I’ve compiled a list of songs (pretty much all by Nicole Dollanganger and Ethel Cain) that are reminiscent of these movies. ⏬
• Dog Teeth, Rabid, Alligator Blood, Poacher’s Pride and Executioner by Nicole Dollanganger all literally seem like they were written about Thomas. It’s genuinely uncanny.
• Mean by Nicole Dollanganger is also very reminiscent of Hoyt, at least the first part of the song.
• Two-Headed Mother by Ethel Cain for Luda Mae.
• And of course, pretty much the entire Preacher’s Daughter album is so fitting for the TCM remakes. Especially Inbred, Strangers, Family Tree, Ptolemaea, and August Underground. The entire theme and story behind the album is so incredibly similar.
TW: Canon-related dynamics/activities, Incest, Rape/SA, Pedophilia, Abuse {Mental, Psychical, Emotional}, Discussions of mental health, extreme language, Usage of R!slur, War, Hoyt {Biggest warning of them all}
Yapping session again, I apologize {Wrote this whilst listening to Preacher's Daughter, GOATED ALBUM} Poorly edited, a bit more coherent than the last post 🩷
The family dynamic seems to be very..unconventional yet unsurprising. It’s a family of traumatized, traumatizing, enablers who’re struggling to survive both in spirit and in actuality. This post was intended to focus mainly on Thomas but I dove deep into Hoyt and the other family members as well because I feel they have such a big impact on Tommy:(
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Thomas is obviously a very closed-off and introverted individual. His childhood was full of ridicule, cruelty, and abuse. His main father figure was and still is Hoyt - Charlie, but his biggest influence is his Momma, Luda Mae. I’ve seen multiple people paint Luda as a saint when in all actuality, she’s not. Although she may not be as malicious, she’s an enabler with intense family pride and protectiveness. Her automatic dislike of Erin is proof of this. She assumes Erin {and her friends, brother, boyfriend} are judgemental and arrogant ‘city-slickers’ who’re out to get Thomas. In all actuality, Erin never comments on Thomas’ looks besides her small conversation with Henrietta: “I couldn’t, I couldn’t look at him.” Even in this segment, she never says anything bad about Thomas except warning Henrietta and the Tea Lady {we’ll just call her ‘Kathy’ based on her actor} of his arrival. During this segment, we learn additional information about how the family views Thomas, as well as his general behavior. Dialogue from family members include:
“He knows better than to be messing around here…Poor Sweet boy--He’s no harm; Always keeps to himself.” - Henrietta, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003--1:02
“I know your kind--Nothing but cruelty and ridicule for my boy, all the time he was growing up. Does anybody care about me and my boy?” - Luda Mae, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003--1:06
“He ain’t retarded; He’s misunderstood.” - Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--16:30
“You don’t like playing with me anymore because I’m a pussy, that’s what you said. Well, my nephew Tommy ain’t no pussy; Maybe you’d like to play with him for a little while.” - Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--51:35
“You beautiful bastard, you!” {Honestly this entire scene could be used here} - Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--1:01:21 - 1:02:40
“Thomas, quit playing with your fucking dolls and get up here!..Hmm, I like your new face.” - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--1:06:15 - 1:06:35
“There you go, nice work, Tommy.” - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--1:09:55
“There’s a time when every boy becomes a man.” Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning 2006--1:17:53
As you can see, most of the praise Thomas gets is from Hoyt. Honestly, reviewing Hoyt’s character on his own, this may seem surprising, but diving past face-value, this isn’t surprising at all. Hoyt is a sadistic, impulsive, traumatized veteran who very clearly values his family. I think both Thomas and Hoyt have the same thought{s}: “Family is all I’ve known, family is all I have consistently. Therefore, I need to protect it.” This is very apparent in Hoyt’s speech in The Beginning 2006: “Us... we're staying right here. The ashes of six generations of Hewitts have been tilled into the soil of this farm. We will never abandon the place of our birth. We're on our own now, people. And alone... we will rise above it all.” Both Hoyt and Thomas value family so much, and this is apparent in their immediate protection of them; As well as how violent they get once the family's safety is in jeopardy. The family also heavily depends on both of them, Thomas more than Hoyt. Luda Mae immediately calling out for Hoyt once Eric throws a brick through their window {48:25}, relying on Thomas to chase down Chrissie, ordering Thomas to ‘wrap things up’ after Monty’s amputation, Thomas being the main source of income prior to the meat plant shutting down, Hoyt Charlie being the one to protect Thomas from the original Sheriff Hoyt, the deleted scene where Charlie protects Thomas from malicious classmates, Thomas protecting Hoyt by killing the biker {1:01 - 1:03}.
