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August 28, 2017

Honoring Hooper – The Horror Community Pays Tribute to the Great Tobe Hooper

By Steve Barton
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On Saturday, August 26th, the world lost one of its greatest filmmakers, Tobe Hooper; and we’ve been reeling ever since. It has become customary for us to offer fans a place to be able to read through the thoughts of industry folks and friends upon the passing of a legend as we’ve done for both Wes Craven and more recently George A. Romero.

Instead of inundating you with them on the site, though, we’re keeping them here in one spot so you can either go page by page or just click to whoever’s thoughts you want to share in.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hooper. Your contributions will never be denied, and your legend will continue to live on.

Check back often as this page will be updated regularly.

Andrew Divoff

B. Harrison Smith

Bill Johnson

Caroline Williams

Christopher Landon

Dave Parker

Jace Anderson

Jared Rivet

Jen and Sylvia Soska

Joe Knetter

Lloyd Kaufman

Mick Garris

Mike Flanagan

Patrick Lussier

Sean Decker

Tom Holland

Tom McLoughlin


I think Rob Zombie said it best, “Art has no timeline or expiration date,” and it is true that with his masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe brought his artwork to a genre that most people believed was unworthy of artistic consideration. He is missed already and will not be forgotten.

– Andrew Divoff


Tobe Hooper died and the hashtag campaigns started up and the Internet lamented losing yet another great horror filmmaker to the force that drove their films: death. I never met Tobe Hooper and certainly never worked with him. I did have the pleasure of working with people who have worked for the legendary director. Gunnar Hansen incepted my latest film, Death House and now director and actor are reunited on that great desolate farm in the sky.

The Internet, being The Internet, had to resurrect the question of whether Hooper directed Poltergeist. For me, it doesn’t matter and Hooper’s numerous answers on the matter work for me. Rather, it is my opinion as a filmmaker, that Hooper worked best on low budgets, because he seemed to be most free to unleash real, visceral terror on his audiences. Tangible, palpable terror drove the engine of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. By today’s standards, the film is tame on blood and gore. You can spot the fake Texas Chain Saw fans who claim they’ve seen the film by describing how “gross, bloody, gory” the film was. As soon as I would hear that, I knew this person never saw the film. However, what does propel the film into the annals of horror history is Hooper’s deft use of a documentary style, gritty direction that connects with something primal in our brains and scares the living shit out of us.

I will argue Hooper did his best work on no money or very little of it. Aside from Poltergeist, I found Lifeforce and Invaders From Mars to be over-bloated and misfires because it seemed there were two Tobe Hoopers at work. One wanted to adhere to his own talent and style and the other was bound to deliver a product for studio executives. They had money but came up short on things the things that made a Tobe Hooper film. To be fair, this is all part of keeping the lights on and the bills paid. When studio work comes your way, you take it. He showed his own dark style again in the offbeat The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 that’s been recently reassessed. This would be the same of his 1977 alligator film, Eaten Alive which despite mostly negative reviews has also found a new appraisal decades later.

Hooper’s consistent legacy is his well-documented kindness to cast and crew on his sets. He forged long term relationships with his actors and by all accounts was a gentleman and professional on his film sets. Many recount his love for Dr. Pepper and talking classic film.

He gave America nightmares from Texas which has spawned a franchise all in its own as a Leatherface prequel readies for release. The did he, didn’t he debate over Poltergeist is not his legacy. His deft, brutal, raw cinematic style redefined terror at a time when America was reeling fin the aftermath of Manson and his “Family.

Gentleman, iconic filmmaker and a kind person. He has a headstone now, but not bad words to have on it. I hope fans raise a drink and toast to Hooper and Gunnar, out there somewhere, dancing the Leatherface Chainsaw dance together one more time in the sunset.

– B. Harrison Smith


***Tobe Hooper off camera side coaching Leatherface’s thought feelings during the “Ice Tub Betrothal Scene” in the radio station’s Break Room – TCM2***

This place is all shut up… all alone… hear your brother busy in the record vault way over there… but here… Now LOOK at HER! Real good… you’ve got her to yourself… lick your lips… get those eyes goin’ Yeahhh… that’s it!

Tobe Hooper captivated audiences in a way not heretofore experienced. Hooper, preeminent maestro in the art of creating edgy, dangerous, gruesomely fascinating and enduring cinema which set such an elusively high bar for the franchise with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2.

