- "That girl has family a out there that will want her back, not just dumped on the side of the road like a piece of trash."
- ― Erin to Kemper concerning the female hitchhiker at the Old Crawford Mill
Erin Hardesty is a 17-year-old girl, the main protagonist and sole survivor of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She is portrayed by Jessica Biel.
She, along with her boyfriend Kemper, her friends Andy, Pepper and Morgan were on their way to Dallas, Texas for a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. She and her boyfriend Kemper Sterling were originally from Arizona.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre[]
Erin grew up around the early 1960s. As a youth, she often found herself in trouble with the law, and spent some time in juvenile hall. According to her, Erin's ability to pick locks and hotwire cars developed during this era. Around the year 1970, she began dating a man named Kemper. Although Erin certainly did not take issue with skirting the letter of the law, she began to outgrow Kemper's appreciation for smoking marijuana.
In August of 1973, Erin, Kemper, their friend, Andy and Erin's brother Morgan went on vacation in Mexico. What Erin didn't know was that the group were actually driving there in order to purchase two pounds of pot, presumably for resale in the United States. Returning from Mexico, they were driving through West Texas on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert (along the way they picked up a hitchhiker named Pepper). At this time, Erin discovered that they had purchased the marijuana and was quite angry with Kemper even though he insisted that he only did it so they could start a life together.
On August 18th, they were driving down Route 17 when they picked up a young teenage girl hitchhiking down the road. The girl appeared to be in a severe state of dehydration and her emotional state was bordering on hysteria. She spoke incoherently about the "bad people" she had just escaped from. When the girl thought that they were taking her back to the people who had supposedly tortured her, she lost her mind, produced a .357 Magnum (which she had miraculously concealed within her vagina) and shot herself in the head. Everyone in the vehicle were horrified to witness such a violent act. They tried to find a proper means of reporting the suicide and/or taking her to a hospital, but all of these efforts proved fruitless as there was no hospital within the vicinity, and their attempts to contact the Travis County sheriff proved daunting. Some of the group even proffered forth the idea of leaving her body behind, but Erin was adamantly opposed to this.
Their journey ultimately brought them to the Hewitt residence. Erin spoke with crippled Monty Hewitt and asked him if she could use his telephone to contact the sheriff. She then had to suffer through an awkward moment with Monty as she helped him off the floor of the bathroom and back into his wheelchair (at which point, the horny old man copped a feel of Erin's buttocks). An experience that had begun as a gruesome comedy of errors quickly evolved into a tableau of true horror. The residence had also happened to be the home of psychotic Charlie Hewitt, who had been masquerading as the town's sheriff for the past four years. Additionally, Charlie's nephew, Thomas Hewitt was a deformed rampaging murderer who skinned his victims and wore their faces as masks. While Erin was dealing with Monty, Thomas "Leatherface" Hewitt, attacked and killed Kemper.
Erin regrouped with the others and tried to find Kemper, but to no avail. Eventually, Leatherface came chasing after them, brandishing a large chainsaw and was wearing Kemper’s face as a new mask. Almost immediately, he used the chainsaw to brutally murder Pepper right before her eyes, forcing Erin to run screaming into the woods. Eventually, she came upon a trailer home occupied by a scrawny woman named Henrietta and an obese tea-drinking lady. She also noted a baby in Henrietta's possession. She warned them about the chainsaw-wielding maniac, however strangely, they showed very little concern about her warning. Henrietta gave Erin some tea, at which point, Erin began to realize that the baby Henrietta was handling was not her own (the implication was that the baby actually belonged to the suicidal hitchhiker). She then tried to escape from the trailer, but was soon knocked out by the tea she had just consumed, which turned out to be drugged.
When she regained consciousness, she awoke back at the Hewitt residence. After being forced into the cellar, she then found a grievously wounded Andy who was suspended in the cellar of the house on a meat hook. When she tried to help him off the meat hook, she only succeeded in impaling Andy further in the hook after she accidentally let go of him after slipping. Knowing of futility of the situation and that he was dead weight, Andy begged her to put him out of his misery. Tearfully, Erin obliged and took a nearby knife and then stabbed Andy in the stomach, finally putting him out of his misery. She then found Morgan, who had been likewise tortured and imprisoned by Leatherface and “Sheriff Hoyt”. Once again, Erin came to aide of her friend and released him. Right afterwards, Leatherface resumed his pursuit of her and preceded to swing his chainsaw at them. They however managed to temporarily escape him when aide came in the form of a small inbred child named Jedidiah. Jedidiah led Erin and Morgan through an underground tunnel that exited near the Blair Meat Company. Thomas Hewitt then managed to catch up to the pair and finished off Morgan after he sacrificed himself to allow Erin to escape, leaving Jedidiah behind.
