Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 made some pretty loony strides away from the basic formula by giving Leatherface and his family a secret underground base of operations in an abandoned amusement park. But that's as nothing to the storyline that's just been revealed for Lionsgate's in-the-works Leatherface 3D.

According to BD's sources, the plot follows lead character Heather, who travels with a group of friends to Texas to collect an inheritance. The twist: that bequest involves taking custody of ol' cousin Leatherface himself. 

All kinds of scenarios spring to mind from that brief synopsis. We find ourselves imagining, for example, a kind of Leatherface Dundee fish-out-of-water story, in which the lumbering psychopath brings his uncultured Texas ways to a new and bewildering environment, with heart-warming and hilarious consequences. And eviscerating ones, obviously.

We're also put in mind of the story of hapless old-west bandit Elmer McCurdy, who after he died was passed from pillar to post for decades as a sideshow exhibit. Leatherface of course, will not be dead, but we're sure he'll leave a few corpses in his wake.

And we're reminded of a comic strip in Viz about a couple that won a 17th-century puritan in a raffle.

What we'll get will no doubt involve all the aforementioned friends being messily dispatched until a final girl is left to fight him off, but whether the tone will approach Hooper's cartoon satire or even the R Lee Ermey-driven black humour of the recent couple of Chainsaws remains to be seen.

As previously reported, Takers director Mark Luessenhop is at the helm of Leatherface 3D (UPDATE: which may actually be called Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D if this dull sales poster is anything to go by), with Kirsten Elms taking the most recent stab at the screenplay. Marc Burg is producing, for a 2012 release.