I’m grateful to have been a part of questing the path of the catawampus and sideways Tobe Sawyer world.

I thank Tobe for choosing me to join him and the Fam’ to make the journey!

Rest ye well, Tobe, in Chainsaw Heaven with Grandma and all the kinfolk before, your director’s chair awaits you with your freshly lit Cuban cigar and this Dr Pepper, Tobe, is for you!

– Bill Johnson, Leatherface, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2


One of my favorite memories of Tobe is when he was walking down a sidewalk towards the cafe where we were meeting for lunch. Not a tall man, and with his signature Dutch boy haircut, he was shuffling along, his head bobbing and weaving, his lips subtly moving in a conversation only he knew. His eyes dodged and darted around, seeing and registering images, photos, bits and pieces of ephemera to be used later, maybe? He looked like a little boy, lost in his imagination. My grandmother used to call such daydreaming “skylarkin’“.

Of course, once he sat down, he was sharp and observational. I read aloud a script I’d written and had pitched him on. For more than an hour, he had lunch, listened carefully, praised the work, gave notes, and had a good time. Because he never loved anything more than a good story. Because he knew, of course, better than almost anybody, how to tell one.

With love and affection,

– Caroline Williams

Photo Credit: Mike Manikowski


Watching the The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the first time had to be one of the most terrifying experiences of my youth. Every conceivable aspect of that movie aligned to maximum effect. I could taste the dust, smell the blood. I was there. I was shitting my pants. To this day, it’s one of the most brilliant horror films ever made — often imitated and never eclipsed. This has been an unbelievably tough time for horror fans… we have lost so many of our heroes. So I say turn off the lights tonight, make some popcorn, and watch a Tobe Hooper movie.

– Christopher Landon


Time is ironic, and you think that you will have an infinite amount of it, and that’s when things get harder. I was fortunate enough to get to meet Tobe Hooper several times. And because of that, I thought obviously we’d meet again. You get so caught up in the bullshit of your life that you forget that time is finite.

But it is.

You might not have told that person how much they actually meant to you. Sure, they probably would have played it cool and did the whole “aw shucks” routine, and the “I’m just a guy, like anyone else.” But deep down, you know that they aren’t.

They have done something, at least cinematically, that few have. They created something that made such an impact that the ripple is still spreading to this day.

A close friend asked me recently who I thought made the bigger impact on cinema, particularly horror cinema – George A. Romero or Tobe Hooper?

I didn’t answer right away. I sat and thought. Because for me, and I suspect a good number of you, that one definitive, clear cut, fucking end all to be all answer is… impossible.

Both these men changed cinema in totally different, but unique ways. On the surface: One created a new threat (ourselves) that would devour any living without prejudice. The other gave birth to the stylized masked killer.

There is so much more that these two filmmakers had in common with their debuts, and yet inevitable cinematic albatrosses, that one would be surprised that they weren’t related.

George A. Romero may have drawn the line in the sand, but Tobe Hooper blasted that line away.

But Texas Chain Saw Massacre didn’t seem as far removed as the black and white terrors of Night. Perhaps one generation removed. Its gritty and grainy color 16mm film stock brought the terror much closer to home. It felt immediate. It felt real. It felt dangerous.

With that film, Tobe Hooper earned not just his horror cred, but also the enduring admiration of countless fans and filmmakers. Hell, many of us try to capture that same kind of intensity in our own work, but I’ve yet to see anyone come close to the mad and macabre that he did with that film.

Tobe was an outlaw, maneuvering his way through the studio system, sliding in his subversive views behind their backs, until, as would plague many a director, box office and returns started to dwindle.

I don’t think that it’s Tobe Hooper who changed, I think it was the system that did. Creating more and more pressure for that opening weekend, as opposed to thinking about something that would last. That would resonate.

I know that when I met Tobe Hooper, and it was only a few times, that he was filled with as much enthusiasm as any person getting to make their first movie. He loved movies. He knew movies. And he believed in their power. I could tell that, with just the few interactions I was lucky enough to have with him. I wasn’t his friend, I cannot claim to be, but what I felt each time meeting him was pure and genuine.

