The Sawyer Family - 1986

It’s almost that time of the year again and it’s approaching fast. Yesterday I talked about the aspects of the Hewitt family and although their names are never mentioned, I had to assign them the names given to them by the remake. However, this time around I will be discussing the Sawyer family. Even though Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was a sequel, they are two different families. They bare similarities but ultimately it’s a different monster all together. Gather around the table for some of Drayton’s award winning chili… we’re about to dive into the realm of absolute comedic madness.

The Sawyer family is crazy. Not just insane, demented or even childishly twisted but rather bat-shit crazy. Chop Top, the family’s ‘Nam vet, is practically a cartoon gone wrong. He hollers, jumps up and down, fidgets, pants like a dog, eats his dead scalp skin and takes twisted pleasure from murdering people. He is what would happen to any hippie had they went to Vietnam. Drayton, the father of the clan, is an old gas station attendant who, like Chop Top, is twisted and gets very physical. He goes off on sporadic tangents, complains a lot, loves cooking and is a little viler. Even in the face of danger he will stop to think about things. Much like the first movie they have a grandpa, who is half dead, who needs pure blood to live.

Now lets talk about Leatherface. In this one, he is given a little more character. Rather than being a big, dumb, hulking madman from the first he sort of has a childish persona. He’s like a 12 year old in this film. He falls in love with the radio station girl and even tries to rescue her from his family. He distracts them many times so that she could get away. It seems as though he is a little more sympathetic. Also, I’m sure he has a small dick since he likes sexually assaulting women with his chainsaw. I see it as penis compensation.

Perhaps the family isn’t a direct descended from the first movie but it can be argued that it is the same family just different locations. The dad from the first looks almost identical to Drayton, Chop Top plays with a dead corpse who many people think it’s Nubbins, they are both in Texas and Leatherface still has his trademark antics. Upon further research, I found out that the orginal family DID have a last name and it was Sawyer but this was never directly stated in the film.

Family heirloom: Scalping hanger