Especially since you’re unable to point out the “conspicuous” similarities between Poltergeist and Tobe Hooper’s movies. You might want to work on that angle if you’re interested in making your case. Because you come across more like someone who’s mad at Spielberg than someone who’s even seen Tobe Hooper’s crappy movies.
-Tom
Lifeforce is fucking awesome.
I mean, it’s pretty terrible.
But still.
If his name weren’t on it, I don’t think I would’ve guessed Hooper had anything to do with Poltergeist.
I don’t think I come off as either of those things, angry at Spielberg or having not seen Hooper’s films.
Attacks aside, there is simply no strong case to make that Spielberg “took over” the movie, or had any undue influence over Hoopers very individual work on the film. Contradictory statements reduce the rumors and insinuations to little more than wish fulfillment and the propping up of increasingly irrelevant (still valid, just irrelevant) perceptions of Hooper’s work. “Tobe directed all my scenes,” “Hooper was the only one who directed me,” and “Spielberg wasn’t around all that much as he was prepping E.T.” are just three separate remarks from three separate principle actors that simply have little to no wiggle room for interpretation.
Cool, then I look forward to you pointing out the “conspicuous” similarities between Poltergeist and Tobe Hooper’s movies. Any reason you’ve been ignoring the question? Other than the obvious, of course.
-Tom
Agreed. But what makes Lifeforce awesome is that it has no conception how bad it is. It takes itself so seriously. It’s a hilariously big-budget trainwreck with an impressive cast of actors who should know better.
-Tom
You come off as either with an axe to grind at Spielberg or just utterly devoted to Hooper for no discernable reason. 100%. I think it’s awesome you are so passionate about the movie, but it’s sort of weird that it’s channeled in this way. But it takes all kinds.
It can be true that Hooper was the director but it’s still a more Spielbergian film than a Hooper one. And it’s obviously a collaborative effort. But it’s much more of an odd man out on Hooper’s side than Spielberg’s.
100%. And in the more interesting discussion thread of “films that make you care about their characters”, Lifeforce makes like zero fucking effort here. It’s not even trying.
What’s so weird, but also awesome, about the movie is that there is zero fucking reason for Mathilda May to be naked for like 85% of her screen time. Early teen me thought this was the best decision in the history of the human race because that’s how it starts out with all the hormones and she was absolutely gorgeous. But the decision to do that contributes to the movie’s ridiculousness. I mean it so badly wants to be some sort of serious sci-fi movie. Not 2001, but Alien at least.
But man is it not that. It’s not even Creature, on that front.
It’s certainly not explicit, in the end the movie leaves it to the audience to figure out a context for the events shown. I’ll make you a deal: I can agree these are the first murders committed by the family if you admit undead Griffin Dunne isn’t a hallucination in An American Werewolf In London.
You know, I don’t know anything about Hollywood rumors or who was on set on which day, but when watching Poltergeist it looks and feels extremely Spielberg. Even if Spielberg wasn’t directing the actors on set, I have no doubt who bears the primary creative responsibility here, and frankly I wish Hooper had more influence on it.
By this point in Spielberg’s career, he’s too mellow to make a horror movie with teeth. Poltergeist could use a bit less family sticking together, and a bit more from the guy that brought us a maniac with a chainsaw chain saw chasing teenagers through dark woods.
Nooooo! That’s like forcing me to make a Sophie’s choice between interpretations of two of my favorite horror movies! You’re so cruel!
Very well put. There’s a cruel bite, or at least a deadly seriousness, to Hooper’s early movies and it’s conspicuously missing in Poltergeist.
-Tom
I feel generous, so if you agree I’m also going to throw in “Jaws isn’t the name of the shark”.
I lack the encyclopedic horror movie knowledge some of the people here have, so I don’t know how much more I can offer.
Except for the dude pulling his own face apart. Nobody ever talks about that, and it seriously traumatized young dive^3!
There’s an episode of I Was There Too, a podcast that’s all about speaking to actors in obscure or interesting parts, featuring Martin Casella, the guy that pulls his face apart. Casella was Spielberg’s assistant on Raiders, and he talked a bit about the filming for that scene and how wound up in the part. Spielberg cast him and those are Spielberg’s hands tearing up the dummy face. He said Hooper was there on set, but (and he put this as delicately as he could) that Spielberg was in charge.
Kinda reminds me of the face melting in Raiders. Except that it’s a hallucination and doesn’t actually happen.
-Tom
You know, it’s funny. There are movies I have a hard time going back to, even good ones that I enjoyed, because there will be this one thing that bothers me so much I can’t face watching it again. First one that pops into my head is RoboCop, because Murphy’s murder and the inherent cruelty and suffering involved is hard for me to watch. Poltergeist is kind of the same way, though that’s probably as much tied up in how I remember the scene as what it actually contains.
But Raiders though, the face melting never really bothered me (even as a kid) and I think it’s partly because it’s come-uppance to the bad guys but also because it just doesn’t look like anything so much as a bunch of dummies melting like wax (which presumably they were). But, it’s totally a YMMV thing, I don’t deny it.
[quote=“tomchick, post:66, topic:152585, full:true”]
Cool, then I look forward to you pointing out the “conspicuous” similarities between Poltergeist and Tobe Hooper’s movies. Any reason you’ve been ignoring the question? Other than the obvious, of course.
