‘Dinner With Leatherface’ (2024) Review: A Celebration of the Man Behind the Chainsaw

Around 1999 or 2000, I attended my first fan convention, the Motor City Comic Convention. Things were far different back then. Nowadays, you can barely get around because it’s so packed. In the early days, you could take your time talking to guests. During that first show, I met Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface from Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While the encounter was brief, Hansen couldn’t have been nicer. After it was over, I couldn’t help but wonder what I really knew about the performer.

Thanks to filmmaker Michael Kallio, we now have Dinner with Leatherface (2024), a documentary that takes a closer look at the man behind the chainsaw. The newly re-launched Anchor Bay Entertainment has brought it to Blu-ray, and fans of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the actor won’t want to miss it.

Gunnar Hansen was born March 4, 1947, in Reykjavik, Iceland, before moving with his mother and brother to the United States when he was five. He and his family would eventually move to Austin, Texas, where he worked in computers. Shortly after graduate school, he landed the role he would be best known for. His story is told through his relationships with friends and colleagues like Bruce Campbell, Danielle Harris, Barbara Crampton, and many more. They discuss the man, the types of characters he’d play on film, and his soft-spoken demeanor in real life.

Truthfully, I didn’t know much about Gunnar Hansen, and through his friends, we as fans get a proper look at who he was. I had no idea he was a poet or wrote books on history. It seems that he’s known unanimously to his friends as a gentle giant.

After Chainsaw and The Demon Lover (1976), he left the business and didn’t return until 1988 when Fred Olen Ray cast him in his cult classic Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. After that, he never stopped working in the independent horror scene. His final project was Death House (2017), a film he had a hand in writing, which was a who’s who of horror cinema’s finest talent.

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Hansen passed away in 2015 from cancer, and the world of horror cinema lost a legend. I also discovered through this documentary why he never played Leatherface in any of the sequels. Although he only did the one film, Hansen would go on to mentor some of the other actors who brandished the chainsaw.

Dinner with Leatherface is pretty upbeat and a celebration of the man, but it takes an emotional turn in the final minutes. His friends discuss his passing, especially some of his Chainsaw castmates who, without a shadow of a doubt, loved this man with all their hearts.

Anchor Bay offers up enough special features to expand on the experience with extended interviews with Michael Felsher and Jeff Burr, a commentary with director Michael Kallio and editor Josh Wagner, a very sweet convention chat with Gunnar and Danielle Harris, a trailer for Southern Hospitality, and Tales of Gunnar Hansen featurette.

Dinner with Leatherface is a beautiful tribute to a man and icon beloved by many people, friends, family, and fans.

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