Of all the various horror intellectual properties that Universal has incorporated into its Halloween Horror Nights proceedings over the past three-plus decades, few have had as extensive a showing as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the iconic series that has sputtered and stopped numerous times since its unsuspecting, indie roots in 1974. This makes it eerily similar to The Exorcist, another touch-and-go ‘70s genre titan, and the similarities don’t stop there: perhaps the most important shared commonality, at least from Universal’s perspective, is that neither one shows any sign of stopping anytime soon, making them both the perfect candidates for inclusion at Horror Unleashed, the new, year-round haunt attraction that’s set to open this summer in Las Vegas.

Indeed, Universal has just recently lifted the curtain – even if only slightly – on what, exactly, this latest iteration of Texas Chainsaw holds in store for guests, but first, before we’re able to touch on all the new specifics, we need to wind back the clock and review all the fundamentals. Consider this your short-but-sweet primer on the enduring source material, giving you a comprehensive rundown of all the basics before reveling in the Sin City future that awaits.

A quick overview of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as the first film was originally entitled, was born out of a young filmmaker’s growing disillusionment with the mire that was the socio-political scene of the early 1970s, chief among them the Vietnam War and Watergate. Tobe Hooper decided to create an almost-exploitative movie to reflect what he thought were society’s and the media’s move towards more graphic material or interests; scrapping together the tiniest of shoestring budgets and casting mostly unknowns down in Texas, he put together a shocking (but mostly gore-free) project and struggled to release it into the wider world.

He eventually did, and Massacre ended up becoming one of the most successful films of all time – as well as one of the most influential, birthing an entire subgenre around a hulking, masked, (oftentimes) silent slasher that mowed his way through a pool of hapless victims. Even still, the single picture didn’t become a full-fledged series of its own until over a decade later, in 1986, with Hooper returning to try and push his cinematic baby into newer territory (namely, black comedy and straight-out gore). The results were mixed, critically as well as commercially, but it laid the groundwork for a never-ending franchise that continues, in fits and starts, to this day: over the past 40 years, it has switched hands from one studio to another countless times, with each eager to make its own mark on the hallowed property. Along the way, sequels, remakes, and prequels have been turned out in almost-clockwork fashion, with each new take incorporating some of the earlier releases (typically the original) and ignoring all the others, resulting in one of the most convoluted narrative landscapes in Hollywood history.

Where does the IP stand today? The ninth and most recent entry, which was given the simple (and confusing) name of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was released as a Netflix-exclusive in 2022, with some sort of follow-up, rumored to be called Texas Chainsaw Legacy, reportedly in development. There is currently no expected opening date or distribution channel, whether that be movie theaters or another streaming service.

(If all this sounds strikingly familiar, that’s because it is: the history of Halloween, which very much followed in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s immediate footsteps [the originating chapter of that horror mainstay landed just four years after Tobe Hooper’s], is almost exactly the same as what we see here. You can read all about that in our write-up on The Exorcist [so many ‘70s properties!], since Universal initially wanted to copy and paste the modern Halloween playbook for its newly acquired icon.)

A quick history of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Halloween Horror Nights

In yet another commonality with its ‘70s horror brethren, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre began its long association with Halloween Horror Nights Orlando through a series of quick, mostly unofficial appearances, popping up in haunted houses, scare zones, and, even, shows starting with the very first event year of 1991. It wasn’t until 2007 that attendees got to experience the first full-on encounter with Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding behemoth at the center of the franchise, in the form of a haunted house called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds, but they had to make do with the iteration of the character from the 2003 remake as opposed to the original; just the year prior, that installment had a prequel released, which provided something of a marketing tie-in for the Halloween proceedings (then as in now, multimedia synchronicity ranks pretty high up on the Horror Nights checklist).

The inaugural 1974 film finally got tackled in 2016, the next time that Leatherface and his family of deranged cannibals showed up at Universal Studios Florida, and it largely saw action again in 2021, when Universal fashioned a hybrid haunt experience that incorporated elements from the first and second cinematic entries with an original story, setting it in 1978 (four years after the former and eight years before the latter). Although having just three occurences across a 14-year time span may not seem like much, it actually sits right on the precipice of “oversaturated” territory for HHN Orlando, an event that is used to brandishing an entirely new lineup each and every year.

It’s an even more intense showing over at the Hollywood version of Halloween Horror Nights, which has been forced to make do with repeat mazes since it first started up its annual streak in 2006. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre has racked up more appearances than almost any other IP – nearly every four years since 2007, it pops back up, whether that be a straight adapation of the 2003 remake or the originating movie, an interstitial story set in between the first and second chapters, or, most interestingly of all, a novel multiversial approach that utilized all nine versions of Leatherface. (And that’s not even taking into consideration the Terror Tram, which the series has taken over three times in the past 18 years.)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Universal Horror Unleashed

Now that you’re fully briefed on the matter, it’s time to see what this hallowed horror property has in store for you year-round at Horror Unleashed, located in the Area15 entertainment complex, just off the Strip in Las Vegas. You can do that in our write-up here.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre opens alongside Scarecrow: The Reaping and The Exorcist: Believer at Universal Horror Unleashed on August 14, 2025, just 15 days before Halloween Horror Nights Orlando begins its own run.

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