Our second greatest muse, Tobe Hooper, passed away on August 26, 2017. The cause of death is not currently known.
Hooper, of course, is the director of arguably one of the most terrifying movies ever made, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hooper explained what drove him to create the film.
“When I discovered that Ed Gein really did some of these things, that he actually used meat hooks and was a cannibal, it truly surprised me. My relatives that lived in a town close to Ed Gein told me these terrible stories, these tales of human skin lampshades and furniture. I grew up with that like a horror story you tell around a camp-fire. I didn’t even know about Ed Gein, I just knew about something that happened that was horrendous. But the image really stuck. I was thinking to create a house of ultimate horror. A house that said and smelled and tasted of death. I had to dress and redress that house many times to get the look I wanted. Like someone could just roll their sleeves up and dip their hands into death itself.”
I was fortunate enough to see the film in theaters during a re-release in 1980. Unfortunately for my aunt, she also got to see if as I was too young to get into an unrated movie by myself.
Looking back at the film now, I marvel that this terrifying movie abut chainsaws and cannibalism has very little blood in it. Hooper doesn’t rely on gore, but rather sets up the atmosphere with a set (The Family’s home) that puts you into a such a state that people come away from the film thinking it was much gorier than it actually is.
Hooper is also well know as the “official” director of Poltergeist. There has been controversy about that for decades, with the rumor being that Hooper had so many problems on set that Poltergeist producer Steven Spielberg actually directed the film. The rumors have been supplemented by on-set photos of Spielberg, as well as statements from people who worked on the film.
And for those wondering, our top muse is Hello Kitty. Don’t judge us.
Read Hooper’s obituary notice in Variety HERE.
— Post Written by Christopher Minori, 8/27/2017
