Tobe Hooper

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Willard Tobe Hooper (January 25, 1943 – August 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer best known for his horror film work.

Hooper was named one of the most influential horror filmmakers of all time by the British Film Institute in Austin, Texas, and he co-wrote with Kim Henkel.

The two co-authored The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), which Hooper also wrote.

The film went on to become a hit of the genre in 2010, according to The Guardian, it was dubbed "one of the most influential films ever made" in 2010. Eaten Alive (1977) was directed by Hooper, who then directed Salem's Lot, a 1979 miniseries based on Stephen King's book.

Following this, Hooper continued to direct The Funhouse (1981), a major studio slasher film distributed by Universal Pictures.

He oversaw the supernatural thriller Poltergeist, which was written and directed by Steven Spielberg in the following year. Hooper directed two science fiction horror films in the 1980s: Lifeforce (1985) and Invaders from Mars (1986), followed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), a big-budget sequel to his original film.

Hooper directed many horror and sci-fi films in the 1990s, including Spontaneous Combustion (1990), which he also co-wrote; and Body Bags (1995), another Stephen King story. Throughout the 2000s, Hooper produced several films, including the epic film Crocodile (2000), an episode of the sci-fi miniseries Taken (2002), and two episodes of Masters of Horror (2005–2006).

He died in 2017 at the age of 74, by natural causes.

Early life

Lois Belle (née Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo, were born in Austin, Texas, on January 25, 1943. The film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre discusses hicksploitation themes related to his childhood. At the age of nine, he first became interested in filmmaking. He went to college at the University of Texas, Austin.

Personal life

Hooper has been married three times. In 1961, Maev Margaret Noonan married his first wife. They divorced in the early 1970s, leaving one son, William Tony Hooper, who was born about 1966, who was born about 1966. Hooper wrote "I'm divorced" in the Fall 1979 issue of Cinefantastique magazine. I was married early and had been divorced about eight years." His son was 13 and lived with him in Los Angeles at the time of the interview.

In 1983, Hooper married Carin Berger (daughter of actor William Berger), but they divorced in 1990. Rita Marie Bartlett married him in 2008 but they divorced in 2010.

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Career

Hooper spent the 1960s as a college lecturer and documentary cameraman. Heisters, a 1965 short film, was eligible to be in the Academy Award's short subject area but was not finished in time for the competition that year. Eggshells (1969), his first feature film, was made for $40,000.

Hooper came to fame with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), a few years after. He mixed elements from a novel he wrote about loneliness and fear with graphic news coverage of violence, with his conviction that people were the true monsters being a central plot of the film. While forming a corporation called Vortex, Inc., Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley co-wrote a screenplay that featured elements based on Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley's murders. Jay Parsley and Richard Saenz produced the film together. Because of the film's low budget (roughly less than $140,000), it was shot seven days a week, with shooting times up to 16 hours a day, dealing with oppressively hot temperatures, high humidity, and limited special effects. With the rating, Hooper had to deal with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); he hoped that the film's limited amount of gore would make it a PG, but the original print was given an X rating. It was given an R rating after a string of downs. Despite giving it only two out of four actors and describing it as a "weird, off-the-wall triumph," the film was named as one of the best films of all time by film critic Roger Ebert. It was also a huge commercial success, grossing $30 million in the United States and Canada, while still being one of the 1970s' best grossing independent films.

Eaten Alive (1976), co-written by Henkel and writers Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam, was Hooper's next film. The film was inspired by serial killings, this time by murderer Joe Ball, who killed at least two people in the 1930s and whose convictions led to the creation of 'The Alligator Man' and 'The Butcher of Elmendorf', as with Massacre. The film was shot in California on sound-stages. Hooper arranged the song with Wayne Bell, but walked away before the shooting was completed.

Hooper's biggest investment yet was made with the television mini-series of Salem's Lot (1979), which was shot on a $4 million budget for CBS, but was also broadcast theatrically in certain countries. It was a screening of Massacre, which culminated in producer Richard Kobritz's appointment of Hooper as director. He shot the film from July to August 1979, although the film was not based on the source material (particularly with the violence and graphic scenes) in order to reach broadcasting standards. It's always scary,' according to him, and it always has the overtone of the grave. It affects you in a different way than my other horror films. It's more soft-shelled...it has ambiance that creates something you can't get out of, as well as all of the accoutrements that go with it, such as the graphics.' In a carnival fun-house, Hooper continued to make The Funhouse (1981) about teenagers who are stalked by a killer.

Hooper made Poltergeist, based on a Steven Spielberg tale from 1982. Hooper was chosen to direct based on his previous work by Spielberg, who co-wrote the script and co-produced the film. It was Hooper who collaborated with Spielberg to make it more of a ghost tale than the original science-fiction-based treatment had been intended as a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Cannon Films approached Hooper with the promise of a three-picture contract. He made Lifeforce (1985), Invaders from Mars (1986), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1987). Hooper also started working in television.

Spontaneous Combustion (1990); the television film I'm Dangerous Tonight (1990); and Night Terrors (1993). He produced a version of Body Bags, the made-for-television film (1993). The Mangler (1995), The Apartment Complex (1999), Crocodile (2000), Toolbox Murders (2004), and Mortuary (2005).

Hooper was invited to film "Masters of Horror" with Robert Englund in the first season and "The Damned Thing" in the second season.

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss talked to Hooper in the third episode of his BBC documentary series A History of Horror.

Midnight Movie, Hooper's first book, was published on Three Rivers Press in 2011.

At the 2013 Abu Dhabi Film Festival, his supernatural thriller film Djinn premiered.

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