While it seems that, like with Romero’s Night, Tobe will always be connected to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre like a Siamese twin, it does warm my heart to see that like with Romero, people finally caught up and praised his other fine works: Salem’s Lot, The Funhouse, Lifeforce, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, hell there are even fans of The Mangler – you gotta give props to a director to have the balls to do a movie about an evil laundry machine!

Tobe Hooper took chances, and gave chances, devil be damned. He also created opportunities for people whether he realized it or not. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre spawned everything from rip offs, to sequels, to remakes, and sequels to remakes. It’s spawned action figures, video games and comic books.

Ripples.

In some ways those ripples affected me directly. In the years since I’ve been at this movie game I’ve met, worked and became friends with many people who have been directly and indirectly involved in the ripples of what Tobe started.

So thank you Tobe Hooper. Thank you for your vision, your risks, your sharp wit, your encouragement, and your kindness to me, and the multitude of people that your work has inspired in one way or another.

The Saw truly is family. It always will be.

– Dave Parker


How can I begin to memorialize Tobe Hooper? He gave Adam and I our start in the business when he hired us to make some tweaks to Crocodile, which the talented Michael Weiss had written. From that beginning we were thrown into the breakneck pace that was moviemaking with Nu-Image in the early 2000s.

We would go on to do two more movies with Tobe, Toolbox Murders and Mortuary. He was generous, loved a good story, and had a habit of muttering Tobe-isms that I will always cherish. (“Um, err, just, uh, play the irony… you know what I mean,” he would instruct actors, who generally did not have any idea what he was talking about.)

He loved playing tricks on actors to get a good performance out of them: I saw more than one actor scream in true fear on set. No one could do a jump scare like he could — and when you jumped, Tobe would chuckle with delight.

We miss you, Tobe.

– Jace Anderson


Tobe Hooper has been a hero of mine for as long as I can remember. Unlike other horror filmmakers, Tobe’s movies really, truly, scared me. I told him at one point that Ralphie Glick scratching at the window in Salem’s Lot legitimately traumatized me when it aired on primetime television in November of 1979. He chuckled and said “Sorry, dude.

But I went on to tell him no, he shouldn’t be sorry: if he hadn’t scared the living shit out of me at the age of 8, we might not be talking at that moment, trying to figure out ways to scare the shit out of other people.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was the first horror movie that kind of “broke” me. I was probably 10 years old, watching it on home video. It was during the scene with Sally tied to the “arm” chair at the dinner table. You know the scene, the one where the camera keeps cutting closer and closer to her eyeball while she screams and screams and screams some more. It was legitimately too much for me and I was amazed I made it through the rest of the movie.

I also told him about the Saturday afternoon matinee showing of Poltergeist my father took me to when I was 10 at Cinema 140 in New Bedford, Massachusetts in June of 1982. When the clown doll popped up behind Robbie, I literally jumped out of my seat and into my father’s lap. No exaggeration. Poltergeist gave me legit nightmares for weeks.

Somewhere after that, I discovered Fangoria magazine and became a fan of all of the masters of horror: Carpenter, Romero, Craven, Hooper, Argento, Savini. And I remember being in the prime fan-boy/horror nerd age by the time 1986 rolled around, specifically the summer of ’86 when Tobe Hooper had not one but two movies coming out, Invaders From Mars in June and Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 in August. I remember gobbling up all of the coverage, trying to figure out how the hell someone could direct two movies coming out within two months of one another (it turned out Invaders had been made under relatively normal production/post-production circumstances while TCM 2 was a nightmare rush-job of unthinkable proportions) and becoming absolutely enamored with this sick, twisted mind who seemed to have a habit of making movies I had to see.

Once I moved to L.A. in my 20’s, I met Tobe Hooper a couple of times before we decided to work together on a handful of unrealized projects in 2007. Initially, I met him at Dave’s Video in Studio City while I was working there in the mid-90’s. He was always quiet and friendly, welcoming and humble, an instant father figure. He came into Dave’s quite a bit (Dave’s Video was a laser disc store of which much has been written) and I would bug him once in a while to “go fan boy” on him. He was always gracious.

The next time I met him was on the set of The Toolbox Murders remake at the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (circa 2003 or ’04). I was there to do a set visit for the horror website “Creature-Corner.com.” This had all been set up by Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson, the writers of Toolbox. They showed me around, introduced me to Tobe and Angela Bettis, Juliet Landau, Brent Roam, the whole cast. My write up was well received and the production gave me an open invitation to come back anytime I wanted.

