Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 made some pretty loony strides away from the basic formula by giving Leatherface and his family a secret underground base of operations in an abandoned amusement park. But that's as nothing to the storyline that's just been revealed for Lionsgate's in-the-works **Leatherface 3D.
According to BD's sources, the plot follows lead character Heather, who travels with a group of friends to Texas to collect an inheritance. The twist: that bequest involves taking custody of ol' cousin Leatherface himself.
All kinds of scenarios spring to mind from that brief synopsis. We find ourselves imagining, for example, a kind of Leatherface Dundee fish-out-of-water story, in which the lumbering psychopath brings his uncultured Texas ways to a new and bewildering environment, with heart-warming and hilarious consequences. And eviscerating ones, obviously.
We're also put in mind of the story of hapless old-west bandit Elmer McCurdy, who after he died was passed from pillar to post for decades as a sideshow exhibit. Leatherface of course, will not be dead, but we're sure he'll leave a few corpses in his wake.
And we're reminded of a comic strip in Viz about a couple that won a 17th-century puritan in a raffle.
What we'll get will no doubt involve all the aforementioned friends being messily dispatched until a final girl is left to fight him off, but whether the tone will approach Hooper's cartoon satire or even the R Lee Ermey-driven black humour of the recent couple of Chainsaws remains to be seen.
As previously reported, Takers director Mark Luessenhop is at the helm of Leatherface 3D (UPDATE: which may actually be called **Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D **if this dull sales poster is anything to go by), with Kirsten Elms taking the most recent stab at the screenplay. Marc Burg is producing, for a 2012 release.