At a glance
| Born | January 25, 1943, Austin, Texas |
| Died | August 26, 2017, Sherman Oaks, California |
| Known for | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Poltergeist, Salem’s Lot |
| Role | Director, screenwriter |
Overview
Tobe Hooper directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the film that made a family of cannibals in rural Texas feel like a documentary. It cost well under $150,000, played like news footage, and was banned or cut in several countries. He never made another film with that kind of cultural weight, which is the unfair summary of a career that also includes Salem’s Lot (1979), The Funhouse (1981), and Poltergeist (1982).
Poltergeist is the argument that follows him. He is the credited director. Steven Spielberg wrote and produced it, and crew members have spent forty years disagreeing about who staged the shots. Hooper’s later films — Lifeforce, Invaders from Mars, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 — are stranger and less seen. He died in 2017.
Career
Hooper started in Austin with Eggshells (1969), a hippie picture almost nobody has seen. Chain Saw was the next feature, written with Kim Henkel and shot in a farmhouse in a heat wave. The dinner table scene took more than a day. Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, has said the stink of rotting meat and the hours under lights were not effects. The film’s reputation as a gore picture is odd on a rewatch: most of the violence is suggested. The saw is the image. The blood is not the point.
Salem’s Lot, a CBS miniseries from Stephen King’s novel, is the other film people still watch. The boy at the window is Hooper’s staging, and it is as remembered as anything in Chain Saw. The Funhouse is a carnival slasher he made for Universal. Poltergeist followed, a family ghost story with a suburban street and a clown doll. Spielberg’s contract kept him from directing another film while E.T. was in production, which is the legal fact under the authorship fight. Hooper defended the credit for the rest of his life. Several actors backed him. Several crew members backed Spielberg.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) is a comedy on purpose, with Dennis Hopper and a bigger budget. It confused people who wanted the first film again. Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars, both 1980s Cannon productions, are expensive and uneven. Later work includes Spontaneous Combustion, Night Terrors, and a Toolbox Murders remake in 2004. The original Chain Saw remains the film the rest of the career is measured against.
Notable credits
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) — director, co-writer
- Salem’s Lot (1979) — director
- The Funhouse (1981) — director
- Poltergeist (1982) — credited director
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) — director
- Toolbox Murders (2004) — director
Trivia
- The title uses “Chain Saw” as two words. Later sequels usually make it one.
- Leatherface’s mask was a prop built over a cast. The family was loosely inspired by Ed Gein, the same case that fed Psycho.
- The film was marketed with a claim that it was based on a true story. The crimes are fiction. The atmosphere was the sales pitch.
- Hooper and Henkel get story credit on later Chainsaw films because the rights deal required it.
- He died of natural causes in 2017. Reports of respiratory failure circulated; the family did not dwell on a single cause.
- Poltergeist’s director credit was investigated by the DGA at the time and left with Hooper.