The film has been noted for its implementation of a secret society subplot driving Leatherface 's family to terrorize civilians in order to provoke them to a level of transcendence ; in a retrospective interview , Kim Henkel confirmed that the basis of the subplot was influenced by theories surrounding the Illuminati . Commenting on the film 's ominous Rothman character , Henkel stated : " He comes off more like the leader of some harum-scarum cult that makes a practice of bringing victims to experience horror on the pretext that it produces some sort of transcendent experience . Of course , it does produce a transcendent experience . Death is like that . But no good comes of it . You ’re tortured and tormented , and get the crap scared out of you , and then you die . " Other references to the Illuminati are made in the film 's dialogue , specifically in the scene in which Darla tells Jenny about the thousands-years-old secret society in control of the U.S. government , and makes reference to the Kennedy assassination . Critic Russell Smith noted in discussion of this plot point : " Could the unexplained " them " be an allusion to the insatiable horror audience that always makes these gorefests a good investment , or is it a cabal of governmental powermongers ... ? " The film is recursive in that it opens with an intertitle referring to two " minor , yet apparently related incidents " , a joking acknowledgment of the previous two sequels . Justin Yandell of '' Bloody Disgusting '' interprets the film as a cynical reimagining of the original film , with Henkel parodying his own work . He cites Leatherface 's ineffectiveness at dispatching his victims as well as the archetypical teenage characters as evidence of the film being a commentary on the declining state of horror films in the late 1980s and early 1990s : Another element noted by both critics and film scholars is the film 's overt references to cross-dressing in the Leatherface character , which was briefly explored in the original film but implemented to a greater extent . Robert Wilonsky of the '' Houston Press '' commented on the film 's treatment of the character , writing that the film " turns Leatherface ( here played by Robbie Jacks , an Austin songwriter who used to host a smacked-up radio show with Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes ) into a cross-dressing nancy boy who screams more than he saws . " According to Henkel , he wrote the character as one who assumes the persona of the person whose face he wears : " The confused sexuality of the Leatherface character is complex and horrifying at the same time , " he said in a 1996 interview . Film scholar Scott Von Doviak also took note of this , likening Leatherface 's presentation in the film to that of a " tortured drag queen . " In developing the film , Robert Kuhn stated : I wanted to go back to the original , and Kim did , too . We agreed on that right off . And the first major thing was getting him to write the script . I raised the money to get it written , and for us to start trying to put this thing together . Then we went out to the American Film Market in LA and talked to a bunch of people about financing . At that point I 'd raised some money , but not nearly enough to make the film , and we looked at the possibilities of making a deal with a distributor . But I knew there was n't any hope of us making one we could live with . There never is . Kim would say , ' Hey , so-and-so is interested , and it might be a deal we can live with . ' So we 'd talk to 'em and I 'd ask three or four hard questions , and I 'd just kind of look over at Kim and he 'd say ' Yeah . ' Then I 'd go back and start trying to raise some more money . I just started going to everybody I knew and I got it in bits and pieces , wherever I could . In a 1996-released documentary on the making of the film , Henkel stated that he wrote the characters as exaggerated " cartoonish " caricatures of quintessential American youth . Henkel cited the murder cases of serial killers Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley as influences on his involvement in both '' Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Next Generation '' and the original '' The Texas Chain Saw Massacre '' . Henkel also deliberately wrote themes of female empowerment into the script , specifically in the Jenny character : " It ’s her story . It ’s about her transformation , her refusal to shut up , to be silenced , to be victimized . And by extension her refusal to be oppressed . Even by culture ... Bringing Jenny into a world in which the culture was grotesquely exaggerated was a way of bringing her to see her own world more clearly – that is to say , my intent was to present a nightmarish version of Jenny ’s world in the form of the Chainsaw family in order to enlarge her view of her own world . " The movie was filmed on location at an abandoned farmhouse in Pflugerville , Texas and nearby Bastrop . The majority of the cast and crew were locals from Austin , aside from David Gale , a stage actor from Houston . Most of the filming took place at night , and was described by makeup artist J.M. Logan as " very , very rough for everyone . " Renée Zellweger reflected on the film in a 2016 interview , and said : " It was very low-budget , so we all shared a tiny Winnebago that the producer of the film — it belonged to him , it was his personal camper . So , you know , makeup was in the front seats and there was a table in the middle for hair , and there was a tiny little curtain by the bathroom . That was where you put your prom dress and your flower on . ... It was ridiculous . How we pulled that off , I have no idea . I 'm sure none of it was legal . Anything we did was a little bit dangerous . But what an experience . It was kamikaze filmmaking . " After a protracted post-production that wrapped in 1994 , the film had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film and Media Conference on March 12 , 1995 , and received " glowing reviews " at the time . The film was purchased by Columbia Pictures for $ 1.3 million . The studio agreed to distribute the film theatrically ( along with its home-video release ) , and agreed to spend no less than $ 500,000 on prints and advertising . The film was released theatrically on September 22 , 1995 , and was screened in 27 theaters in the United States , grossing $ 44,272
Kennedy assassination
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation