Jedidiah "Jed" Sawyer, also known as Leatherface, is the main antagonist in Leatherface, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Texas Chainsaw 3D. He wears masks made of human skin and engages in murder with his inbred family.
Biography[]
The original film never showed Leatherface without one of his human-hide faces on. Jed behaved with the mind of a child. After Sally escaped, and his family was killed by the town, he swore not to let anyone escape again.
Gunnar Hansen, who portrayed Leatherface in the original 1974 film, sees Leatherface as "completely under the control of his family. He'll do whatever they tell him to do. He's a little bit afraid of them." Tobe Hooper portrays Leatherface as a "big baby" who kills in self-defense because he feels threatened. In the first film, Leatherface shows fear when new people enter his home. This is also in Texas Chainsaw 3D, where Leatherface attempts to kill the group of college students who entered his home.
In the prequel Leatherface (2017), it is shown that Jedidiah Sawyer was pushed by his family to kill using a chainsaw since his childhood, but he was unable to. After leading a teenage girl named Beth Hartman into a death trap in 1955, her father, Sheriff Hal Hartman has Jedidiah committed to a Mental Institution, where he lived for almost ten years. In 1965, he escaped with several other patients. Lizzy, a nurse, escaped from Jedidiah's capture. When Jedidiah caught her again, she told him that his mother is crazy. Upon hearing this, Jedidiah cuts her head with the chainsaw. By committing this horrible act, he becomes Leatherface, using Lizzy's face as his first mask.
Leatherface[]
At the Sawyer homestead, a birthday party is being held by the family matriarch Verna Sawyer for the youngest member of the Sawyer family, Jedidiah. As his birthday present and to induct him into the murderous family rituals, he is presented with a chainsaw and is urged to slaughter a man they have accused of attempting to steal from them. Jed refuses, visibly disturbed, and the victim is instead killed by Grandpa Sawyer.
In 1955, couple Betty Hartman and Ted Hardesty come across the seemingly wounded Jedidiah Sawyer. Betty is promptly killed by the Sawyer family. Her father takes Jedidiah into custody as revenge, sending him to a mental institution known as the Gorman House Youth Reformery.
Ten years later, recently-hired nurse Elizabeth White forms a bond with patients Bud and Jackson at the Gorman House. Hartman arrives on the scene with Deputy Sorells and discovers that Jedidiah escaped with Ike and Clarice, two mentally insane patents. The next morning, Clarice finds Ike missing and goes searching for him. Jackson and Elizabeth find Bud sleeping on Ike's corpse and quickly take him away.
Later in the film, Bud dies and sends Jackson into a rage. He kills the Deputy and has Elizabeth drive them in a deputy's vehicle. The two are pursued by the deranged Hartman, who opens fire on them. A bullet severs Jackson's face. At the barn where his daughter was killed, Hartman takes Elizabeth and the injured Jackson hostage, revealing that Jackson is Jedidiah Sawyer. Verna arrives and Hartman is incapacitated by the other Sawyers.
Verna stitches the remnants of the mentally-scarred Jedidiah's face and applies a muzzle to hold them together. She gifts Jedidiah with his original chainsaw and Elizabeth watches in horror as he bisects Hartman to death. As the family celebrates, Elizabeth flees. She nearly escapes, only to be caught in a bear trap. She attempts to appeal to Jedidiah's sympathy, while Verna encourages him to kill her to protect their family. Jedidiah begins to listen to Elizabeth's pleas that he is not a killer until she insults Verna. This causes him to decapitate her in retaliation.
In the basement, Jedidiah crafts Hartman's and Elizabeth's flesh into a mask and applies lipstick. This is most likely the pretty lady mask that he mostly wore in the original film.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre[]
When Kirk enters through the unlocked door of the Sawyer house, Leatherface suddenly appears and kills Kirk with a hammer. Pam enters soon after, and trips into a room filled with furniture made from human bones. She attempts to flee, but Leatherface catches her, and impales her on a meathook, making her watch as he butchers Kirk with a chainsaw. Jerry heads out to look for Pam and Kirk at sunset. He sees the house and finds Pam, still alive, inside a freezer. Before he can react, Leatherface kills him.
