'Salem's Lot director, Tobe Hooper

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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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...I cannot sum up in words what this loss is like for people of a certain(my)generation.....iconic goes without saying.....the clapperboard has fallen on finale, so rest ye well as your life's credits roll Tobe......:down:
hoopersleepwalk.jpg
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
Salem's Lot is one of my very favorite adaptations. Actually first Romero worked on it, but apparently the costs for rewrites went up so they sold it to television. The sheer mood is so full of terror and suspense.
Apart from that I really love Poltergeist. People say Spielberg directed it more than Hooper, but according to eye witnesses on the set it was more a case of 50/50.

I've never been a fan of Texas Chain Saw, but I appreciate it and can see the impact it must have had at the time.

The thing with a lot of his films is that they come across rather chaotic to me, especially Lifeforce, which was his most expensive. But i find it hard to tell if this chaos is by accident or orchestrated on purpose. After all, Texas Chainsaw, which was his breakthrough, also has a hysterical, chaotic feel to it, and there it works. In a lot of the later films, like The Funhouse, it feels a bit forced to me, like he really wanted to go back to the feel of Texas Chainsaw desperately.
Toolbox Murders was one of the better films of his later career I feel, starring Angela Bettis (where has she gone?). But a lot of his later films (Crocodile, Spontaneous Combustion, Mortuary, The Mangler) I don't really care for. Also, Eaten Alive I've never seen, nor Djinn and a couple of others like, Night Terrors, Destiny Express Redux.
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
I think that the reason I didn't become a major Texas Chainsaw fan, is that to me horror always needs to have a touch of the fantastic, of the imaginative, of the surreal, and this is very 'real horror', based on actual events (I don't think a chainsaw was involved though). I do like the weird atmosphere in the house, with all the chickens and strange objects, but not so much the running around with chainsaws. To a degree it still IS quite imaginative and suggestive of course, as it is not quite as blunt as the title would suggest.

I do love Rob Zombie's films though, which have a more or less similar feel. But I think he adds a lot of humour to it, and especially House of 1000 Corpses is rather surreal in the way it is filmed.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
I think that the reason I didn't become a major Texas Chainsaw fan, is that to me horror always needs to have a touch of the fantastic, of the imaginative, of the surreal, and this is very 'real horror', based on actual events (I don't think a chainsaw was involved though). I do like the weird atmosphere in the house, with all the chickens and strange objects, but not so much the running around with chainsaws. To a degree it still IS quite imaginative and suggestive of course, as it is not quite as blunt as the title would suggest.

I do love Rob Zombie's films though, which have a more or less similar feel. But I think he adds a lot of humour to it, and especially House of 1000 Corpses is rather surreal in the way it is filmed.
...TTCSM was loosely based on Ed Gein.....
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
Watched 'Eaten Alive', his third long film, and 'Djinn', his last from 2013. Funnily they both take place at a hotel, but the hotels couldn't be more different: one a completely rundown backwater place and the other a high-rise luxury hotel in Dubai.
'Eaten Alive' is sort of 'okay', it is a very simple film taking place for the largest part in the one hotel location. The hotelowner Judd (Neville Brand) is a typical demented character like in 'Texas Chainsaw'; he sort of felt like the evil brother of King's Jordy Verrill to me - not too smart. You want to see these two guys in a film together. The story revolves around guests falling prey to Brand and his pet crocodile, there isn't much more to it. Because it's nearly all set at the hotel and filmed in a simple manner, it feels like a filmed play almost. Also, the exterior of the hotelset feels like it was built on an indoor studio stage - perhaps after the experience of Texas Chainsaw, which was a gruelling shoot, Hooper didn't want to film on location again?

Djinn is very different. It has a very different feel from most horror, being set in Dubai and having Arab, rather than American or English stars. Also it is much more subtle than most of Hooper's films, both in a more fluid filmstyle and the mostly absent gore - this is the Hooper of Poltergeist, rather than of Texas Chainsaw.
I quite liked it, it is a little short and in the end the story is not that original, but it has an overall dream-like mood, because of the setting - a few people in a large modern hotel in the mist. I'd recommend it for fans of Hooper, to see a different side of him.

Both are on YouTube in rather good quality.