I’d also like to add; As someone with multiple military family members, the military changes you. War changes you. Considering Charlie is a POW, his trauma has to be so deep. {I’d like to make this clear: !!I’M NOT DEFENDING NOR SYMPATHISING WITH HOYT!!} His lust for violence, domination, control, and protection is most likely a combination of his personality, growing up dirt poor, his relationship with Luda Mae + other family members {which I’ll talk about below}, the war, and their current situation. He definitely gets defensive of his country, the military in general, the South, and his family. I.E: “Ain’t nothing I hate worse than a draft-dodging hippie protester.” - The Beginning 2006--40:30. He most likely has the same views on “City-slickers” as Luda Mae, just more extreme. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume the entire family has that view, maybe even Thomas. {Though his would be more protection-based as opposed to politically divided.} *cough-cough, Hoyt*
Going back to Thomas’ “father figures”, Monty and Hoyt were the only men in the house for Thomas to look up to. Hoyt was gone when Thomas was around 13, meaning during his very “experimental” years, he only had Monty to look up to. Both Monty and Hoyt are sexual deviants with no shame at all; Monty very openly gropes Erin in the 2003 remake whilst calling her a “Good girl.” {I almost turned off the movie, I kid you not} Whilst Hoyt very openly gropes Bailey multiple times, and even toys with Erin. It’s also heavily implied he raped Bailey {poor girl, this entire movie was so poor to her and Chrissie.} And whilst Luda Mae does get Hoyt to calm down with Erin, she still actively enables this behavior and completely ignores it. Now, I don’t think Thomas would replicate this {fingers crossed}; I’m sure Thomas has ‘urges’ but he has so much to do, such little extra energy, and a shit ton of {religious} trauma which would most likely coerce him away from sexual activity. He also very obviously wants praise. The more Hoyt praises and encourages Thomas, the more sadistic he gets. And yes, Thomas is sadistic. Sure he’s trying to survive, protect, and feed his family, but he also actively tortures his victims. I.E; skinning Eric’s arms, bathing Andy’s amputation in salt, ect. And I don’t wanna blame this on his ‘mental deterioration’, because that’s not it in my opinion. Thomas has crossed the threshold of “I’m doing this to protect my family / because I’m forced to.’ No, he’s violent and angry. He’s so done with everything. He needs an outlet to take his anger from him, and the victims are practically begging him with how infuriating they can be. Also, wearing Kemper’s mask to catch Erin??? Jesus Christ, Thomas, that’s traumatizing. And he knows he’ll get away with it. The law enforcement is gone, Hoyt has done worse, Momma doesn’t seem to speak on it, why not continue? And I’m sure he feels powerful when he finally gets the chance to bite back. This is exactly the kind of manipulation Hoyt did to get Thomas fully on board with this killing-spree shit; “It’s one of those assholes who used to fuck with you in the schoolyard, Tommy!” - The Beginning 2006--1:01:40. This brings me to my next point -
The family is immensely good at manipulation. Kinda by default, too. I know Southern hospitality can be viewed as passive aggressive and unnecessary depending on where you’re from, especially if you’re from up North; And I can’t disagree in some instances. Luda Mae is the MOST likely to use her ‘Southern hospitality’ as means of manipulation. Her little coo to Bailey about “We got to get you cleaned up, you don’t want to look dirty for company, do you?” at around 42:30 {Which by the way, was Marrietta Marich’s [Luda Mae’s actress] idea apparently.