In Memoriam: Gunnar Hansen
Like many, my first experience with Tobe Hooper’s nightmare-inducing 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came about in my tween years. At the time, a close friend and classmate was navigating the decidedly contentious separation of his parents, and while understandably horrible for him to endure, it was also that very familial strife which often rendered his home empty in the early evenings and thusly us alone with his father’s extensive collection of R-rated genre laser discs.
Dashing to his place after grade school to sneak in a screening of Halloween II or Friday the 13th was a common occurrence, and it was during one of those evenings that the terrifying visage of a nuanced, befuddled, vicious, yet strangely sympathetic chainsaw-wielding madman would scar me for life.
As portrayed by Gunnar Hansen, that character of “Leatherface,” as captured through the quasi-documentarian eye of director Hooper, chilled me to the bone. As a boy, I wasn’t able to articulate its impact, but I knew with absolute certainty that I’d watched something that felt just wrong. Dangerous. Something I wasn’t supposed to have seen.
As it would become, subsequent yearly trips to the Mendocino National Forest with my father to harvest cords of wood for our winter stove (it was the early 80’s, and he was sticking it to the “energy man”) forever changed as well, as what before had been a benign, workmanlike sound (the spinning of the chain) took on a sinister and decidedly evil persona. Every time my father would rip that cord and bring that McColloch to life in a blue cloud of two-stroke smoke, it felt as if Leatherface too was somehow there, lurking in the nearest thicket, waiting patiently to drag me away into his kill room and up onto a steel hook.
The film would haunt me for years; yet, the man behind the monster couldn’t have proved more gentle, kind, and altogether humble.
Two decades and change later and twelve years into the horror game as a genre journalist, I found myself in 2009 at the Eyegore Awards party at Universal Studios Hollywood, which served as the kick-off of that year’s annual Halloween Horror Nights. My date and I were happily relieving the Globe Theater’s waiters of the contents of their various passed trays (and the bartenders of their cocktails) and, along with friends and peers SpookyDan Walker and Dan Madigan, enjoying the proceedings.
As for what this has to do with Mr. Hansen, creative director John Murdy and company had licensed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre film property for the season, and therefore, on the lower lot awaited the terror maze “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business.” This in turn had led to TCM director Hooper being presented an Eyegore Award, and with the filmmaker on hand to accept it, so was that film’s towering star, Gunnar himself. Resembling more a jovial St. Nick than the film’s Ed Gein-inspired mass murderer, the Icelandic-born Hansen soon joined our group to chat; and with the ceremony over, it wasn’t long before director Hooper beckoned for us to join him: A transport van awaited, ready to whisk us down the hill to the maze.
In we went, and the thought of, “I’m in a van with Hooper and Leatherface on my way to walk through a Chain Saw Massacre maze on the Universal back lot – is this real life?” sped through the mind of the 1980’s teenager in me.
And sure enough, that’s exactly what we did. Arriving to the maze’s entrance and the head of the line (which park security stopped during the thirty minutes or so we toured the attraction), Hooper and Hansen not only greeted the crowd with warm genuineness, they did so once again following our tour. Taking thirty minutes or so to speak to those in line, the divide between filmmaker and audience blurred, and it all seemed more a mutual celebration of a film whose influence was still felt undeniably (at the time) thirty-four years after its release. Hands were shaken, autographs signed, and more than a few fan-owned Leatherface tattoos were shown off. This all after Hooper and Hansen had playfully directed the scare-actors performances in the maze itself, much to the delight of all those involved.
Over the course of time, I would have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Gunnar on several occasions, and each meeting began with a firm handshake from a man who’d look you squarely in the eye, whose own still twinkled with a certain mischievousness (which is what probably allowed him to terrify the departed Marilyn Burns so effectively), and who exuded a sharp intelligence and unquestionable warmth.
It occurs to me that given the simple passage of time and our own mortal coils, we are bound to lose many more of the artists who shaped not only the very art form or horror, but who by proxy shaped us as well. With the 2015 departures of Lee, Piper, Craven and now Hansen, the sense of loss which I feel, and which I predict we collectively feel, is something I’m at present unable to effectively articulate.
So I’ll leave it with this…
Thank you sincerely, Mr. Hansen. You will me missed, but never forgotten.
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