Tobe Hooper established his bona fides, and his place in film history, with his 1974 film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That film is such an icon of the genre that sequels and remakes are sometimes produced concurrently. People just can’t seem to get enough Leatherface. But, Hooper did find time to take part in other projects. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Eaten Alive (1976), or, Avant-Garde Horror à la Texas”
Some of Those Responsible: Tobe Hooper
October Horrorshow: Lifeforce
Sometimes a movie tries to be an epic, but has a hard time shaking off its b-movie stink. Such is the case with Lifeforce, the 1985 sci-fi/horror film from director Tobe Hooper and writers Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby. The film opens with a bombastic score composed by Henry Mancini, in quite a departure from the type of music cinema buffs would associate with him. The camera flies over an endless asteroid that looks plucked from the long, dichromatic shots that Stanley Kubrick filmed for 2001. What follows is a quick introductory voiceover that takes care of all the backstory and character development. Viewers are told of the mission of the HMS Churchill, a joint American/British space shuttle mission tasked with exploring Halley’s Comet upon its dodranscentennial approach to the earth.
The shuttle, commanded by Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), approaches the comet and its radar detects an alien spacecraft shrouded in the comet’s coma. Carlsen leads a team aboard and discovers that the deceased crew of the derelict ship are man-sized creatures that resemble bats. Further in the ship, the team discovers three naked human figures in suspended animation. In a decision that sets the plot in motion, Carlsen has the three figures, one woman and two men, brought aboard the Churchill. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Lifeforce”
October Horrorshow: Poltergeist
So, who really directed Poltergeist? Part of the Hollywood mythos the last few decades treats this as an open question. Was it Tobe Hooper, the man at the top of the credits? Or was it producer Steven Spielberg? It was such a serious concern among the Directors Guild that they launched an investigation into whether or not Spielberg had tried to snatch credit away from Hooper. Honestly, no one involved is saying definitively one way or the other, but Hooper is a competent storyteller with fine directorial vision, and I can’t see him having a film taken away from him. That being said, it’s also hard to picture Spielberg letting a director that was not him have total creative control over a flick he was very much involved in as producer. So did Spielberg direct Poltergeist? Who knows, and who cares? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Poltergeist”