When I did return, Tobe had set up a director’s chair right next to his. He let me sit with him while he directed one of the final confrontation scenes in the basement. I was on cloud nine. It was amazing to watch him work, to see him making decisions and answering questions. It was an incredible day that I will never forget. (I specifically remember him telling lead Brent Roam to make sure when he was striking at the killer with a screwdriver as a weapon, that he hit the wall with it a certain way, a detail he needed to establish that the screwdriver was real and sharp so that when it was then used to pierce someone’s flesh, the audience would feel it.) I can never thank Adam and Jace enough for those unforgettable days (they are two of the nicest, most generous people in the L.A. horror crowd).

Cut to mid-2007: I was shopping around a spec script called Sacrilege, a horror screenplay heavily influenced by Tobe’s work (along with a stew of influences from a lot of other folks) when I found out that my then-manager had recently signed Tobe Hooper as a client. I let my manager know in no uncertain terms: I wanted to work with Tobe and to please give him Sacrilege because he would be the perfect person to direct it.

A week later, my manager called to tell me that Tobe had read and loved Sacrilege and that he wanted to meet with me. “Does he want to direct it?” I asked eagerly. “He wants to meet you and see if you guys click, he’s got notes on the script.” We set a date and we were going to meet in the conference room at my manager’s offices.

The offices were in the heart of Hollywood and parking was a bitch. I had to park two blocks away and was running late. I was hurrying along the sidewalk when I saw a black Humvee blocking traffic on the (busy) street ahead of me. The driver of the Hummer was trying to parallel park and being honked at by annoyed drivers waiting to get by.

As I got closer, I saw that it was Tobe behind the wheel. He saw me, recognized me, and our first interaction that day was him leaning out the driver’s side window of his Humvee shouting “Hey, Jared, will you help me park this goddamn thing??

I did my best with hand signals and emphatic gestures to get him successfully parallel parked and we got along great from there. He really did want to direct Sacrilege and he did his damnedest to get it made (and it almost happened – twice) but that version of the movie wasn’t meant to be. The interesting side effect ended up being that we wound up working on a handful of other projects together over the next two years (none of them realized), including another high-profile but never made feature, a remake of the Bela Lugosi classic, White Zombie.

In the case of White Zombie, we worked together on the script from scratch. I did all of the writing but we would go over every word, every line, every period and comma together. We would talk on the phone every day, I would fax him new pages (he wasn’t a fan of email), and I would get him to tell me stories about his days filming Texas Chainsaw 1&2, Eaten Alive, Poltergeist, The Funhouse, and even a disturbing anecdote about the vampire contact lenses used for Salem’s Lot (the lenses were hard and painful, actor’s eyes were injured). He even told me that he believed that the caskets in 2005’s Mortuary were used. “They had these strips of human jerky stuck to the insides, Jared. I don’t know where they got ‘em but these were definitely recycled coffins.

Anyway, White Zombie came extremely close to getting made in 2009. The fact that it didn’t is one of the great disappointments of my life, professional or otherwise. We talked about doing other projects but Tobe eventually moved on. I ran into him here and there, we would catch up, he would usually optimistically bring up the possibility of getting White Zombie going again. But we fell out of touch over the last few years, all the more regrettable in that we both live in Sherman Oaks and I could have easily just walked over to his house to check in on him and say hi. I wish I had.

Ironically enough, I was talking to someone at a production company just this month about the very real possibility of trying to get White Zombie back on its feet with Tobe directing. Those discussions were definitely real and ongoing and escalating… until Sunday. And Sacrilege eventually did get made into a feature, albeit directed by Kevin Greutert and with a title change. It’s now called Jackals and I am heartbroken that he will never get to see it.

First he was my hero, then he was my mentor, and then he was my friend. But the one thing I’m glad he will always be, for everyone, is a legend.

– Jared Rivet


Our very first horror film was Poltergeist. Mr Hooper’s work started what would be a life long love affair with the genre. His work was so out of the box yet it became the classic staples of horror.

I remember our mom telling us that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was so scary that people were afraid to go into the theatres when it came out. Just the suggestion of that imagery in TCM chilled people to the bone.

