene showed me putting make-up on the mask for dinner."
DEATH OF THE HITCHHIKER (0:40)
5. In the original script there was a quick close-up showing the Hitchhiker's face after he gets run over by the truck. "I remember that," Edwin Neal (Hitchhiker) recalled. "It was really hot that day and the asphalt on the road was really burning my face. I was laying there with my cheek on the road and I absolutely hated it!"
SALLY'S ESCAPE (0:31)
6. When Sally escapes from the house by jumping through the window, a quick scene was filmed showing the Sawyer family reacting to her escape. The Hitchhiker begins to run after her and Leatherface starts up his chainsaw.
CORPSE IN THE GRAVEYARD (2:55)
7. After the opening narration, the film begins with a series of quick flashes of a corpse as we hear it being exhumed. The filmmakers used a flashlight as the only light to highlight different parts of the dummy corpse. Then, using quick cuts and a film dissolve technique, they assembled the selected shots the way they appear in the film. The original footage contains many unused shots.
ORIGINAL OPENING (0:26)
8. After the opening credit sequence, the film was supposed to include a close-up shot of a dead dog, not the now-infamous armadillo. The footage was discarded and re-shot after Tobe Hooper realized how repulsive the dog footage was. "It was just too gross for me," Tobe Hooper said at the time.
SALLY IN THE SERVICE STATION (2:44)
9. When Sally is being chased by Leatherface, she takes refuge in the service station. The original take ran a bit longer because Tobe wanted Marilyn to get really emotional and would not yell 'cut' on purpose to drive her mad. "I really hated that," Marilyn Burns (Sally) remembered. "I think Tobe had it in for me that night. It seemed to go on forever and I was really mad at him after it was over. I thought we would never get it done. Most of the screaming and crying I did was real because I was just so angry."
CARS IN THE GROUND
10. One of the original scenes called for cars to be buried near the Sawyer House with their antennas sticking out of the ground. This was cut for budgetary reasons and never filmed.
LEATHERFACE UNMASKED
11. There was originally a scene where Leatherface would be unmasked, revealing how deformed he was underneath. Tobe Hooper cut this because he wanted to maintain the mystery of the masked killer and nothing was filmed.
ALTERNATE PHOTOS
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