tobe hooper [1943 - 2017]

WTF universe!  you take george a. romero, then sam shepard, now tobe hooper?!  fuck you, universe.

yes, i know death is part of life.  but as donne said, a death leaves a luminous absence.  and hooper's art was luminous.

i don't recall when i watched the texas chain saw massacre [1974] for the first time.  i know it wasn't in a theater.  it must've been on VHS during the mom&pop video store days. 

i saw poltergeist [1982] at the sac six drive-in theater when i was an impressionable 15 years old.  i don't know if that was before or after i watched TTCM on tape.  but that latter movie's reputation sure as shit reached mythic proportions by then.  remembered as one of the goriest movies ever made the film is surprising subtle with very little visceral bloodletting in it.

such is hooper's genius as a filmmaker.  he set a tone, created a scene, an atmosphere, that was prickly and visceral that when you watched TTCM you wonder if hooper made a documentary rather than a fiction.

still, hooper must be remembered as a filmmaker par excellence.  another little mentioned, but excellent movie, is lifeforce [1985], a flick about space vampires that is neither goofy or cheesy. 

tobe hooper is an iconic filmmaker who looms large in my own pantheon of those artists who work with lightning.  watch his films again.  may they give you the creeps, and help you to think.