Alternate Versions
A new DVD version was released in Australia in late 2006 with all scenes corrected.
The film had major censorship problems in the Canadian province of Ontario. After seeing the film rejected three times by the Ontario Censor Board, distributor Pan-Canadian pre-cut 11 minutes out of the picture, including a huge elimination around the midpoint that deleted almost everything shown in the Sawyer family's underground slaughterhouse. Other eliminations included the shot of the Yuppie driver's head cleaved in two and spurting blood, and many of the wounds inflicted on each other by Chop Top and Stretch during the climax. Also, Chop Top only hits L.G. in the head with hammer once in this version, instead of dozens of times, and this single blow kills him (the sequence where the half-skinned L.G. comes back to life is among the other material dropped in the major cut mentioned above). This 89 minute edition of the movie was finally approved for exhibition in Ontario, but because of all the censorship delays, it opened a week later than in the rest of English Canada.
A special edition has been released on video. This edition adds some footage originally shot for the movie but not included in the theatrical version. This rough footage has dialogue but no music or sound effects and the video quality is atrocious. The new scenes include:
- Lefty Enright (Dennis Hopper) strapping two chainsaws to himself with leather belts just outside the Sawyer family's hideout. He then sees the family's truck arriving and entering the underground cave.
- A group of rioting football fans smash some cars in an underground parking lot. The chainsaw family arrives and proceeds to make mincemeat of all of them. ''Highlights'' include Leatherface slicing a guy's head in half and cutting off the hand of another (the severed hand then falls to the ground and gives Leatherface the finger!)
- A guy (Joe Bob Briggs) descending a staircase to the garage together with two women and talking about splatter movie special effects. After he opens a door, Leatherface barges in and slaughters him (off-screen).
- An alternate take of the scene where Stretch is hiding in the meat room and Leatherface comes in to butcher L.G. and remove his face.
Although banned in Australia and not shown at the cinema or been distributed on video, the film has been shown on cable TV. There was one scene cut however, when Chop Top continuously hits L.G on the head with a hammer at the Radio Station.
The film was originally submitted for UK cinema in 1986 but the release was withdrawn when around 20 mins of cuts were requested by the BBFC (after initially deliberating a complete rejection). In June 2001 the film was finally passed uncut by the BBFC in the UK.
Banned in Sweden in 1986. Running time was 97 min. Although it has been shown on 2 Swedish TV-channels a couple of years ago.
There exists a Greek rental tape which features the uncut US R-rated version
The original 1987 Canadian home video release was distributed by Astral Home Video (Media Video slipcase with an Astral sticker on it) and runs only 90 minutes instead of the US version which ran 101 minutes. The missing footage was cut due to graphic gore.
