- "That slaughterhouse meant more to this town than them fools will ever know. Just a matter of time now Before this town's overrun by bikers and hippies. Most families have already fled. Well, I say let them go. Let them flee to the hills, and the cities who pollute our air and our water and our minds. Us... we're staying right here. The ashes of six generations of Hewitts have been tilled into the soil of this farm. We will never abandon the place of our birth. We're on our own now, people. And alone... we will rise above it all. People may not remember what we say here tonight. But they sure as shit will remember what we do! Thanks to the good sheriff here... We ain't gonna go hungry tonight. Matter of fact, we ain't never gonna starve again."
- ― Charlie Hewitt's infamous speech before saying grace.
Charlton "Charlie" Hewitt, Jr., better known under the false identity of Sheriff Winston Hoyt or just Hoyt, is a member of the Hewitt Family, associated with the continuity of the reboot series, who first appeared is the main antagonist in the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the of it's prequel film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning in 2006.
In both films, the character was played by the late actor R. Lee Ermey.
History[]
Korean War[]
The WildStorm comic Hoyt: By Himself, reveals that Charlie fought in the Korean War as a private. In late 1952, he and his squad were captured and escorted to a P.O.W. camp by the enemy. During the death march, the commander of the NKPA troops, Sergeant Chow, beat and humiliated many of the Americans, including Charlie. Chow did however have a nominal respect for field officers, believing that they deserved better treatment than enlisted men. Charlie was thusly ordered by him to take care of an ill U.S. Army captain, even after they arrived at camp. One night, Charlie became so fed up with the officer's constant coughing fits, that he quietly choked the man to death in his weakened state. Realizing his chance, Charlie took his uniform to gain a more favorable status amongst the prisoners, though it didn't spare him from the brutal interrogations the Koreans subjected them to.
In the winter of 1953, the camp was cut off by supply lines due to the heavy snowfall, making the already depleted rations even more scarce. The guards had a small supply of rice and gruel, but the Americans went entirely without food. Eventually, the Koreans turned to cannibalism, taking the bodies of deceased P.O.W. and butchering them for their meat, as Charlie would discover when he witnessed how one of the officers who died from the torture was taken away and filleted in a nearby room. Instead of feeling sick or disgusted by this, he began drooling with hunger. Lucky for him, Sergeant Chow continued to care for the officers, handing them scraps of their meals made from their former comrades and he soon found himself growing to like the taste of human flesh. Soon enough though, all of the regular soldiers had run out and so did the respect Chow had for officers. Starting with Charlie and pulling out a knife, about to prepare him for processing, the prisoner stabbed the sergeant to death with a sharpened leftover human bone, before massacring the rest of the guards using only a combat knife and a rifle he pilfered from Chow's body. Charlie then approaches a cell with other American capturees, who are euphoric at his arrival. Charie, however, returns their smiles with a cold, scornful stare. It's ultimately left uncertain how he dealt with the remaining survivors, but by this point, Charlie only cared to satisfy his newfound hunger, heavily implying that instead of freeing his fellow soldiers, he butchered them, as well as the dead Koreans, to keep himself satiated, presumably going A.W.O.L and deserting to return to the United States.
TCM: The Beginning[]
In 1968, Charlie is arrested by the local sheriff, Winston Hoyt, the last police officer in his dying hometown of Fuller, Texas. On their way to the police station in the next town over, the sheriff runs into Thomas, Charlie's adopted brother/nephew, bloodied after murdering his boss for firing him from his position at the meat packing plant. Distracted with him, armed with a pump action shotgun and a Colt single action revolver, Charlie shoots and kills Sheriff Hoyt at point-blank range during his attempt to apprehend Thomas. Facing possible starvation at the loss of Tommy's job, Charlie is the one to introduce the grisly practice to his family, who are surprisingly quick to accept this as their new way of life.
Sheriff Hoyt and his shotgun.
Charlie then takes on the identity of the murdered sheriff, who was the last member of law enforcement left in Travis County. He uses this new identity to lure teenagers off the road where they meet Leatherface and his family to be killed and eaten.
Charlie prior to assuming the identity of Sheriff Hoyt.
As he guides his family's killing spree, Charlie/Hoyt himself becomes a serial killer and begins to use torture murder as he and his family capture victims they have hatred for.