Chainsaws are forever terrifying because of this master. His films were a part of so many people’s childhoods and growing up – it’s incredibly sad to think we won’t be hearing anymore stories from him, but he’s an icon that will always be dear to the fan’s hearts.

Bless him for all the nightmares!

– Jen and Sylvia Soska


When I was 10 years old I cut out pictures from Fangoria magazine and hung them on my wall. I was especially excited for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 and reread the articles numerous times. I absolutely loved the first one so I knew the sequel would be great. The first time I saw the trailer on TV I for goosebumps… then came the end. No one under 17 admitted. I was heartbroken. I assumed that I’d have to wait 7 years to see it.

Then one day it was there in the video store. My Uncle Mike rented it and I basked in its glory. To this day TCM2 is my favorite movie of all time. The ingredients all work for me. The gore, the humor, the scares, the perversion, all perfect. With that being said, the original TCM is still what I consider the greatest horror film of all time. My favorite vampire movie is Salem’s Lot. My favorite paranormal movie is Poltergeist. What do these all have in common? Tobe Hooper.

He was an absolute genius and has provided me so much entertainment and escape when I needed it.

My daughter is in town visiting me. Saturday night I let her pick out the movie we watched. She chose TCM2. I am very happy that Tobe’s films stand the test of time and will be a part of my family’s entertainment forever. I’ve been lucky enough to have built friendships with people based on those movies.

About a half an hour after the movie ended I heard Tobe Hopper passed away. He left an undeniable mark on film and on me. I am thankful for what he shared with us. We are lucky to have had him in this world.

– Joe Knetter


RIP DIRECTOR OF CHAIN SAWS! Rest in PIECES!

I believe Tobe Hooper would have enjoyed the abovementioned jeu de mot!

What a nice man and what a great body of work! I remember loving Night Terrors so much, so many years ago! The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is really a magnificent looking movie! Beautiful, elegant mise en scene for terrific unforgettable plot and action!! He was a REEL “Master of Horror!“… and affectionate as per pic below!

– Lloyd Kaufman


Tobe Hooper was that combination we find more than you’d expect in the horror genre: an artist with a ferocious vision and a tender heart. He changed the course of horror cinema, and every time he’d step up to bat, he was like a brand-new 25-year-old newbie: champing at the bit to start something fresh, embracing the new, constantly in a state of exciting creative evolution.

Tobe was one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous guys you could hope to meet. He was a very dear friend, and I will always embrace the personal and professional times we spent together. His loss aches deeply.

– Mick Garris


Tobe was a pioneer of independent cinema, and forever changed the genre. Beyond the impact he achieved with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, he was a master of the horror genre who consistently told stories in his own indelible, unique voice.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw TCM, and the visceral reaction it evoked. Or the strange, erotic insanity that was Lifeforce. But surely the one that left the biggest mark on me was his treatment of Salem’s Lot. The image of Ralphie Glick, vampirized, floating gracefully outside of his brother Danny’s bedroom window seared itself into my young mind and has never left me.

Tobe was a filmmaker who took risks, shattered conventions, and did so while remaining true to a vision and style that were truly his own. And he did all of this while being one of the kindest, gentlest people in the business. He was (and will always remain) an inspiration for filmmakers everywhere.

– Mike Flanagan


I met Tobe Hooper briefly at Wes Craven’s memorial service held at the DGA back in 2015. We didn’t get a chance to say much, but I told him that I loved Lifeforce, which I saw twice on opening weekend in 70 mm, THX (the shell casing sound effect after Caine shoots Fallada has long been a sonic detail I’ve tried to replicate in several films since).

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains a game-changing horror film of the 70’s. The helpless terror it induced in audiences then and today hits with visceral force because Hooper captured not just fear but a feeling of inescapable social doom that sadly has come around again all too vividly. His work in Poltergeist, alongside Spielberg, remains a benchmark of suburban horror.

But Lifeforce will always be my favorite Tobe Hooper film. It has EVERYTHING. Vampires who are aliens, astronauts who are possessed, Patrick Stewart, and a drive through zombie-infested London that holds its own against any zombie film ever made. Hooper mastered “fuck-me-shit” escalation in Lifeforce, all set to a glorious Henry Mancini score. It’s one of my annual Halloween films but this year I’ll watch it early.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hooper. Your legacy returns to that spaceship in Halley’s Comet and will live on forever.

