Tobe Hooper Movies

Part verité, part freakout fantasy.

Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.

Just something that those with a morbid curiosity for the unusual in sleaze might not be able to pass on.

Replaced by John Cardos

Small-screen restrictions require the bloodletting be kept to a minimum, but director Tobe Hooper and scripter Paul Monash nevertheless manage to construct a first-rate chiller out of King's fertile source material.

No horror classic is this, but it has the right texture to stand above the chaff of a genre that's frequently just plain awful.

Smartly filmed, tightly scripted, and -- most importantly -- consistently frightening, Poltergeist is a modern horror classic.

Seen today, it's actually an astoundingly brave, weird movie that tries more and accomplishes more than many of today's bland roller coaster rides.

A hapless remake from the jokers who also gave the world Bolero, Firewalker and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Part 2 has a lot of blood and disembowelment, to be sure, but it doesn't have the terror of the original, the desire to be taken seriously. It's a geek show.

Pretty silly, but rather entertaining.

It's easy to see why Body Bags was something of a clone of Tales from the Crypt. But as a standalone film, Body Bags is Carpenter at his funniest, as director, composer and in his rare appearance as a lead actor.

Junkyards and common sense were made for stuff like this.

The director has failed to keep this shallow film above even the low water mark it set for itself.

Toolbox may not renew the splatter genre in any significant way, but the chills and kills prove Hooper, when armed with the right script, can still tighten the fright screws.

Nothing but the usual schlocky scares featured in low-rent zombie pics.