Tobe Hooper (born January 25, 1943) is an American television and film director best known for his work in the horror film genre. His movies include Lifeforce, Poltergeist, Toolbox Murders and the watershed exploitation classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

Biography

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Tobe Hooper (b. Austin, Texas) spent the 1960s as a college professor and documentary cameraman. In 1974, he organized a small cast that was made up of college teachers and students, and then he and Kim Henkel made the would-be classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). This film changed the horror film industry, becoming one of the most successful of the genre. Hooper's success with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" landed him in Hollywood and it remains a horror-film classic. Hooper rejoined the cast of "TCM" and with Kim Henkle again for Eaten Alive (1977), a gory horror film with Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, William Finley, and Marilyn Burns (who played the lead and sole suvivour in TCM). From there onwards Hooper's films where mostly box office flops and where panned by critics. In 1982, Hooper found greater success when Steven Spielberg hired him to direct his production of Poltergeist (1982) for MGM. It quickly became a top-ranking major motion picture. Hooper was asked to write a script for Michael Bay's remake of Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was released in 2003, and became a huge box office success.

Trivia

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• Tobe, a native of Austin, Texas, first used his father's 8 mm camera at age 9.

• Father of William Hooper.

• Hooper wanted a PG-13 rating for TCM (Texas Chain Saw Massacre).

• Hooper claims to have got the idea for the Texas Chain Saw Massacre while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.

• Of the modern masters of the horror genre, Tobe is the only one to have directed the characters of both Leatherface (in Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and Freddy Krueger (on an episode of Freddy's Nightmares).

Filmography

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• Eggshells (1969)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• Eaten Alive (1977)
• Salem's Lot (1979)
• The Funhouse (1981)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• Lifeforce (1985)
• Invaders from Mars (1986)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
• Freddy's Nightmares episode No More Mr. Nice Guy (Freddy's Nightmares episode) (1988)
• Spontaneous Combustion (1990)
• I'm Dangerous Tonight (1990)
• The Nightmare Begins Again (1991)
• Night Terrors (1993)
• The Mangler (1995)
• The Apartment Complex (1999)
• Toolbox Murders (2005)
• Dance of the Dead (Masters of Horror episode) (2005)
• Mortuary (2006)
• The Damned Thing (Masters of Horror episode) (2006)

External links

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• Official Website
• IMDb Entry

American film directors | 1943 births | Living people | People from Austin, Texas | People from Texas | English-language film directors

Tobe Hooper | Tobe Hooper | Tobe Hooper | トビー・フーパー | Tobe Hooper | Tobe Hooper