With darkness falling, Sally and Franklin set out to find their friends. As they near the neighboring house and call out, Leatherface lunges from the darkness and kills Franklin with a chainsaw. Sally runs toward the house, and finds the desiccated remains of the family's grandmother upstairs. She escapes from Leatherface by jumping through a second-floor window, and flees to the gas station.
The man at the gas station brings Sally home while Leatherface, now dressed as a woman, serves dinner. Leatherface and the hitchhiker bring down their Grandpa. He is revealed to be alive when he sucks blood from a cut on Sally's finger. They decide that Grandpa, the best killer in the old slaughterhouse, should kill Sally. He tries to hit her with a hammer, but he is too weak. In the ensuing struggle, she breaks free, leaps through a window, and flees to the road. Leatherface and the hitchhiker give chase, but the hitchhiker is run over and killed by a passing truck. Leatherface attacks the truck with his chainsaw, and when the driver stops to help; the driver knocks down Leatherface with a pipe wrench, causing the chainsaw to cut his leg. The driver flees, and Sally escapes in the back of a passing pickup truck as Leatherface maniacally flails his chainsaw in the air.
Texas Chainsaw 3D[]
Sally informed the town authorities of the Sawyer Family's horrific crimes. On the morning of August 19th, Sheriff Hooper showed up to the Sawyer Residence, where the armed Sawyer cousins had gathered in the house with Drayton, Leatherface, and Grandpa. Hooper demanded that they surrender Leatherface for arrest. After debate within the family, the Sawyers agreed to give Leatherface to the law. As the arrest was about to take place, vigilantes led by Burt Hartman showed up unannounced at the Sawyer Residence, burning it to ashes and killing most of the Sawyer family.
There are only two known survivors: Leatherface and a infant Edith Rose Sawyer, who was taken by one of the vigilantes to grow up in a different family under the name Heather Miller. Throughout the decades, Leatherface lived with his wealthy mother Verna Sawyer-Carson in her mansion, until she died of old age.
Heather goes to the house with her friends after learning that she was adopted and her grandma passed away. The hitchhiker that they picked up earlier begins stealing valuables when the group goes to buy stuff for the house. He uncovers a secret door to the basement and is killed by Leatherface.
Later that day, Heather and her friends return to find the house ransacked. While Kenny is preparing dinner, he goes downstairs to the cellar where Leatherface impales him on a hook. Heather finds Darryl's body and is attacked by Leatherface, but she manages to escape. Nikki and Ryan draw the attention of Leatherface, while Heather gets in the van and picks up her friends. Using his chainsaw, Leatherface cuts through one of the tires, which causes the van to crash, killing Ryan on impact. He then chases Heather to a nearby carnival, where Deputy Carl Hartman, the mayor's son, and the police are patrolling the grounds.
The sheriff and Hartman send an officer to investigate the Carson estate. Over the phone, the officer reports his findings. He finds Nikki hiding in a freezer and accidentally shoots her in the head before he himself is killed by Leatherface. Leatherface skins the flesh from the officer's cadaver and uses it to create a new flesh mask.
Listening over the deceased officer's police radio, Leatherface learns of Heather's location and goes to the slaughterhouse to kill her. Before he can do so, he sees a Sawyer birthmark on Heather's chest and releases her. Leatherface is then attacked from behind by Hartman. Hartman physically and repetitively beats Leatherface and assaults Heather, planning to kill them both to end the Sawyer family. Heather fights back and tosses Leatherface his chainsaw. He uses it to force Hartman to his death in a meat grinder. Afterwards, Leatherface and Heather return to the Carson Estate, where Heather reads the letter she was given. It informs her that her name is Edith Sawyer, that Leatherface is her cousin and that he will protect her, but it also requests that she take care of him in return.
In a post-credits scene, Heather's adopted parents show up at the Carson estate to visit Heather, intending on greedily splitting her assets. As they wait in front of the door, Leatherface comes through the door with his chainsaw in hand.
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