Morgan Hardesty is the last murder victim and a supporting character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He is part of the continuity of the remake series and appeared in the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
He was played by actor Jonathan Tucker.
Personality[]
Morgan was a dark-haired young man who grew up during the 1960s and 1970s. He wore glasses, had a bit of facial hair and was generally affable, though he did possess a sarcastic personality, which seemed to irritate those around him from time to time.
Biography[]
In August, 1973, Morgan and his friends, Kemper, Erin and Andy took a vacation to Mexico. The real purpose behind this journey was to purchase two pounds of marijuana which they made great use of on their drive back through the United States.
They got the drugs through customs by concealing it within a pinata. On their way back from Mexico, Morgan and the others were passing through El Paso when they picked up a hippie hitchhiker named Pepper.
The next leg of their journey involved driving too see the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert which they had front row seats. Unfortunately, for all of them, they never made it to the concert.
While driving through the town of Fuller in Travis County, Texas, they picked up a distraught young teenage girl whom they found stumbling down the road. The woman was suffering from exposure and dehydration and was rambling on about having escaped from the "bad man".
Morgan was extremely high at this point, and admitted that he was having trouble taking in the woman's strangeness. When the woman realized that they were driving back towards the direction of her captors, she grew insanely hysterical, produced a .357 revolver from under her dress and shot herself in the head.
The group pulled off to the side of the road to collect themselves and process what they had just seen. Morgan grew frantically paranoid, screaming, "Why the fuck did we have to stop?!"
During Morgan's exclamation, he announced about how they had been carrying two pounds worth of drugs with them. Erin was previously unaware of this and was quite upset with Kemper for having lied to her about why they had really gone to Mexico.
The group continued to drive along looking for a place where they could take the poor woman's body. They eventually found the Cele Community Center. They went inside to ask the proprietor for some help contacting the local sheriff.
Then, she made a telephone call and then told them that it would be another two hours before the sheriff could free up some time. Morgan was astonished and asked her how often girls blew their heads off in this "shithole" town.
The woman then advised them to drive the body over to the Old Crawford Mill where the sheriff would meet them. Left with no other options, they had no choice but to make the drive. When they got there, they found no sign of the sheriff.
Morgan posited the unpopular idea of just leaving the girl's body, reminding everyone that they had front row seats to see a big concert in their immediate future. Clearly, his priorities were different from the others.
As they explored the inner workings of the mill, they came upon a strange little boy named Jedidiah. Andy asked him if he knew anything about the sheriff and the boy told him that he was at home getting drunk.
Morgan seemed comfortably resigned declaring, "If the sheriff doesn't give a shit, then why should we?" Jedidiah then told Kemper and Erin how to get to the sheriff's house, and they walked along leaving Morgan and the others back at the mill.
While they were gone, Sheriff Hoyt (whose real name was Charlie Hewitt) arrived at the mill. Andy and Morgan explained the situation and showed him the body. The sheriff wrapped saran wrap around the girl's bloody head and then had Andy and Morgan help him load her into the trunk of his squad car.
The sheriff left and Erin returned shortly thereafter, but without Kemper. They began poking around some of the abandoned cars found on the lot.
Then, Morgan found a glass jar filled with liquid and a black and white photograph of a family inside. When Kemper failed to turn up, Erin and Andy went back out to search for him, leaving Morgan and Pepper with the van.
Erin returned at nightfall in a frantic state. She told them how a masked killer had attacked them and that Andy was still at the house. Sheriff Hoyt arrived and Erin tried to explain the situation, but he dismissed her.
He was more concerned about the marijuana joint he found on the dashboard of the van and forced them all out of the vehicle and onto the ground. Hewitt then dragged Morgan back into the van where he began psychologically torturing him.
He forced him to go through the motions of what the girl did when she committed suicide, even having him place his own revolver into his mouth. Terrified, Morgan turned the gun back on the sheriff, but it was unloaded.
Hoyt couldn't believe that the boy was stupid enough to think that he would hand him a loaded gun. He then arrested Morgan and began driving away with him. Sheriff Hoyt was drinking a bottle of liquor while driving back to his house.
He took the nearly empty bottle and smashed it against Morgan's face, busting out some teeth and causing severe lacerations.
He brought him back to the Hewitt residence, where Morgan discovered that the sheriff was part of a family of psychotic cannibal serial killers. He handcuffed him and left him down in the cellar of the house.
Erin found him as she was trying to escape from the chainsaw-wielding maniac, Thomas Hewitt. The two fled from him and ran deeper into the bowels of the property. Jedidiah showed up and offered to help them escape, leading them through an underground tunnel.
Thomas continued to chase after them and as he attacked Erin, Morgan did the one heroic thing he ever did in his life.
Morgan's death
He threw himself at the monster to protect Erin. Hewitt ran him through the back with his chainsaw killing him, but his sacrifice enabled Erin the chance to escape.
Notes & Trivia[]
- The character of Morgan (TCM) was created by director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott
- Morgan is the fifth character to die in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He is the third male character to die and the third victim of Thomas Hewitt.
- Morgan is one of only two characters featured in the film to be killed by a chainsaw. The other is Pepper.
- Chronologically, Morgan is the tenth and final on-screen victim of Thomas Hewitt in the remake series. He is the eleventh Hewitt victim if one counts his mother, Sloane, who died while giving birth to him. There is also an undetermined body count of victims which takes place in between the films as well
- Morgan is one of two characters featured in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to have a mustache. The other is Kemper. He is one of four characters in the reboot series to have mustaches in total. The other two are Winston Hoyt and Eric, both of whom were in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.