New details about Netflix‘s revival of Texas Chainsaw Massacre have surfaced ahead of the film’s premiere this February. Ignoring the events of all but the original 1974 film, the small town of Harlow, Texas has since become a ghost town while anyone traveling through the area is menaced by an older Leatherface. And just as the chainsaw-wielding serial killer preys upon a group of social media influencers and young professionals looking to revitalize Harlow, so too does the sole survivor of the first movie‘s infamous bloodbath: Sally Hardesty. And like the 2018 Halloween revival, this iteration of Sally is done playing the victim.
Portrayed by Marilyn Burns in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Sally and her brother Franklin traveled to Harlow with their friends over concerns that their grandfather’s grave had been desecrated. After an encounter with a violent hitchhiker, the group explores the surrounding area when the fueling station near Harlow is allegedly out of gasoline and awaiting a delivery. Sally and Franklin’s friends are ambushed and slaughtered by Leatherface when they investigate the Sawyer family’s estate, and as Sally and Franklin set out to learn what happened to them, Franklin is butchered by Leatherface’s chainsaw while Sally manages to escape to safety after a harrowing night with the Sawyer family.
Sally is absent from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s immediate sequels, with the introduction to 1986’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II revealing that she grew catatonic shortly after recounting to the authorities how she narrowly survived her ordeal with the Sawyer family. 1990’s Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III expands on the tragic cost inflicted on Sally, with the opening revealing she died in a healthcare facility in 1977 while Sally herself is again absent from the introduction. Despite this, Sally’s death was quietly retconned in 1995’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, marking Burns’ sole reprisal in her iconic role.
Set in 1996, The Next Generation follows a group of teenagers who stumble across Leatherface and the rest of the Sawyer family driving home from their high school prom. The only survivor of this group is a young woman named Jenny, who arrives at a hospital after barely escaping Leatherface and his brother Vilmer with her life. In the hospital, Burns appears as Sally, with the original survivor now a patient lying on a gurney who sees Jenny as she enters. The two women share a knowing look and silent connection, unspoken yet informed in their respective history with Leatherface and his family.
Sally was omitted entirely in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot timeline in favor of completely new victims terrorized by Leatherface. The 2013 revival film Texas Chainsaw 3D omits Sally but features Burns in a different role as Verna Sawyer Carson, grandmother of the movie’s protagonist Heather and secretly related to Leatherface. The role would be one of Burns’ last, with the actor passing away in 2014.
Sally Hardesty predates Halloween‘s Laurie Strode and A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Nancy Thompson as the original “final girl,” the lone survivor in the face of an unrelenting slasher. Like Laurie and Nancy, Sally has become hardened by her experiences and is hungry to reclaim her life and narrative from the serial killer’s legacy. If there’s a character who deserves this reinvention the most, it’s Sally, who had previously been discarded off-screen in previous sequels, now ready to avenge her brother and friends by putting a stop to Leatherface for good.
Directed by David Blue Garcia, Texas Chainsaw Massacre premieres Feb. 18 on Netflix.
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