S2 Bonus Episode: Tobe Hooper – A “Tales From The Crypt” Tribute

The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast

It’s hard to believe our friend Tobe Hooper has been gone so long. Hardly a podcast goes by where we don’t reference Tobe one way or another. He was a fascinating person to know and work with. Like a lot of people who succeed in horror – or who create iconic horror characters and stories – Tobe was a pussycat. There wasn’t anything scary about him.

Tobe changed the horror business. That changed the movie business. Now, Tobe didn’t set out to change any of that when he set out into the movie business in the 1960’s.

At the time, he was a college professor and a cameraman in search of work. In 1965, he made a documentary short subject called “THE HEISTERS”. It was good enough to get invited to enter the short subject category for an Oscar.

Alas, Tobe couldn’t finish his cut in time for that year’s competition. But an early cut did get the invite.

With Tobe, there was always something there.

Four years later – in 1969 – Tobe made his first feature – EGGSHELLS” for $40,000. We talk about it in the episode.

Eggshells didn’t go anywhere. But it got Tobe – and his friend Kim Henkel – thinking. About how TO make a movie that might go somewhere.

As many aspiring moviemakers do, Tobe and Kim turned to horror. And, before long, inspiration – in the form of murderers ED GEIN and ELMER WAYNE HENLEY – hit. Like a chainsaw.

In the episode, we interviewed Kim Henkel and Levie Isaacks.

As Kim will tell you, he and Tobe were like brothers. In all the good ways and some of the bad ways, too.

While Levie ended up as a director of photography – and he DP’d for Tobe on multiple occasions including feature films and an episode of Tales From The Crypt – Levie has a very different credit on the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.

In fact, you won’t find him in the credits. But he’s definitely there in the movie. I’ll let Levie tell the story.

We’ll start with Gil however. I had the pleasure of working with Tobe on several occasions. Always richly rewarding.

But, Gil and Tobe were buddies. They really had a relationship.