#toby hooper

This year is the 50th anniversay of the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre! I painted this picture of my favourite scene last year and just recently had prints made of it. They're 6x8 and have just been listed on my Etsy!

Leatherface

A favorite book of mine is “The Space Vampires” by Colin Wilson. The title is pretty lurid but it’s actually quite a serious story with Lovecraftian influences. Astronauts discover an gigantic alien craft in the asteroid belt (in the film in the head of Halley’s Comet). It contains three perfect naked human bodies (1 female, 2 males). They are dead or in suspended animation and are brought back to Earth - big mistake. The aliens are energy vampires that can suck out the life force from a human in a matter of minutes. The victims become desiccated but revived a couple hours later but need energy from other humans to survive. An epidemic ensues. A film was made in 1985 titled “Lifeforce” starring Steve Railsback. The movie is laughably bad... so bad it worth multiple watchings. On the plus side it has the absolutely beautiful Matilda May as the Vampire Queen. But the effects are awful - the vampire victims turn into hilarious looking zombie rod puppets. And Railsback just eats the scenery with his acting. A pre Star Trek Patrick Stewart plays the warden of an insane asylum and there’s a wonder (funny) scene where he’s possessed by the vampire queen.

Lifeforce (1985) | Dir. Toby Hooper