Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

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Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by Grindhouse »

Eggshells
wasnt my cup of tea but you can really see how he used it as an experimental piece,i love the beginning with the protest march and the music and i really got a feel of what it was like back then in 1969 a time of changes with the 70s on their way in.
but the rest didnt work for me i found the sound quite harsh and it was difficult to follow anything cohesive in the film.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
im not old enough to have seen it on its original 70s release but i was lucky enough to see it on its 99 re release on the big screen,and boy did it look good,sadly it was a bluray and not a print bit seeing it on the bigscreen again re-introduced to it and made me love it all over again on the big screen.

The Interview
i thought this could have been better,you have Tobe Hooper in front of you,and there was too much time wasted on lesser important questions,than the meat on the bones ones.
luckily audience members asked those about
Salems Lot & Poltergeist,i would have liked to know more about the picture deal he had with Cannon and the films that could have been and why those films flopped,as i think its the work with Cannon films that stunted his career and did more damage,resulting in major studios passing him over.
But he was interesting to listen to and it was a pleasure to meet him.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by splittter »

Gotta post and give Eggshells some love, 'cause I really enjoyed it (even though the sound was so high I took to sticking my fingers in my ears during the louder parts). It was clearly of its time, and the 'plot' about the weird thing in the basement was definitely the weakest part, but some of the little scenes were (imo) excellent. The one man sword fight was great, really inventive stuff, and I especially enjoyed the argument in the bath over the definition of communism ... thought the wedding was beautifully done too. I had tried to get a ticket for Burning Bright but missed out, and was very glad to have.

Don't need to add much about TCM, it's still a terrific film ... one thing that did strike me, though, was that seeing it in the cinema seemed to actually reduce the humourous elements for me. I've always though the scene with the old man and the hammer was as funny as it is disturbing, but, for whatever reason, this time through it was massively weighted toward the latter. Could be to do with never having heard the screaming quite so loudly before.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by halloweengirl »

Eggshells was very much of it's time (and unfortunately I can vaguely remember - I was only a small child!) but, bugger me, that soundtrack was LOUD! I did the fingers-in-the-ears too.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is what it is and I didn't watch it this time round having seen it on several million other occasions - I do have a soft spot for it though.

Tobe Hooper has to be the worst interviewee I've seen in some time. I thought the guy conducting the interview tried his best but with the monosyllabic responses there wasn't a lot to do other than move on. Can I have my future icons a bit more chatty please?
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by The Soapmaker »

halloweengirl wrote:Tobe Hooper has to be the worst interviewee I've seen in some time. I thought the guy conducting the interview tried his best but with the monosyllabic responses there wasn't a lot to do other than move on. Can I have my future icons a bit more chatty please?
It wasn't a great interview, I agree, but the interviewer has to take his share of the blame. Too many questions required "Yes/No" answers. And it never turned into a conversation - whenever Hooper started to go off on a bit of a tangent (like mentioning the influence of Fellini for example) the guy never picked him up on it, he'd just say "OK" then move on to the next thing on his script.

Hooper actually opened up a lot more to the audience questions, I thought.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by The Aylmer »

It wasn't a great interview, I agree, but the interviewer has to take his share of the blame. Too many questions required "Yes/No" answers.
I thought the Total Film interviewer was totally into himself rather than trying to do his job properly. As you said, he waffled on so much by the time Hooper got the chance to answer most of what he'd probably wanted to say had been covered by the interviewer. Half the time Hooper had the words taken out of his mouth before he got the chance to respond so all he could really do was say yes or no. The censorship debate a couple of days later was slightly different as Hooper seemed a bit out of his depth when it came to our peculiarly British video nasty history. Even he couldn't understand why Death Trap had been banned all those years ago, and didn't seem to be aware of this until it came up. So he struggled to add anything to the debate.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by xBIGJOEx »

as much as Tobe is maybe quite hard to get a response from the interviewer really should have gotten him to open up a bit more. Wasn't too keen on some of the interviewers response to some of the fan questions either
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by Wolfshade »

Didn't see Eggshells cos I had something important to do that morning, judging by what I've been hearing about it, I'm glad I missed it.

