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| Images courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment |
Back in 1988, the closest thing fans of Tobe Hooper’s 1974
all-time classic horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to a behind-the-scenes
look at the genre favorite was Brad Shellady’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
A Family Portrait which included interviews with Leatherface actor Gunnar
Hansen, Edwin Neal, John Dugan and Jim Seidow.
Years later after Gunnar Hansen’s death in 2015, short horror film
director Michael Kallio of Inner Demons and Reptilians: Serpent Kings
and Ancient Rulers circled back with Anchor Bay Entertainment to make a
posthumous documentary on the actor’s life and who the man behind the mask really
was. Featuring archival interviews with
Hansen as well as personal anecdotes from friends, family and fellow industry
professionals including but not limited to Bruce Campbell, Barbara Crampton,
Daniel Pearl, Linnea Quigley and many others, like the title says Dinner
with Leatherface is a conscious effort to get to know the gentle,
inquisitive man’s personality and what he strove for in the cult B-movie acting
industry.
Initially starting off going into Gunnar Hansen’s life, we
get into how he was a trained performer aiming to do real theater acting and he
landed the job of playing the horror heavy in Tobe Hooper’s film purely because
of his intimidating physique. Though
portraying one of the most nefarious and hauntingly complex horror heavies in
cinema history with many of the character’s most infamous moments improvised on
the spot by Hansen, many who interacted with the man point to him as a mentor,
a leader, a friend and like a sibling in many ways. At times it can be a little redundant hearing
the praises sung and heaped repeatedly, but one of the virtues of Dinner
with Leatherface is how over time it feels less like a straight-laced
documentary and more like a promenade or hangout with friends rekindling
stories of passed loved ones.
Gunnar Hansen apparently, in addition to writing poetry
first and foremost and doing the acting gig to pay for the writing gig, also
made some documentaries on natural history including A Sense of Place, a
Sense of Time from 2001 about the community of Islesford off the coast of
Maine. Then there’s his short documentary
film Chummy Rich: Maine Boat Builder about the construction of the
wooden powerboat Andromeda from 2012.
Hansen didn’t strictly work in horror, as his track record of acting and
writing will show. He was something of a
historian keenly interested in the world around him without being bombastic
about it, operating under the radar in regional documentary work.
A splendid little tribute to the horror icon and the legacy
of Gunnar Hansen, Dinner with Leatherface comes to blu-ray disc from
Anchor Bay Entertainment and MVD Visual with plentiful extras including
anecdotes by Gunnar Hansen, a trailer for Southern Hospitality, extended
interviews and a convention discussion with actress Danielle Harris. Fans of all things horror related or The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre oriented should absolutely snatch this up with
confidence. Even if you come into it
knowing most of what’s been published already including Hansen’s own autobiography,
Dinner with Leatherface is still a pleasure to watch as a genre fan and
getting to know better the humble, homegrown qualities of a horror classic and
the gift its chief actor gave the horror film world.
--Andrew Kotwicki
