Antonio news as part of the inspiration for the film, due to the graphic nature of the story being featured. Development took place using the working titles of Headcheese and Leatherface. Hooper based the plot loosely on the murders committed by 1950s Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, who served as the inspiration for a number of other horror films.
In discussing influences on the film, Hooper cites the impact of changes in the cultural and political landscape. He directly correlates the intentional misinformation that the “film you are about to see is true” as a response to being “lied to by the government about things that were going on all over the world,” including Watergate, the gasoline crisis, and “the massacres and atrocities in the Vietnam War.” The additional “lack of sentimentality and the brutality of things” that Hooper noticed in watching the local news