Advertisement

arts entertainmentMovies

Crazed hitchhiker from 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' now voices cartoons for kids

Classic horror movie buffs will recognize Edwin "Ed" Neal's maniacal way of talking and telling stories. At 70, he still has that excitable pitch in his voice with a slight giggle that punctuates each sentence.

It's the voice that Neal used in his role as the deranged hitchhiker in the 1974 Texas-made horror classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Neal has added scores of credits, mostly as a voice talent for children's cartoons, but he continues to be recognized as The Hitchhiker, a role that he brought to life four decades ago and continues to embrace.

{"type":"Event","title":"Texas Frightmare Weekend","_id":270541,"html":"

Advertisement
News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

","providerType":"guidelive","providerLink":"http://www.guidelive.com/oembed"}

Starting Friday, Neal will be greeting fans, signing autographs and trying to creep people out at the Texas Frightmare Weekend at the Hyatt Regency DFW Motel in Irving.

Advertisement

Fans will be able to see and hear a guy who gave hitchhikers the worst of reputations.

In the movie, Neal played Nubbins Sawyer and his first scene was memorable. Lanky with long hair, Nubbins is first seen trudging along the shoulder of a two-lane road in the miserable Texas heat. A van loaded with the movie's eventual young victims passes him on the road. Like naive young horror film victims are known to do, they offer him a ride.

Soon, they realize it's a bad idea. Nubbins starts acting erratically, first cutting his own hand, then slashing another passenger. These obvious breaches of hitchhiker etiquette get him kicked out of the van.

Advertisement

But Nubbins was not done.

Later in the movie, he shows up as a member of a cannibal family. As the movie title suggests, it doesn't get any better for the van's passengers and they spend the last half of the movie running from the Sawyer family, particularly Nubbins' little brother, the chainsaw-yielding Leatherface.

Rowlett resident Edwin "Ed" Neal  has been a voice talent and actor after playing The...
Rowlett resident Edwin "Ed" Neal has been a voice talent and actor after playing The Hitchhiker on "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." (Photo: Theresa Jara)

Neal, a Rowlett resident who's now a regular at horror movie conventions worldwide, has a favorite story that resulted from that hitchhiker scene. At a horror convention about a year after the film came out, two state troopers in full uniform approached Neal's table.

"This big, jaw-boned guy puts his hand out and goes: 'I'd like to shake your hand, sir. After your film opened, crime on rural Texas highways dropped 18 percent!'

"You couldn't buy a ride. If you had a 20-dollar bill in your hand, people would go in the other lane and drive around you. Huh-uh. Huh-uh. No. Nooo."

The movie has not scared off multiple generations of horror movie fans.

Directed by former University of Texas at Austin film student Tobe Hooper, the movie struggled with ratings and distribution early in its release, but it grew on critics and developed a cult following. Today, Texas Chain Saw Massacre has made numerous best-of horror lists and has been recognized for its influence on the genre. It holds an 88 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie spawned sequels, remakes, action figures and an Atari video game.

Advertisement

The movie also generated millions for distributors and rights holders. But Neal said he received little compensation for the movie and preferred not to talk about his and other actors' cuts for the movie.

Neal did parlay the experience into using his voice as a profession.

"Boy, when they told me that I could get paid to talk stupid, I said 'Where do I sign? I'm your guy,' " he said.

Advertisement

For decades, he's been credited with voice work on television, cartoons, anime projects, video games. He said that he has four voices running right now on the DC Universe online Batman game. His credits on Internet Movie Database include a role in 1991's JFK.

Not bad for a guy who based his signature role on an eccentric relative. When Hooper dropped in at the UT drama department looking for actors for his project, Neal used the opportunity to roll out his demented hitchhiker character.

"I was mainly trying to wind Hooper up," Neal said, laughing. "I really didn't want to be in his cockamamie movie. We read a little bit of the script, so I went up and did my audition. 'Hoop' goes 'Oh, my god. You're our guy.' "

The next day, limited contracts were brought in to sign, Neal said.

Advertisement

"We signed thinking nobody will ever see this," he said. "They'll show it in the drive-in in Round Rock, Texas, and that will be it."

The movie won over fans such as Roy Rose, a Cleveland native who moved to Bastrop to restore the gas station seen in the movie. Rose plans to have Neal recreate his role when the gas station opens as a Chain Saw-themed bed and breakfast in July.

"I'm more of the hitchhiker fan than Leatherface," Rose said. "Ed's role was the absolute greatest."