Leatherface – Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 2020

Here is a 20th-century print by Robert Sammelin, a promotional image for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, featuring Leatherface, chainsaw in hand. What a colour combo – that dark blue with the deep red! I can just imagine Sammelin in his studio, going for an almost cartoonish aesthetic, splattering the image with bright, contrasting colours to ramp up the drama. What’s so unnerving is the way the figures are rendered with such exaggerated features, capturing the essence of horror cinema – a blend of repulsion and fascination. There is a dialogue happening with other illustrators and filmmakers of the time, a visual language being shared and reinvented, where the graphic and the grotesque meet in a kind of terrible beauty. It serves as a reminder that even in the darkest of subjects, artists find ways to express, provoke, and connect. Art making is a conversation after all!