Hoyt is arguably one of the driving forces behind Leatherface's cannibalism and murders, assuring Thomas that the butchery of human beings is no different than the slaughterhouse: "Meat is meat, and bone is bone".
Later, Hoyt is present during Leatherface's first chainsaw murder, urging him to go forward and cheering him on at the same time.
TCM (2003)[]
A gruff, perverse, foul mouthed, mean-spirited bully, who often uses false arrest and police brutality (usually with his police baton) on young adults whom Hoyt hates and looks at as dope smoking, hippy protesters.
Hoyt not only makes no effort to conceal his contempt for everyone around him, he seems to revel in it.
For example, when he is called to investigate the suicide of a young girl in the first film, he leers at the corpse and cracks jokes about his predilection for "copping a feel" on dead female bodies.
Hoyt's death
He's killed in the remake when the only survivor, Erin runs him over repeatedly in his own police car while escaping from the Hewitts. Hoyt, like the rest of his relatives, has a sick sense of family pride and a strong hatred of outsiders.
Apparently, either due to the complicated relationship between Hoyt and Leatherface or the fact that Hoyt does not accept him as a "true" brother because of them not being biologically related, Hoyt views Leatherface as his nephew rather than his brother.
WildStorm continuity[]
In the Texas Chainsaw Massacre comics, Hoyt refers to himself as "Uncle Charlie" and encourages a young Leatherface's murderous impulses, "Uncle" Charlie even shoots and kills a bully who Leatherface recently attacked and was skinning/flaying alive, after the bully assaulted Leatherface earlier at a swimming hole.
Uncle Charlie's only criticism being that Thomas needs to "learn how to fix 'em proper", Charlie then takes the body and dumps it in a lake.
In the prequel, Hoyt refers to Leatherface as his nephew, as does the real sheriff, though both Hoyt and Leatherface view Luda Mae as their mother and Monty as their uncle.
Also, it's revealed in the deleted and additional scenes with audio commentary on the prequel that Hoyt was supposed to be the Uncle figure in Leatherface's life.
Charlie/Hoyt is apparently named after his father as his mother Luda Mae refers to him as "Junior", and his father Charlie Sr., is implied at being a farmer as Hoyt quotes him as saying that "if you want to be a good farmer, you have to keep your livestock clean, a clean goat is a happy goat".
In Avatar Press The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comics, set between the events of the first film and The Beginning, Hoyt regularly appeared, most often having unwary travelers venture to the Hewitt home where he and family would butcher them.
Hoyt is depicted as exceedingly sadistic in the comics, regularly mocking and torturing victims to the point of mutilating them, justifying his actions under a "they got what they deserved"-esque pretense, as shown when he forces an escaped convict and drug dealer to snort cleaning chemicals.
Of note, the Avatar Press comics have Hoyt referred to by the name Junior by his family.
Hank[]
In the Wildstorm comics, a character very similar to Hoyt appears, he is named "Hank" and is a murderous slaughterhouse worker. When a cameraman and newswoman came to interview him and other butchers about the murderers, he gave them a graphic tour of the slaughterhouse, showing them various animals being killed and how the meat was rendered. Later, when one of their crew went missing, the two went back inside only for Hank to reappear and attack them.
After knocking them both out with a cattle-prod, Hank proceeded to torture and ultimately murder the cameraman in the same exact way that the animals were prepared (by slitting the throat and letting the blood drain, and then tossing him into a vat of scalding hot water before 'rendering' the meat) while the newswoman watched.
The newswoman managed to escape, with Hank in hot pursuit. He was stopped dead in his tracks by FBI Agent Baines, the uncle of Pepper (one of Leatherface's victims from the remake film).
Believing Hank to be responsible for his niece's death, Baines managed to find a stray chainsaw and engaged the slaughterman in a chainsaw duel.
Although Baines was wounded by Hank's weapon, Baines gained the upper hand and managed to dismember and ultimately kill Hank.
Although Hank is never identified as Hoyt, he did bear a strong resemblance to the character leading some to believe that he was in fact the sheriff from the remake films.
When artist Wes Craig was asked, he responded by saying while he wouldn't confirm whether or not Hank was Hoyt, that the similarity between the two characters was indeed intentional.
"I don't really want to say if that was Hoyt or not, it might have been him, might have been his twin, who knows (okay I know but I'm not telling). But yes it was supposed to look like Hoyt," said Craig.
Appearances[]
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Grind
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Fearbook
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: By Himself