Was great to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on such a big screen, unlike An American Werewolf in London last year which looked very dated amongst the modern films, Texas Chainsaw more than holds it own up against modern horrors, and still packs a serious punch. Great choice for a retro screening.

I gave Tobe Hooper's Q&A a miss cos I managed to get a ticket for Finale in the Discovery screen...from the sounds of it, his Q&A wasn't the best ever, but Finale was absolutely dreadful, so doesn't look like there was good choice for this time.

Although it great was great to have Tobe Hooper at FF, I think using 3 film slots for him was a bit excessive, 2 slots would have sufficed - either the 2 films and a short Q&A like the other Q&As which wouldn't have taken up an extra slot, or just TTCM and a full Q&A with Eggshells being omitted.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by AnotherSchmuck »

Loved watching Texas Chainsaw on the big screen again but on Blu Ray!!

C'mon there must have been a print out there somewhere we could of been shown!
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by Reanimator »

Eggshells was rubbish - would rather have seen another new film instead in Screen 1

Great to see TCM again - the print looked great

Brilliant to see Tobe Hooper in the flesh - thought the interview was good!

Lets have John Carpenter next year for the Icon if possible please
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by AnotherSchmuck »

Reanimator wrote:Eggshells was rubbish - would rather have seen another new film instead in Screen 1

Great to see TCM again - the print looked great

Brilliant to see Tobe Hooper in the flesh - thought the interview was good!

Lets have John Carpenter next year for the Icon if possible please
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by world_of_skin »

halloweengirl wrote:Eggshells was very much of it's time (and unfortunately I can vaguely remember - I was only a small child!) but, bugger me, that soundtrack was LOUD! I did the fingers-in-the-ears too.
I had a full-on migraine during Eggshells!! Not because of the film, it was already there when I went in, but, my god, that nearly drove me to tears! Maybe that's why I took so unkindly to The Tortured the next day... :roll: ('agony', really? hmmmm... swapsies?)

The birds at the very start felt like somebody stabbing me repeatedly in the brain :( actually made me yelp! Guessing any (even mildly) hungover people would've had a similar experience!

The film felt like an endurance test after a while but maybe that was just down to my head. I had some flashing colours/lights in my vision at times too, so sat there wondering whether the trippy colours and some of the odd visual stuff were all entirely, actually there, or whether my head was adding its own effects on top...

Er, it was alright though, I'm glad I've seen that film, but don't think I'll ever go out of my way to watch it again.

As for the Total Film interviewer, agree he was pretty rubbish, he wasn't working with Tobe at all - he just bombarded him. He'd feed him his entire opinion on something (or so it seemed!) so that, by the time he'd finished and it was time for Tobe to answer, you'd sort of forgotten where that segment/question had all started... You could see the cogs in Tobe's head turning as he tried to replay what he'd just heard, before he could even begin to forumlate his reply! It was nice to hear that the interviewer was passionate about his films but the whole thing was just so unbalanced. I feel like I know way more about the Total Film guy and what he thinks than I do about Mr Hooper now!

Texas Chain Saw on the big screen was, of course, epic.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by MaxRenn »

Eggshells, the very definition of an "interesting" film, ie 80% boring, 20% mad. Glad I saw it but the Total Film guy did it no favors by ridiculously overselling it.

TCM - not just one of the best horror films, one of the best films.

Interview - I thought maybe Hooper was just jetlagged, but he wasn't any better on the Nasties panel. It was great to have him there, and I'm glad I saw the interview. But if they do this again, maybe someone a bit more engaging next time. I boy would I have loved to have seen Cronenberg and he would have been brilliant on the nasties panel. Or someone like Paul Verhoeven (with a screening of the Fourth Man) who I've seen before and is a NUTTER in the best possible way. Or, and I think this is a great idea, someone like Robert England looking at his whole career as an actor, how cool would that be?
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by Maniacal »

I had a brief 'Argument' with my friend who hated Eggshells for not being a 'True' movie, i put it to him that this was an art movie regardless if it was Tobes debut high production movie. Not sure which holds merit more.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by world_of_skin »

