Who is Gunnar Hansen? He was born on March 4, 1947 in Rekjavik, Iceland and moved to the state of Maine in the United States when he was five years old. At eleven, his parents moved him to Austin, Texas where he later attended the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in English and Mathematics, eventually getting a graduate degree in Scandanavian Studies and English. In 1973, just after finishing his graduate degree, he heard about a low budget horror film being shot there in Austin called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He showed up on set to audition and pretty quickly got the part of Leatherface due to his imposing frame. The rest, as they say, is history.

The above bio of Gunnar Hansen lists places he had been, things he did. But they weren’t who he was. Dinner with Leatherface, after a perfunctory title card listing basic biographical information similar to the above, proceeds to show us who Hansen was as a person through interviews with friends, co-workers, fans and film professionals as they consistently talk about what a genuine guy Hansen was. They discuss his friendly, joking demeanor and his generosity. They talk about his sheer talent beyond just the man behind the mask. He was a poet and published author. He had passions beyond acting. He loved living in Maine, the quiet small town life where he grew up as a small child. We hear from people he worked with in his films like John Dugan (actor, Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Gary Jones (director, Mosquito), Fred Olen Ray (director, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers), Bret McCormick (director, Repligator) and Brian O’ Halloran (actor, Brutal Massacre: A Comedy) just to name a few. We hear from colleagues in the industry who knew him as a friend from the convention circuit like Kane Hodder, Bruce Campbell and Barbara Crampton. We even hear from people involved in Chainsaw films that Gunnar Hansen wasn’t even in who speak of his coaching and consulting of the younger actors who played Leatherface. By the end of the documentary, we are left with a very clear picture of who Gunnar Hansen was. He was not just a guy born in Iceland who grew up in Texas and played a chainsaw-wielding maniac. He was a good friend, a mentor, an influence, a giant in the field who left a mark on everyone who came in contact with him.

The transfer here is pretty standard for a documentary, considering it uses a wide variety of sources for the various interview and clip segments. The modern interviews were shot in a nice digital quality though and even the archival clips are generally clean and easily discernible. The audio is similarly of variable quality but generally clean and clear of distortion and defects. For extras, first we have an audio commentary with writer/director Michael Kallio and editor John Wagner. It’s a decent listen but they do run out of things to talk about a few times and kind of meander in their conversations occasionally. We also get extended interviews with filmmaker/historian Michael Felsher, who reminisced about his friendship with Gunnar Hansen and had an an amusing anecdote about him (a common occurrence amongst interviewees… Gunnar seemed like a funny guy), and director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 Jeff Burr, who goes into more detail about why Gunnar wasn’t called back to be in that film (it boils down to a cheapskate executive not surprisingly). We also get a fun interview with Gunnar by Danielle Harris at a convention where she gives him a series of rapid fire questions for him to answer off the top of his head. Additionally included is a featurette called “Tales of Gunnar Hansen” that essentially is composed of more outtakes from various interviewees.

If you are a fan of genre cinema, chances are you know who Gunnar Hansen is. This doc reaffirms everything I hear about people who work in the horror film community, that they are genuinely some of the nicest folks you’ll ever meet, and that dichotomy is embraced to the fullest with Hansen, who not only played one of the truly great horror villains of all time but was by all accounts a hell of a nice guy. Dinner with Leatherface is a fan documentary and proud of it.