Warning: This article contains spoilers for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, streaming now on Netflix.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ends with final girl Sally Hardesty getting away from the demented Sawyer family and their violent son Leatherface. Well, in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the story finally continues decades later, with Leatherface donning his iconic mask and wielding a chainsaw once again to exact his signature brand of violence once again. But even when the chainsaw stops revving, the movie makes it clear the killer's story is only just beginning via a post-credits scene.
The 2022 sequel is a direct continuation of the original film, in the same vein as Halloween 2018. Now much older, Leatherface is forcibly removed from his second home and exacts bloody revenge on the young group of people who have taken his home from him in hopes of reviving the ghost town of Harlow, Texas. But Leatherface's opposition only ends in chaos and maintains the town's legacy of being largely uninhabited and continuing the killer's reclusive habits. But rather than have the film end with him residing in the town, he instead returns to a familiar location.
After the credits roll, there is a shot is of Leatherface lumbering along with his chainsaw back to the Sawyer homestead. In the background, swelling, chaotic music is heard that signifies to the viewer that this is only the beginning of Leatherface's next chapter. The scene's significance comes from its past and Leatherface's history, as this was where his cannibalistic family raised him. While they ruled over him with fear, it was all he ever knew. As a result, the house and its history are the closest things he has to any form of solace anymore.
What makes this scene more intriguing is the idea that, for the first time in his over 50 years of existence, Leatherface is on his own. Returning to the house shows that he will likely return to his old habits of killing people and probably eating them, but without the cruel dominion of his family telling him what to do, he's free to do whatever he pleases. Should he decide not to continue the family legacy, he may just want to live in seclusion away from everyone in fear of forming attachments. Or he could opt to continue killing, rebuilding the house's haunted legacy all over again.
Leatherface has never been the most stable from a psychological perspective. His need to have a parental or motherly figure has guided him for his entire life, and being on his own may also be a huge risk to the character. Rather than form his own level of independence, he may spiral deeper into a state of mania, seeing dead loved ones that guide him to kill, or the return of his caregiver, Virginia McCumber, reminding him to be a "good boy." All potential outcomes only further justify that being alone in a house with such dark memories isn't a good idea for the character.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre dares to try something new while surrounding itself with the original film's same familiar, sweaty feeling. But now that things have changed, as the post-credits show, Leatherface's fate is still unknown, and he's at a crucial point in his life. Whatever comes next could change things forever and finally confirm whether the killer is violent out of fear or out of a drive to appease a family that no longer resides in his childhood home.
To see where Leatherface ends up, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is streaming now on Netflix.