– Patrick Lussier


In 2008, during the heyday of Universal Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights and as a writer then for the now defunct Fangoria, I spent my first significant amount of time with Mr. Hooper at the Eyegore Awards, HHN’s now abandoned award show (a celebration of Universal’s horror lineage). Tobe was on hand to present an Eyegore Award that night to Eli Roth, if memory serves, in addition to having licensed that year his classic film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the creation of a park maze of the same name. Following the former, as we collectively indulged in the event’s open bar and catered food, my dear friend Dan Madigan, screenwriter of See No Evil, lucha libre historian and long-time friend of Tobe’s, introduced us.

While I don’t recall the initial conversation, what immediately struck me about the man was his handshake. It was solid, and he looked me in the eye while doing it. He was refreshingly present, and very “non-Hollywood.” Perhaps not a surprise given his Austin, Texas upbringing. A few pleasantries later, and Tobe invited us to accompany him in a studio van down to the backlot, in order to experience the Chain Saw maze. So off we went, and arriving to the attraction, which was already in operation, our Universal handler halted the line of hundreds eager to enter, so that our entourage could do so.

With Hooper playing our Pied Piper, for thirty minutes we explored the grisly maze, with Tobe gleefully taking out time to offer acting advice to the scare actors Universal had hired to play the iconic characters he’d created some thirty-four years prior. In hindsight, I’m not sure who this moment was more surreal for: the horror-obsessed thespians who were receiving a surprise visit from the maze’s patriarch, for me in touring a maze with the same, or for Tobe himself, who for a half hour was able to play in a three dimensional environment extrapolated from the fever dream he’d created on celluloid.

Finishing the maze, we poured out of the exit, eager to explore the rest of the park, although Tobe had other ideas. As we loaded into the van I looked out to see that he hadn’t joined us, and had instead moved to the head of the halted line, where for the next twenty minutes he shook hands, signed autographs and mingled with fans.

Because after all, The Saw is Family, and while the late Wes Craven once fondly mused of Hooper’s film, “What kind of Mansonite crazoid could have created such a thing?”; Tobe had indeed also created a family, as evidenced by the adoration not only showered upon him that evening, but over the course of the majority of his filmic career.

You will be missed, Mr. Hooper. Thank you for the nightmares.

– Sean Decker


Nobody thought or saw like he did and it came out in his films. He was also funny and sweet, a mass of contradictions. He thought the scarier it was, the funnier it was. He was also Texas hill country to the core to me and never lost that.

– Tom Holland


In 1974 I was a film student at Sherwood Oaks Experimental College. Thanks to the mad visionary Gary Shussett there was finally a school where we could learn from the masters and those just beginning their careers.

Dan O’ Bannon fresh out of USC had made a film with fellow student John Carpenter called Dark Star. Dan was my 16mm editing teacher at Sherwood Oaks. Our first assignment…go see this low budget horror that’s opening this Friday. Dan said its “fucking brilliant.” So we all went to see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

It WAS fucking brilliant!!

Not a slick fear flick but realistic, almost documentary, in its vision. Tobe Hopper was now officially the guy!

I saw everything he did after that. Loved it all from Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself to The Funhouse to Salem’s Lot. Such a cool director.

And I heard all the wild stories about him thus had no idea what it would be like to meet him. Thanks to Mick Garris and his MASTERS OF HORROR dinners I finally got to meet the legendary Mr. Hopper. “Tobe,” he said warmly shaking my hand. When I introduced myself he turned on that infectious warm smile and began treating me like I was the celebrity.

He did that to all of us fellow directors. Tobe was always humble and genuinely gracious about any compliment about his work. His heart was bigger than the great state he came from. I will always love him for the warmth he shared. And I will miss his laugh and the goodbye hugs on the sidewalk after the dinners.

Tobe would always say, “See ya next time, Tom” in his soft gravelly Texas accent.

Today, I so wish I would have hugged him longer that last time. Never imagining it was the final one I’d ever get. That is…

Until next time, Tobe.”

– Tom McLoughlin 8-27-17

Tags: Eaten Alive Featured Post Lifeforce Poltergeist The Funhouse The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Tobe Hooper