5 Best Tobe Hooper Movies

When you hear his name, chances are likely you connect director Tobe Hooper with his horror film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). But Hooper made other movies during his career, with a continued interest in exploring broken families and a bonkers, go-for-broke energy to the horror or action scenes.

When the filmmaker passed away in 2017, he left behind more monsters in his movies than just Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), with the 1980s being a strong decade for him to thrill audiences with ghosts, carny killers, and one alien invasion.

What are the best Tobe Hooper movies? Let’s get into it.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Sally (Marilyn Burns), her brother, and her friends travel into rural Texas, where their road trip goes to hell as they become prey to the Sawyer family.

‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’Credit: Bryanston Distributing Company

The Sawyers’ home is a foul place with bone-made furniture and the disturbing normalcy of the cannibal appetite within the family. A twisted sense of humor underneath the screams and chainsaw revving hardly gives levity to the movie; it just makes everything feel even more depraved. The intensity of the scares makes sure you never feel safe.

The dread starts in the opening minutes and lasts until the finale abruptly closes on a delirious Sally and the temper-tantrum dance of Leatherface. Feral and nail-biting, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is Hooper’s best-known film and the best in his career.

The Funhouse (1981)

‘The Funhouse’Credit. Universal Pictures

A double date at a traveling carnival leads a group of friends into seeing something they shouldn’t, and they become trapped with killers.

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