Via Taki’s Magazine, Joe Bob Briggs looks back on Tobe Hooper and the making of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I enjoyed this article on several levels: Film history, biographical, human interest, horror movies, and just plain good writing. Brigg’s calls Hooper “the last of the hippie filmmakers.” Here’s a brief quote from the article:
(Hooper’s) masterpiece, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, was condemned as pornography by both coasts even as inferior horror films out of Andy Warhol’s Factory and Warner Brothers’ backlot were being praised as works of genius. Hooper then spent the rest of his life knocking on various Hollywood doors that would occasionally be cracked open just wide enough to give him one job at a time, often by C-level producers who turned up their noses at his pedigree and then micromanaged his work until it was all but destroyed. His one big break, Poltergeist, was plagued by the persistent fake news that Steven Spielberg ghost-directed it. This libel followed Hooper throughout his career and was even appended to many of his obituaries. First of all, let’s state the obvious. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the most successful independent films in history.
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