Tobe Hooper

Pretty good horror guy.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) -- One of the few horror movies I like. This is a pretty weird and fucked-up movie, even by today's standards (or maybe especially when compared to today's standards), but in a fun way. All the bones and meat and animal sounds and gives the movie a nice "organic" feel. It's a movie where the production design is as scary as the characters (usually more scary). The wheelchaired character "Franklin" is a highlight, a pretty realistic guy who's more well-rounded than he even needed to be for a horror movie--not that he got any extra attention for that fact when he was unapologetically cut up in the woods. By the time the movie stops after Leatherface's crazy little temper tantrum/dance/hero shot, we're kind of thinking, "Wow, what was that?" I imagine this will be a movie I like even more if I watch it more. (Tobe Hooper also directed the sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.) B

Poltergeist (1982) -- The movie that might as well be Steven Spielberg's, not Tobe Hooper's. And a movie that I tend to watch every time it comes on. Some of the story falls apart (the great idea of ghosts wanting Carol Anne for her "light" giving way to the less interesting "burial ground" idea and a house getting sucked into nothing), but it almost doesn't matter. (See Brian Gibson for the sequel, Poltergeist 2: The Other Side.) A