-Tom
[/quote]
No reason I’ve been ignoring it. I figured I could get some sort of leeway as to the plain facts of the production - the actors statements I’ve given - without having to get pedantic. I started off doing it here: “One can just as well point to Spielberg’s intense identification with his male leads, his interest in constant animation and swooping cameras (much more reserved use of this here in Poltergeist), and the often unfailing storytelling logic in his films and point out how these things are not present in this film, a thoroughly anti-logical film with a certain sense of restraint in how it shoots a house from very precise angles.“
Every Hooper film prior to Poltergeist exhibits the same aesthetic interest in depicting interior spaces and the symbolic aspects of architecture. Every film of his before Poltergeist focuses on a house that takes on a certain unreality. The Funhouse is all about repeating landmarks of a claustrophobic space, and in the same way, Hooper shoots Poltergeist’s house with a rigor unseen in Spielberg’s more emotionally affective work. Texas Chain Saw includes, as you point out, much of the virtuosic camera of Poltergeist on a fraction of the budget, and his first feature Eggshells is a special effects piece about a haunted house, an entity taking roost in the basement of the house and manifesting as a ghostly smoke and a gaping, organic hole in the wall. The similarities and affinities go on.
[quote=“peacedog, post:68, topic:152585, full:true”]You come off as either with an axe to grind at Spielberg or just utterly devoted to Hooper for no discernable reason. 100%. I think it’s awesome you are so passionate about the movie, but it’s sort of weird that it’s channeled in this way. But it takes all kinds.
It can be true that Hooper was the director but it’s still a more Spielbergian film than a Hooper one. And it’s obviously a collaborative effort. But it’s much more of an odd man out on Hooper’s side than Spielberg’s.
[/quote]
Point out one sour word I’ve said against Spielberg (in this thread). I assure you anything that may seem an attack on Spielberg is just a statement of facts (perhaps with a sardonic tone).
I see it as an odd man out in Spielberg’s filmography. Subjective, as I’ve said. Spielberg wrote the film, with Hooper, so it will have his imprint, but Hooper did everything he can to interpret it to his own designs. If you read the script, half the comedy relief is take out, and, as mentioned, tonally decisive rewrites occurred, changing the tone and tenor in ways that point to a production far more spontaneous than simple elaborating of scenes. Hooper worked to make this as odd and even adult as it could be. Take this excerpt from the script, a scene changed because clearly it didn’t conform to the directorial direction it was taking in being filmed:
[quote=“Telefrog, post:74, topic:152585, full:true”]
There’s an episode of I Was There Too, a podcast that’s all about speaking to actors in obscure or interesting parts, featuring Martin Casella, the guy that pulls his face apart. Casella was Spielberg’s assistant on Raiders, and he talked a bit about the filming for that scene and how wound up in the part. Spielberg cast him and those are Spielberg’s hands tearing up the dummy face. He said Hooper was there on set, but (and he put this as delicately as he could) that Spielberg was in charge.
[/quote]
Are you sure you listened to the whole interview? The actor quite explicitly, and I mean very literally, agrees to the notion that Hooper “was in charge.” A direct transcription:
Nice! Thanks for the correction on the podcast interview. I’ll assume the transcription is accurate. Ain’t no way I’m gonna listen to it again.
It is odd that Spielberg directly cast him, then actually did the scene with the face-tearing, but hey, if Casella agrees that Hooper “handled the reigns” then I’ll go with that.
You’re right to delineate 96 degrees of Texas heat. As important to point out as 96 degrees of Los Angeles Heat vs. 96 degrees of Philadelphia heat.
Quick, now do the same 30 plus year retrospective treatment for Jaws!
I think the cars are a hint that these people have been doing it for a while. There are definitely plenty of junk heaps in rural America, but not many with camo netting to keep them from being spotted from the air, and I think they deliberately went for Beetles and sedans to make it look like “ordinary people” cars.
I think that’s also why the guy stops on the way in and goes “Look”. Because a regular junk heap wouldn’t be weird, but a bunch of reasonably pristine cars under camo netting is.
Before he gets funny with the knife, the brother invites them to stay with his family, and the father says the same thing at the gas station. I think “staying with them” means the windmill house, so the “out of gas” line is just a trap to lure them in.
I agree that Leatherface doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the brother and father definitely do, and I think it’s implied that they’ve been doing it for a while, and turning the victims into barbecue.
They don’t seem to be trying to hide the bodies, the house is littered with bones, including what looks like human jaw bones, which tracks with the human tooth on the veranda.
The grandfather is crazy about human blood (throwback to the line in the van about the brother being “a dracula” with “a whole family of draculas”) but there’s also the dialogue at the table, where the father says that he finds killing distasteful, although somebody’s gotta do it. Like the brother establishes early on, they’re really into meat, so I take his rant to mean that you gotta get your meat somehow, so what they’re doing is evil but totally reasonable from his point of view.
There’s also the drawn out shot of the girl looking at the barbecue in the gas station. It’s ambiguous, but the idea is definitely that those sausages are now looking a lot more sinister than they did earlier in the day.
I’m not sure about the “watching your brother” line, but it does seem that Leatherface is completely unreliable and likely to mess things up when left on his own. I think it’s obvious the father is way more upset about his broken door than he is about violence or suffering at any point, so I think the dialogue about not being into killing at the dinner is really a joke.
He’s clearly a part of it, he just wants to see himself as the mature and civilized member of the family. In his head he’s “the sane one”. Which I think is a good play, like Leatherface being oblivious. It’s more disturbing when the killers are tragic and unaware of themselves.