The horror icon that burst onto screens in the 1974 shocker THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE was realised by the talented actor GUNNAR HANSEN. Now, ten years after his death, the documentary DINNER WITH LEATHERFACE gets us a little closer to the man who was more than a dead-skin-mask-wearing maniac. We spoke with the film’s director Michael Kallio to find out more about the project…
Was this your first dip into documentary filmmaking?
No, actually. I consider things like behind the scenes stuff documentary. Bruce Campbell did a movie back in 2006 called My Name Is Bruce and he hired me and my buddy Mark Elliott to come and do all the behind the scenes stuff. It ended up being an hour long, called Heart of Dorkness, The Making of My Name Is Bruce. Certain reviewers said it was better than the movie. Am I a good documentary filmmaker? I guess so, but I don’t know. Only time will tell. But I hope people enjoy the stuff I do as a documentarian.
Was this a passion project for you?
I joked with Gunnar every time we were together, because as Mike Felsher says in the documentary, Gunnar never told the same story twice. He always had something interesting to say, or he had always been somewhere or he met ‘that’ person. I always said, “Dude you’re a walking documentary. You play the most notorious serial killer on film, the most vicious, visceral serial killer on film ever. And then you do all of these other things and you’re so well-faceted, well-read, smart, worldly, and a wonderful, nice person. We gotta make a documentary about you”. But he always used to reply, “who the fuck wants to see that?” People like me and everyone else! Firstly, because The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a classic and a masterpiece, but also because he touched so many people’s lives. I never heard anything negative said about Gunnar or anything spiteful. He had his moments, he had his days, he was not a perfect person, he was human. The only thing that he focused a little bit more on than I think he should have was money. But we all need money, we all need to survive. Other than that, he was just a sweetheart and so amazing.
When Gunnar passed, it only took me a week until I thought I guess this is it. I was going to be unfortunately making the documentary without him, but I’m gonna do it! I called Bruce and explained that I wanted to do a documentary about Gunnar Hansen and asked if I could interview him. I figured if I interviewed him, everyone down the board would realise that I was legit because I had Bruce Campbell! He agreed to do it. Bruce had been living in Toluca Lake in California at that time, so on January 10th, 2016, I went over and shot the inaugural interview for the documentary. I then went to Del Howison, who owns a horror bookstore in Burbank called Dark Delicacies, and it snowballed from there. It took eight years because I wanted to do it right; I didn’t want to do a couple months of interviews and spit out something that was a cash grab, because some people said this! It wasn’t a cash grab for me, it was the last thing I ever thought of doing as far as this documentary. Now, if it makes millions of dollars, I’m not going to be sad about it, but that was never my focus and still isn’t. I wanted to share my and other peoples experiences of being around Gunnar, being his friend, being his colleague. Obviously, the pandemic was in the middle of that. It wasn’t a constant eight years of work, but I was always working on it. I was always finding people who would be good for the documentar. And that led to connecting with others; like Marcus Nispel [who made the Texas Chainsaw remake in 2003]. He had only met Gunnar once or twice very briefly, but said I should talk to Daniel Pearl, who was the cinematographer of not only the remake, but the original movie. It was unfortunate that his passing was the trigger for me to realise it was the right time to make the documentary.
What was the most interesting thing that you learnt about Gunnar while making the film?
There are so many things that I was bombarded with when we were editing the film because I listened to these interviews, I didn’t conduct them. This documentary was partially – I call it crowdsourced – because I couldn’t fly. I started this with no money and no money was really spent through most of the production. Instead, I would have to throw a camera guy a hundred bucks or a team a couple of hundred bucks to film Gunnar at conventions in Ohio. Mike Felsher did a lot of the filming at Cinema Wasteland with most of the remaining Texas Chain Saw Massacre cast and crew. In short, I wasn’t there, but I watched the interviews and I listened. There were so many interesting facets to him. The main thing was he was a sailor and I didn’t know that; I knew he did it, but I didn’t know to what extent. To find out that he did regattas and thing like that. I was amazed. Gunnar was the chainsaw-wielding maniac in one of cinema’s masterpieces but he also loved boats and making movies about people who make boats!
Are there any films that Gunnar did that you’d urge our readers to watch immediately?
Brutal Massacre, for sure, because he was hilarious in it. Mosquito because it’s just a fun, dumb monster movie. Hatred of a Minute because it was one of the movies where he didn’t play the usual character. He’s not in Murder-Set-Pieces a lot, but he played a Nazi in it and he spoke German for it – I had no idea he could speak German! That character was worse than Leatherface, but he did it very convincingly. It was one of those weird guys who works on his car, doesn’t talk to his neighbours and he’s a suspect; you’re questioning whether this guy is safe. That’s a good watch, too.
What’s the one thing you want people to take away from the documentary?
Inspiration, hope, to act a little kinder to each other, simply because that’s the way he was. I want people to be inspired by Gunnar; to be better people because he was such a great person and he’s missed. I hope it’s an uplifting documentary because I feel like that’s what he would want people to get from it. Mike Felsher says in the documentary, “I want to be a ‘why not’ guy”. Life is short as we all know and I think we all have to be better to each other, and I think that’s something Gunnar would agree with.
DINNER WITH LEATHERFACE is available on Blu-ray and digital in the US from February 25th.