Place Your Bets: Leatherface Vs. Mick Taylor

It’s that time again.  The Horrordome is open for battle and these two villains are ready to rumble. 

 In one corner, a man with a love of chainsaws and wearing his victim’s flesh as a mask.  No doubt his anger towards man helps him reach new sadistic levels of torture.  He is Leatherface.

In this corner comes a man from the centre of Australia.  Armed with his trusty knife, shotgun and menacing laugh, he is as calculating as he is terrifying.  He is Mick Taylor.

Let’s get ready to rumble.

Leatherface first made his mark in horror in 1974 with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  Played by Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface was cruel, killing his victims with such fury that they were almost unrecognizable corpses.  (Fun Fact: Despite being called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, only one person was killed from a chainsaw)

The basic plot of the movie is this: Five friends visiting their grandpa's old house are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw wielding killer and his family of grave-robbing cannibals.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre went on to have three sequels before being remade in 2003.  The remake also got a prequel before being rehashed again in 2013.  All up there are seven movies to date with Leatherface and his disturbing family.  Like with all my Horrordome battles, this one will just be focusing on the original movie.

In 2005 an Australian film entitled Wolf Creek took the world by storm, introducing a character so cunning and cruel that tourism to the country, especially the outback, actually dropped.  Mick Taylor was born and his reign of terror officially began.  Played by Aussie nice guy, John Jarratt, Mick Taylor sent chills down the spine of all Australians.

The plot of the movie is this: Stranded backpackers in remote Australia fall prey to a murderous bushman who offers to fix their car, then takes them captive.

The story of Mick Taylor was left to a singular film although it was announced that there would be a sequel and low and behold, there is.  Set for release at the end of 2013, Wolf Creek 2 will see Mick Taylor return to the screen, butchering backpackers and causing the country to shudder and wonder how it created such a cold-blooded killer.

So, the question remains, if these two were to share the screen where winner kills all, who would reign supreme?  Would it be the boy from the bush or the Texas titan?

Let’s look at the characters a little closer.  Leatherface is a mentally retarded man, with a sadistic family that worked in a slaughterhouse.  When the slaughterhouse was closed down, they didn’t move away like most of the folk in the area, instead opting to stay and eventually turned into cannibals, turning on the people who passed through the area, killing them before eating them.

His weapon of choice was, obviously, a chainsaw, but he also resorted to using a meat hook and a hammer.  The meat hook was to hold one of his victims while the hammer was to bash their heads in.  Essentially whatever he could get his hands on, he would use.  He also had the help of his family to gather victims and kill, offering to hold them down while the others got in on the action.

Mick Taylor is a loner, stalking the outback for potential victims.  Nothing has been revealed of his past except that he was a kangaroo shooter, which means he has a steady hand.  Turns out he’s also pretty good at stalking his victims before making his move and disassembling their cars.

What’s Mick’s weapon of choice?  Well, he is partial to a large hunting knife which he uses to torture his victims, but he also owns a shot gun and because of his background as a kangaroo shooter, he’s a sharp shooter, being able to hit a target like a sniper.  Like Leatherface, Mick is an opportunist and will often kill with whatever he has lying around.

Victim wise, Leatherface leads the count, killing four in the first movie, with a strong indication of many victims prior to those four and, not to mention, countless others in the sequels and remakes.  Mick only murdered two, but, like Leatherface, there’s a strong indication that he’s done it before.  (Fun Fact: The body in which Mick stabs in the spine to create the ‘Head On A Stick’ was actually the body of a dead pig).  With a sequel in the works as we speak, Mick’s body count is sure to rise.

So, who would win?

When I posed the question, most people said Leatherface solely based on the fact that there were countless movies and that he is an icon of the horror genre.  But what people don’t consider is he is also mad and tends to attack his victims head on with brute force and is an opportunistic killer, where as Mick Taylor is a hunter who stalks his prey, deciding on the best possible outcome for the attacks.  Mick also taunts his victims mentally before physically destroying them.  He is cruel, cunning and calculating. 

If there were to face off against each other, Mick would easily be able to subdue Leatherface with a couple of well placed bullets before getting up close with his knife, dodging the swinging chainsaw and thus defeating him.  If you think that Leatherface’s family would come to the rescue, Mick would be able to dispatch of them in much the same fashion.  Mick Taylor would defeat Leatherface and his family with a long ranged attack, however going hand to hand combat would make it much more exciting.  In the eyes of Mick Taylor, Leatherface is just an animal and he knows how to eradicate them.

Winner: Mick Taylor

No doubt this will create some debate and controversy.  I will not condone personal attacks over this. 

Whatever the outcome, Leatherface Vs. Mick Taylor would be one epic and very bloody battle.