Erin then ran to the slaughterhouse and after fighting Thomas off, she hid in between a split open pig carcase. After Thomas moves the pigs and finds her, she runs out of the freezer and hides inside one of the meat lockers. As Thomas searched the area, he managed to locate where Erin was but was soon distracted by a squeal of a pig in a nearby locker which allowed Erin to get the upper hand, hacking at him wildly with a meat cleaver until she succeeded in cutting off his right arm, disarming him and allowing her to escape him. She flailed about frantically in the street until she was picked up by a nearby trucker named Big Rig Bob. When the man began driving towards the Cele Community Center, Erin began to freaked out, realizing the direction the truck was heading, and then grabbed the wheel, forcing him off the side of the road.
She ran out of the vehicle once the truck parked at the Last Chance gas station, at which point, the rest of the family became aware of her presence. While the they were distracted by the truck driver and ran outside to find her, Erin sneaked back into the general store and rescued the baby. She then made her way to the sheriff's car and managed to hotwire it right as he was about to find her and she proceeded to ran him over multiple times until he was dead. She then sped away from the scene as quickly as she could, nearly getting slashed by Leatherface as he was swinging his chainsaw at her in a final attempted to kill her.
Alternate Scenes[]
In an extended scene at the Old Crawford Mill, after trying to figure out what to do about the dead hitchhiker, Erin pulls Kemper aside and tells him that the reason she hasn't been drinking or smoking was because she was pregnant. She went on to state that she didn't want her baby to end up in jail so Kemper had to take responsibility and figure out a way to get the situation fixed. Later in the woods on the way to the Hewitt residence, Kemper stops her in the forest and tells her that he wants to marry her but at the right time since Erin said she wanted him to marry her because he wanted to, not because of their baby. He then kisses her stomach and remarks how she'll be a "beautiful fat lady", referencing her stomach getting bigger due to the pregnancy.
In the original ending, it was revealed that the whole film was actually being told by an older Erin, in 2003; in her 50s, who was in an insane asylum and is being interviewed by a reporter. She then tells him that she doubts Leatherface had died due to the body they found and performed an autopsy on having two arms while the real Leatherface only had one, it then shows a shadowy figure walk out the door, presuming to be Leatherface. It is also revealed by Erin that her and Kemper's baby along with the baby she rescued are in foster families.
Notes & Trivia[]
- The character of Erin (TCM) was created by director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott Kosar.
- In the original script, it states that Erin is "a young girl of seventeen", meaning she is 17.
- This also means she was born in 1956.
- It is also revealed that Morgan is Erin's brother.
- Erin's surname is never provided through the course of the film.
- Though in various places her last name is "Hardesty", a reference to Sally Hardesty from the original film.
- What became of Erin, or the baby she had rescued, following the events of the remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is unknown.
- Though in the original ending Erin, ends up in a mental hospital with her stating that her baby and the rescued baby had been placed with foster families.
- Erin never knew that Kemper had purchased a tear-cut diamond ring and had planned on proposing to her. The ring fell out of Kemper's pocket after he had been attacked by Thomas Hewitt.
- Erin is an analog for Sally Hardesty, who was the "Final Girl" from the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
- Erin had a tattoo on her lower right-side abdomen. This is actually actress Jessica Biel's tattoo.
- Erin is one of two characters seen in the film with visible tattoos. The other is Sheriff Hoyt, who has tattoos on both forearms.
- In some deleted scenes it is revealed that the reason for Erin not smoking the weed or drinking was because she was pregnant. It is unknown if she is pregnant in the final film.
- Though in the Wildstorm's comic continuation, Erin is seen in a mental hospital.
- Erin had been dating Kemper for three years.
- She originated from Arizona along with Kemper.
- She is the only survivor of the Hewitt Family and the only one to kill a Hewitt family member.