} It was not only a way to distract Bailey from the torture below them, but to indoctrinate herself into believing everything was fine. This was their life, and Charlie Hoyt knows what’s best, doesn’t he? I’m sure this was really difficult for her; Truly seeing who her son was and how the war affected him so deeply. Her seeming so closed off to Bailey and Chrissie at the community center was a result of the intense lifestyle change. Hoyt is EXTREMELY manipulative as well. I mean, he was a POW, you need a lot of skills in pattern recognition and psychology to survive such things. The way he speaks to everyone; Beginning slightly rational and neutral, only to quickly be angered and intimidated by his lack of power in the situation. This is especially prominent when he speaks to Morgan, Erin, and Pepper; But mostly Morgan. In the first movie, when the car breaks down and he tries to “calm Erin down” only to scold all of them for possession of drugs and such; Trying to convince Erin that Kemper killed the hitchhiker when he knew what really happened; Making Morgan reenact the scene whilst threatening him with an unloaded gun, pressuring him into “shooting” whilst taunting about how they’ll be “accomplices to murder.” Smashing the bottle in Morgan’s face when he says Hoyt can have the Skynyrd tickets. The way he kisses and rubs on Bailey during the dinner scene in The Beginning?? How he coos and taunts Erin once she wakes up from the poison?? He’s a master in manipulation and puts on a damn good show at that. Henrietta and the Tea Lady / Kathy are also extremely manipulative. When they force Erin to drink the tea, blame her for the baby crying, saying that she “looks tense” and “needs to relax”?? Yeah, this family is full of manipulative and emotionally abusive cycles. Anyway, back to how this affects Thomas.
Thomas was most definitely manipulated in multiple ways. I’m sure Luda Mae has manipulated him into ‘doing what's best for the family’ and all that bullshit. He definitely has some religious trauma and sure as hell has endured abuse of many kinds.
To tie this all together, I present to you: The Family Dynamic.
I saw a post by I believe Scrapnick?{Their art is so so appealing} Anyway, someone had asked why Thomas and Hoyt are both “brothers and uncle/nephew.” They responded with something like: “Luda Mae most likely got assaulted by her father as a child.” Their post was more detailed than that but that was the main point. And honestly, I agree. At first I thought Hoyt was Luda Mae’s husband, and then I heard him refer to Thomas as his “nephew”, and then I heard him call Luda Mae “mama.” I went researching on wikis and such only to find results such as “he doesn’t view Thomas as a real brother, therefore he uses uncle/nephew.” Whilst this may be true, Hoyt and Luda Mae only have at MAX a 15 year difference. The actors {Marrietta Marich, R. Lee Ermey} only had a 14 year difference. Considering he also calls Monty his uncle, I think it's safe to assume Luda experienced assault from her father during her teens, resulting in pregnancy. Tying this back to religious trauma, I think this fact really upsets Hoyt. He loves his family, obviously, but I think the idea of him being ‘born of sin,’ I.E: Out of wedlock, incest, pedophilia; most likely affects him. I wonder if he ever thought “Well, I’m going to hell anyway, might as well sin.” I’m rambling right now, I apologize; Welcome to my blog {Yappville.}
Now, this dynamic obviously affected his relationship with Luda Mae. I doubt she loves him any less, but I think it was definitely difficult considering A.) Growing up religious; B.) Being such a young mother; And C.) Growing up and continuing to be excruciatingly poor. I think Hoyt gets a bit jealous of Thomas, surprisingly. He’s jealous of how much Luda Mae adores him; How he really gets to have a mother instead of a struggling sister/mother who was trying so hard to get by. Hoyt seems to have a closer {yet still distant} relationship to Monty than Thomas does. I think Monty is just a distant, miserable old man whose patience is low and tiredness is high. He’s worn out, especially after the amputation. The entire family is worn out; Slowly losing their grip on humanity with each passing day. The only consistent thing they have is each other, and yet still their relationships escape them. I think everyone, but especially Thomas {and Jedidiah, poor baby} just want a home to feel safe in. Really, just a stable income, stable food supply, and the ability to rest both physically and mentally. He wants to be able to have a purpose; To work again without needing to worry if his family will be okay. Being able to walk around the house without having to shut himself in the basement to avoid scoldings, demands, or endless calls. This entire family is really fucked up and in need of some rest, family therapy, maybe some physical therapy, and some damn prozac.
