Ever wonder how exactly Leatherface got that skin mask? Or, more to the point, why he wears it in the first place? No? Neither had Ian Spelling before he came face-to-face with the chainsaw-wielding lunatic on the set of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning…

Deep in the heart of Texas all hell is breaking loose.

There’s a house, in the middle of nowhere, an hour’s drive from Austin. It’s an old place, seemingly harmless from the outside. But look closer… much closer. First, there’s a creepy, rickety slaughterhouse off to the side. Then, enter the building through the kitchen and hold your breath: it’s a filthy room, with a dead frog in the sink, a dead squirrel and a dead rabbit hanging upside down, and rusty cages all over the place, some suspended in the air, several strewn on the floor, and a couple resting by the sink. Along the walls, there are old photos and postcards and, bizarrely, incomplete puzzles. Now look up and listen: there’s no mistaking the sounds from above: blood-curdling screams and a purring chainsaw… not to mention voices yelling, “Rolling!” and “Action!” and “Cut!”

Welcome to day 24 of 40 of production on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, prequel to the 2004 horror hit remake of Tobe Hooper’s seminal 1974 schlock masterpiece, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls, Rings) and set in 1969, the film reveals how a young man named Thomas Hewitt devolved into the murderous, chainsaw-wielding, mask-of-flesh-sporting Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski). The story kicks off with two handsome Vietnam-bound brothers, Dean (Taylor Handley) and Eric (Matthew Bomer) and their sexy girlfriends, Bailey (Diora Baird) and Chrissie (Jordana Brewster), joyriding in a jeep through Texas.

But the fun stops dead when a couple of bikers (Lee Tergesen and Cyia Batten) cause an accident that heralds the arrival of Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey), who kills one of the bikers, puts Dean, Eric and Bailey into his squad car, and heads off to the Hewitt residence, where all sorts of terrors await. And it’s up to spirited and resourceful Chrissie – who’d been tossed from the jeep – to rescue her pals.

“I’m always covered in other people’s blood, luckily,” explains Brewster, who’s in blue jeans and a pink cotton halter top, with fresh faux scars on her forehead, arms and left shoulder, as she sits in the kitchen set.

A striking beauty, Brewster is best known for her work in the films The Fast and the Furious, The Faculty and Annapolis. “Everyone keeps asking me [sarcastically], ‘Well, have you perfected your scream?’ But I’m not screaming so much. I’m more sneaking around, and trying to find my friends.”

If you can’t stand the heat…

Just then, Bryniarski storms in. He’s a hulking guy in costume (though without his Leatherface mask) and his arms are soaked in, hopefully, fake blood. “Oh, you guys got a big movie star in here,” he says, exiting as quickly as he entered. Brewster smiles sardonically. “It’s weird,” she says of her wild-eyed co-star. “He’s very Method. He’s just very into his character. I also don’t want to like him because [otherwise] I’m not going to be scared when he’s chasing me for five days. So I just kind of keep my distance. But he’s a character, for sure.”

A short while later, Brewster is gone and in her place sits Baird. Moviegoers are likely to remember her from the big-screen comedies Wedding Crashers and Accepted, while magazine aficionados may recall a certain cover shot and photo spread in Playboy. Baird has and will spend a lot of time in the kitchen set, but rather than talking amiably with a group of journalists, she’ll be under the table. “I basically get tortured the entire movie, in so many different ways,” she says. “I mean, in the car accident I get pretty messed up. There’s stuff stuck in me and I’m laying back and my head’s just bleeding. Then, throughout the movie, Chrissie’s kind of out and doing her thing, and I’m really the only girl in the house. So I’m like the doll that gets tied up.” To a hoe, yes? “Yes,” Baird confirms. “I’m tied to a hoe. The only reason why is because I tried to get away from the house. So they kind of teach me a lesson.”

Later in the day, waiting outside the house for his next shot, Ermey stands in full Hoyt regalia. He’s a big, tough, formidable guy, but not without a sense of humour. He first played Hoyt for director Marcus Nispel, who helmed the remake, and he came to the prequel with some definite ideas about Hoyt’s backstory and how to put it across on screen, ideas he discussed in detail with Liebesman.

“Basically, that’s the way I did the first one because the Sheriff didn’t have much written for him in the first one,” Ermey says in that familiar authoritative voice of his. “I’m never satisfied, I’m never happy until we can make the character colourful, flamboyant and memorable. I love doing the character because he’s a sexually perverted homicidal maniac and there is no ‘over the top.’ How can you possibly go over the top if you have that kind of character to play?

“Playing the good guy is tough because, you know as well as I do, in real life, you have to watch your P’s and Q’s and conduct yourself in a respectable manner if you expect to have friends,” Ermey adds. “With a sexually perverted homicidal maniac, you don’t have to do that [laughs]. You don’t have to impress anyone. So Sheriff Hoyt is really a fun character to play, and I have creative licence, so that makes it even that much better, because there’s not a writer in the world, I’ve found, that can capture this character. I created this character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and I like to think that he’s my guy. I can certainly show the evolution of how this all came about.”

Keeping it in the family

Ermey can also be found over in Liebesman’s trailer. Actually, the star of Full Metal Jacket, Toy Story, Dead Man Walking and Willard is not here physically at the moment, but rather there’s an Ermey talking action figure from Full Metal Jacket, autographed by Ermey, in its box on a counter top.

Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, producers of The Beginning via Platinum Dunes, have stated that they considered themselves lucky to land Liebesman, who was unexpectedly available – unexpectedly because the South African filmmaker couldn’t get projects of his own greenlit despite having directed a film, Darkness Falls, which opened at number one in the United States. Liebesman insists he was as passionate about The Beginning as he’d have been about something he developed himself.

“Oh, I loved the idea of seeing the beginning of an American legend,” he notes. “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has always been something that I’ve known about. It’s in, what do you call it? Like a…” Lexicon? “Yeah, and I’ve got a chance to actually tell that story,” he says. “It’s a movie that I’m going to watch, so to be able to actually form that and coming to work every day knowing you’re shooting something people are actually excited to see is awesome. And that’s what I told Bay. I remember when he did the classic sort of producer line, which is, ‘So, why do you want to do this movie?’ And I said, ‘Because I’m going to actually watch it.’ I think a lot of people in Hollywood a lot of times work on things that they weren’t necessarily going to see on a Friday night.”

Of course, what’s a set visit to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning without a little quality time with Leatherface himself? The encounter happens soon after Bryniarski has wrapped one of The Beginning’s pivotal sequences, an extended bit involving Hoyt, fellow returnees Luda Mae (Marietta Marich) and Old Monty (Terrence Evans), as well as some flesh removed from the face of its owner and an iconic power tool. Bryniarski is colourful to say the least. Right now, relaxing under the cover of a craft services tent, Bryniarski holds court still covered in blood and partially in costume, and occasionally strumming away on an electric guitar.

“It’s amazing,” the actor says of filling in the details of Thomas’/Leatherface’s history. “The thing I know, that I have to be real careful dancing around not to tell anyone, is that this movie hits like a brick. In the beginning he was something less than Leatherface. Although that’s very true, the story is not less for it. It’s really a great story. It delves into the origin of this family and this character and the nature... I mean we’re going to explain more than you even know. You’re going to see the origin of the mask, you’re going to see the origin of the saw and you’re going to see the origin of some of the horrific things that you’ve seen this family do. You’re also going to see the origin of things that you really needed and wanted to always know — but that I’m not going to give up to you now.”

This article originally appeared in Dreamwatch issue 146.