On August 18, 1973, five young people in a van ran out of gas on a farm road in South Texas. The next morning, the lone survivor, Sally Hardesty-Enright, was picked up on a roadside. The hysterical girl said she escaped from a family of chainsaw-wielding cannibals who hacked up her brother and friends for barbeque. Sally sank into a catatonic state and Texas lawmen mounted a month-long manhunt, but could not locate the farmhouse. No killers or victims were found to prove that a crime occurred. Officially, on the record, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never happened. But over the years, reports of bizarre, grisly chainsaw mass murders persisted across the state of Texas. For the next thirteen years, Sally’s uncle, Lieutenant “Lefty” Enright, searched for the killers. At a small radio station near Dallas, Texas, disc jockey Vanita “Stretch” Brock receives a telephone call from two drunk teenage boys heading to Dallas for the weekend. The boys refuse to hang up their car phone and the station’s engineer, L. G. McPeters, is unable to disconnect their call. That evening, as the drunk teens near Dallas, they call the station again and keep Stretch on the line as they encounter a truck which chases the boys. A chainsaw-wielding killer rises from the truck bed, slashes the roof on the boys’ convertible and slices off part of the driver’s head. Stretch hears the boys scream before their car crashes. The next day, Lt. Lefty Enright inspects the crime scene as police arrive. The lead officer claims it was an accident caused by wild kids. However, Lefty disagrees and wants to speak with any witnesses, and the officer promises to release Lefty’s theory about chainsaw killers to the press. Stretch sees the derisive article about Lefty in the newspaper. She goes to his hotel room, and reveals she did not erase the station’s audio recording of the event. She wants him to listen to it and be interviewed on her show. She admits it is a small radio station, but promises they reach a wide audience in north Texas. Lefty does not want her help and tells her to stay out of his way. Stretch leaves, but is certain this is a chance to do something important on her radio show. She joins L. G. McPeters and they report on a local chili cook-off, where Drayton “Cook” Sawyer wins for the second year and proclaims using “prime” meat is the secret to his success. Lefty purchases three chainsaws and waits outside the radio station until Stretch arrives for her night shift. He claims the chainsaw killers have been living in northeast Texas for two years, but police have reported the murders as accidents. Lefty admits he needs Stretch’s assistance and asks her to play the tape of the accident on her radio station to lure the killers out of hiding. As Drayton Sawyer drives his food truck home, he receives a telephone call from his sons who tell him to listen to Stretch’s broadcast, and Drayton is infuriated that Stretch recorded his sons murdering the teens. At the end of their shift, L. G. asks Stretch to join him for a cup of coffee, but she refuses and waits at the station for Lefty. Upset, L. G. rushes out, and forgets to lock the door behind him. Moments later, Stretch hears someone in the waiting room and discovers “Chop-Top” Sawyer. The frightening man wears another man’s face over his own and continually scratches the metal plate on his scalp with a wire hangar. When Stretch asks Chop-Top to leave, his brother “Bubba,” also known as “Leatherface,” enters with a chainsaw. Leatherface also wears another person’s face as a mask, and accidentally buzzes his brother’s head with the chainsaw, knocking off Chop-Top’s mask. Leatherface chases Stretch, but she locks herself in a room. L. G. returns to the station with coffee for Stretch, and Leatherface joins Chop-Top in attacking L. G. with a hammer. Leatherface returns to Stretch’s hiding place and cuts through the wall. He backs her into a corner, aiming his chainsaw between her legs. Trying not to show fear, Stretch insists that Leatherface is not mad at her and she wonders how “good” he is. As she confronts him, Leatherface becomes aroused and cannot kill her. He rejoins his brother and pretends he murdered Stretch. They drag L. G.’s body to their truck and speed off. Stretch is furious that Lefty is late and does not want the killers to get away, so she follows them in her Jeep to the abandoned Texas Battleland Amusement Park. As she parks outside the gates and heads into the park grounds, Lefty arrives and admits he used her as bait to find the killer’s hideout. Stretch falls down a steam vent into the tunnels beneath the park and lands among a pile of skeletons. Armed with his chainsaws, Lefty finds the entrance to the tunnels. Determined to destroy the “devil’s playground,” Lefty fires up his chainsaws and starts chopping beams. Meanwhile, Stretch hears Drayton order his sons to start working because they have a big crowd to feed. L. G.’s body lies near Stretch, and Leatherface carves the skin off L. G.’s face. Repulsed, Stretch moves and Leatherface discovers her. As Drayton and Chop-Top approach, she hides in the shadows and Leatherface holds up L. G.’s severed face. They leave Leatherface to his work and he places the bloody mask over her face. Stretch is horrified, but Leatherface will not let her remove it and dances with her. When they hear Lefty’s chainsaws in the distance, Leatherface ties up Stretch and leaves. L. G. is still alive and frees Stretch before he dies. She takes off the face mask and places it back on L. G. As Drayton yells at his sons about the intruder, Stretch tries to sneak past them. Drayton sees her and his sons chase Stretch through the tunnels. When Leatherface reaches her, Stretch begs him to let her go but he refuses. Drayton and Chop-Top are upset that Leatherface did not kill her at the station. Chop-Top teases his brother about having a girl friend, then knocks Stretch out. When she regains consciousness she is tied to their dinner table, which is populated by skeletons and their feeble grandfather. Drayton orders Leatherface to bring Stretch to the grandfather, who will kill her. They place her head over a bucket at the old man’s feet and he attempts to hit her with a sledgehammer, but drops it several times before hitting her head. Lefty arrives with his chainsaws, frees Stretch, and tells her to run while he faces off with Leatherface. As Lefty slices open Leatherface’s stomach, Drayton hides under the table. Grandfather throws his sledgehammer, but it hits Leatherface, who drops onto the table as Lefty triumphantly brandishes his chainsaws. Chop-Top chases Stretch as she runs out of the tunnels and climbs the stairs to the top of “Battleland Mountain.” Inside the peak, she finds their grandmother’s corpse, clutching a chainsaw. Chop-Top attacks her with a knife, but Stretch slices him with the chainsaw and he falls off the mountain and into a tunnel. Stretch screams triumphantly as she raises the chainsaw over her head.