Okay, yay!! You made it to the end; I apologize for the long post again, I get so into analyzing things and I couldn’t resist looking into the Hewitts. Tommy needs some prozac and some Southern cooking {He’s just like me fr}
Love you all, thank you so much for the support on the previous post 🫀
oh em gee
SOMETIMES ALL I THINK ABOUT IS YOUUU ~ 🎶🎶🎶
Everytime an artist erases Thomas Tummy a fairy dies.
wait how did he go from having curly/wavy hair to like completely straight hair
someone explain
so fucking random but i noticed that tommy brought NOTHING with him to work not a water bottle no lunch or nothin and in that texas heat too w that long walk back home omg
Found this gem and I must share it
Knowing what's canon with Thomas Hewitt's real face
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This is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Andrew Bryanowski Leatherface makeup bust replica production material. That's a mouthful. Apparently, this is what Thomas is supposed to look like under the mask, which makes sense but also dosen’t. Thomas was known for cutting his rotting flesh away, so it's understandable to at least see some degree that there are scars there, but other than that, I just see veiny rotting flesh.
To be fair, though, the prequel wasn't considered to be made during the production. Marcus Nispel was only planning on making a single remake. Which was why, later on, the director and writers changed. It only was after fans demanded an anathor film. They wanted to see more of the family, understanding how they ended up like this, how different they are from the Sawyers, and also how some events occurred. Like Monty losing his legs, for example. The point is that Thomas's scars and disease spreading have always been inconsistent between the 2003 version and the 2006 film.
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Young Thomas is a good example of this, and although some of the major scars, like his nose being affected and then later on, cut off, are accurate. The rest just dosen’t add up to the bust replica. It's even more confusing when you recall that this photo existed in the 2003 remake. It has always been there. This was a photo that Erin had touched and picked up, it is also seen in the menu screen if you paid attention to the details.
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So either this was a last-minute change, or they didn't like how the final product looked once Andrew was supposed to have it like child Thomas, so they tried to hide this mistake by never actually showing Leatherface fully visible when he was unmasking himself in the dark. It could be that the bust replica was just a concept art, too. Who knows, I'm just throwing theories out there. I think it's interesting, though, to mention this, not just because of film errors, but for the reason that knowing what's canon or not. None of them is wrong, but they do clash with each other, so at the end of the day, it's all about preferences, really.
If you have any thoughts regarding this post or want to mention something that I could have potentially missed. You're more than welcome to comment about them, I'd love to read your thoughts concerning this topic.
{ Alligator Blood - Nicole Dollanganger }
Knee-deep in the poacher's dream
He dragged that thing out back and he
Hung it upside down, slit its belly open
And let it bleed out
He held my head & made me watch, he
Filled my mouth up with its blood and said
"Grow up weak or grow up tough"
This song and so many of Nicole’s remind me so much of TCM. This, Executioner, Poacher’s Pride and Rabid the most.
The Texas chainsaw massacre: The Beginning - opening
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For those who aren't aware, Thomas is seen taking roadkill or just general dead animals and makes masks out of them. And it has been confirmed in the comics, well, as how much cannon they are. That Thomas had killed in the past before, with that one boy and his group of friends in the lake. So he's definitely familiar with the idea of death and isn't disturbed by it at a young age. Could it be his mental deterioration? Possibly, but I don’t think that's only it, I do think that Thomas dosen’t think much of life and death, and therefore, didn’t care that much if it would be seen as creepy or odd that he would do this. Since it was a part of life, not to mention that he was already seen as an outcast.