Though he has worked in the horror and dark fantasy genres for more than two decades, producer-writer-director Tobe Hooper's significant contributions can all be traced to just two films: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974) and "Poltergeist" (1982). Though produced under very different circumstances -- the former was an ultra-low-budget exploitation potboiler while the latter was a major studio spectacular -- both films were major commercial successes that reflected the zeitgeist of their day. Surprisingly, neither had quite the salutary effect on Hooper's career as one might have expected. The filmmaker's current viability, such as it is, has resulted from a canny shift to creating, producing and directing genre projects for the small screen. A popular artist who once helped set trends in entertainment evolved over time into a smooth craftsman striving to ride the wave of his genre's acceptance into the mainstream.
The Austin, Texas native was first bitten by the film bug at age nine upon discovering his father's 8mm camera. By the time he entered his teens, Hooper had completed "The Abyss" (1959), his first short with sound. A number of shorts followed. Hooper's hobby became a job as he broke into professional filmmaking helming commercials and industrial films. In 1968, he gained further exposure directing a PBS documentary on the folk trio "Peter, Paul and Mary." The legacy of coming of age in the 1960s was also conveyed by Hooper's feature bow as producer, director and screenwriter, "Eggshells" (subtitled "An American Freak Odyssey"). This artsy take on the decline of the Peace Movement garnered a prize at the Atlanta Film Festival but failed to snare a distributor. Hooper turned up before the camera as a supporting player in "The Windsplitter" (1971), another period piece in the "Easy Rider" vein. His breakthrough came with a project whose title belied any interest in peace and love -- "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
One of the key works in '70s horror cinema, this film was a grueling exercise in nightmarish terror. A group of hapless and notably unpleasant teens run astray of a degenerate family of unemployed slaughterhouse workers with a taste for tourists. Despite its notoriously evocative title, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" served its thrills with very little blood but lots of cinematic panache. Even those who dismissed it as sadistic exploitation had to concede its craft. The washed out colors contributed to its raw documentary feel while the overactive camera became an active participant in the mayhem. Generally noted for its emotional intensity and unsettling nihilism, this grisly work of art has garnered praise from Marxist-oriented critics for its jet black satire of class and familial relations. Produced on location in Texas for an exceedingly modest $155,000, the film reportedly grossed as much as $50 million. Due to the vagaries of distribution practices, Hooper received only a fraction of his contractual share of the profits. Nonetheless, he had made a name for himself.
Hooper next entered a period of creative frustration. He completed "Eaten Alive (aka "Death Trap/Legend of the Bayou/Horror Hotel/Starlight Slaughter)" but the producers changed the shape of his conception by recutting the film. Poorly promoted and distributed, the finished film featured stalwart character player Neville Brand as a crazed swamp dweller with a hook hand who feeds tourists to his alligator. Brit culture mag TIME OUT wrote "At its best, the film's lurid tone matches the evocative gloom of the EC horror comics of the 50s, in particular the amazing swamp stories drawn by 'Ghastly' Graham Ingels. Otherwise, it's trite and unconvincing." Hooper was subsequently fired from his next two feature assignments "The Dark" (1979) and "Venom" (1981). In between these twin disappointments, he enjoyed his most trouble-free Hollywood project: a two-part, four-hour TV miniseries based on Stephen King's modern day vampire tale "Salem's Lot" (CBS, 1979). Many fans of the horror novelist still number this among the best King adaptations. The miniseries was re-edited and released theatrically in Europe.
"The Funhouse" (1981), Hooper's stylish concession to the "slasher" movie craze which he helped initiate, also fell victim to studio interference. His fortunes seemed to change when hired by Steven Spielberg to helm a big-budget horror feature "Poltergeist." Set in a Spielbergian suburb, the film told the story of a yuppie family that manages to fight off the forces of darkness in a crowd-pleasing FX-laden spectacle typical of the top-grossing genre product of the early '80s. While "Poltergeist" brought the ghost story into the modern blockbuster era, it was unfortunately perceived and promoted as a Spielberg picture. Hooper came off seeming like less than a hired hand as reports of Spielberg's daily and active presence on the set emerged from Hollywood. The success of the film should have catapulted its ostensible director onto the A-list but it did not. Dissatisfied by the scripts he was getting, Hooper opted to helm a music video for Brit rocker Billy Idol ("Dancing With Myself").
Hooper entered into an ill-fated three picture deal with Cannon Pictures in 1984 which resulted in a series of flops. The first, the lavishly produced "Lifeforce" (1985), was a tongue-in-cheek evocation of Great Britain's Hammer horror series and the apocalyptic "Quatermass" films. Next up was a well-appointed remake of the 1953 sci-fi classic "Invaders From Mars" (1986). Reviewers deemed it pleasant if pointless and audiences steered clear. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, Hooper shepherded "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2" (1986) to the screen with disappointing results. Opting for easy gore and outright slapstick, the ill-conceived sequel did not help restore his flagging reputation. Hooper's next outing, "Spontaneous Combustion" (1989) barely made it into the multiplexes before finding its true home on a video store shelf. The Israeli-lensed "Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors" (completed in 1992), an erotic horror flick, failed to receive an American release before arriving in the UK as a 1994 video. Returning to Stephen King country for "The Mangler" (1995), Hooper suffered both critical and commercial neglect.
Fortunately TV had come to welcome dark fantasy in the wake of the success of "The X-Files." Hooper had helmed several telefilms, episodes and specials before signing an exclusive multi-year development deal with Walt Disney TV for his production company Amberson films. He helmed the pilot and another episode of the surreal and cultish UPN suspenser "Nowhere Man" and the pilot for NBC's period UFO drama "Dark Skies." Several other TV projects were in the pipeline as 1996 drew to a close. Hooper was no longer in the front ranks of his field but he remained a trooper.