MaxRenn wrote: Interview - I thought maybe Hooper was just jetlagged, but he wasn't any better on the Nasties panel. It was great to have him there, and I'm glad I saw the interview. But if they do this again, maybe someone a bit more engaging next time. I boy would I have loved to have seen Cronenberg and he would have been brilliant on the nasties panel. Or someone like Paul Verhoeven (with a screening of the Fourth Man) who I've seen before and is a NUTTER in the best possible way. Or, and I think this is a great idea, someone like Robert England looking at his whole career as an actor, how cool would that be?
Agreed that he didn't do too well on the panel but that's slightly different - that was a fast-paced and fairly heated discussion with others who were (at least currently) a lot more clued up on the topic than he was (just saying that on the basis of their involvement with either the documentary itself or the BBFC - we know they've all been thinking about that topic in very recent times, but we can't say the same for Mr Hooper, why should he have been thinking about it to the extent that they all had?). In fact, did he not say that he didn't know lots of what he'd just seen? He was still processing his thoughts on the whole thing, I would imagine. He said he didn't realise that Texas Chain Saw hadn't been on the list - I'm sure he said he thought it had been? So that comparison is not really fair!

When he was being interviewed about himself and his own films, it seemed like he did WANT to say more, he just seemed to be struggling, but it's not like he was closed off to the idea of debate, as somebody's suggested above. I think, in the case of the 1-to-1 interview, the Total Film guy should've adapted his style/approach accordingly - that's what good interviewers do when they see that something isn't working. I think neither interview was suitable in terms of eliciting information from him, so, whilst, for all I or anyone else knows, he may not have been able to verbalise things any better even if the interviews had been structured a little differently (the rigid structure was indeed a big problem in the 1-to-1), we still can't really judge him on this. I don't think it's fair to do so.
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Re: Tobe Hooper and the chainsaw massacre

Post by MaxRenn »

world_of_skin wrote:
MaxRenn wrote: Interview - I thought maybe Hooper was just jetlagged, but he wasn't any better on the Nasties panel. It was great to have him there, and I'm glad I saw the interview. But if they do this again, maybe someone a bit more engaging next time. I boy would I have loved to have seen Cronenberg and he would have been brilliant on the nasties panel. Or someone like Paul Verhoeven (with a screening of the Fourth Man) who I've seen before and is a NUTTER in the best possible way. Or, and I think this is a great idea, someone like Robert England looking at his whole career as an actor, how cool would that be?
Agreed that he didn't do too well on the panel but that's slightly different - that was a fast-paced and fairly heated discussion with others who were (at least currently) a lot more clued up on the topic than he was (just saying that on the basis of their involvement with either the documentary itself or the BBFC - we know they've all been thinking about that topic in very recent times, but we can't say the same for Mr Hooper, why should he have been thinking about it to the extent that they all had?). In fact, did he not say that he didn't know lots of what he'd just seen? He was still processing his thoughts on the whole thing, I would imagine. He said he didn't realise that Texas Chain Saw hadn't been on the list - I'm sure he said he thought it had been? So that comparison is not really fair!

When he was being interviewed about himself and his own films, it seemed like he did WANT to say more, he just seemed to be struggling, but it's not like he was closed off to the idea of debate, as somebody's suggested above. I think, in the case of the 1-to-1 interview, the Total Film guy should've adapted his style/approach accordingly - that's what good interviewers do when they see that something isn't working. I think neither interview was suitable in terms of eliciting information from him, so, whilst, for all I or anyone else knows, he may not have been able to verbalise things any better even if the interviews had been structured a little differently (the rigid structure was indeed a big problem in the 1-to-1), we still can't really judge him on this. I don't think it's fair to do so.
Don't get me wrong, I'm hugely glad that Hooper was at FrightFest, he is a legend and the director of one of the greatest films ever made. I mean no disrespect to Tobe Hooper at all, I just don't think he was comfortable in the interview. Obviously Total Film were sponsors and will have contributed to bringing Hooper over for this. But perhaps had Alan Jones been in the interview chair things might have been livelier.
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