RIP, Tobe Hooper!

So, this is actually a reprint of the celebratory and somewhat angry rant upon the death of one of my personal all-time favourite horror film director, Tobe Hooper. As first published on Facebook last night (uncensored, warts and all...)

#RIPTobeHooper, the second of the horror film giants to have passed this summer and the third over the past two years... To me, his work was so underrated (post-1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre), from his satirical Chainsaw sequel to his Lovecraftian Invaders From Mars to his batshit-crazy vampire sci-fi epic Lifeforce. Someone once asked if you were to create a "Mount Rushmore" of horror directors, who would you pick? Tobe Hooper, for me, would have definitely been in there, sharing space with George Romero and Wes Craven. To me, Tobe Hooper always had a discernible cinematic style, a style that was just as in evidence in Poltergeist as Spielberg's second-unit work was, and I thought it was pretty shitty that some old Hollywood crew members were "coming forward" to purportedly declare that Hooper had not directed his film at all, which I choose to call bullshit on, and not just because there's a face-ripping scene mid film. Hooper's style and mis-en-scene are evident even in the family banter scenes and neighbourhood squabbles. The opening

to Hooper's Eaten Alive inspired one of the most memorable lines in Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1, and his Texas Chainsaw themes became go-to horror movie tropes for the next three decades. Hooper's horror cinema influence has been as widespread as it has been quiet over the past four decades, at times lost in his lesser films, while at other times these seemingly "lesser" films, like Night Terrors and the Toolbox Murders remake, were actually quite a bit better than some fans and critics would have us believe. Hooper's films always slanted towards the unusual, weird, and often the daring, and at times they were downright freaky; and if anyone thinks he lost his touch after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre then I would point them towards Poltergeist, Body Bags, That Damned Thing, Eaten Alive, and Salem's 'Lot.


Writer's Note: I would also like to mention Tobe Hooper's excellent 80s-90s made-for-cable-television films, I'm Dangerous Tonight and the incredible The Apartment Complex.