Tobe Hooper Leaves 'The Funhouse'

Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper dies at 74

"Shot in six weeks for less than $300,000 (£128,000), it tells of five young Americans waylaid by the said cannibals in rural Texas.
Hooper had got the idea when flustered by crowds in a department store.

Finding himself in hardware, he imagined cutting his way out with a chainsaw.
He used real skeletons as props, adding to the macabre feel of a film that spawned a string of inferior slasher movies, with young women usually the victims.
His supernatural thriller, Poltergeist, written by Stephen Spielberg and released in 1982, was also hugely successful and became another classic within the horror genre.
His TV adaptation of Stephen King's vampire story Salem's Lot was also widely acclaimed."

What I find synchronistic with Tobe Hooper's passing right now is the dark theme in pop-culture of clowns, which Tobe explored in his films, his association with Stephen King by directing King's 
'Salem's Lot' for TV and the soon to be released re-boot of King's 'IT' to cinema screens next month ... a month in which Stephen King will celebrate (maybe a bit early to count those chickens just yet) his 70th birthday.

"It’s been reported that 'The Funhouse' was what drew Spielberg to putting Hooper in the director’s seat for 'Poltergeist', and to that I ask … why?

The Funhouse definitely feels like a 1980s horror film helmed by the man who directed 'Texas Chainsaw'; it has a deformed villain (maybe?), amateur young ‘uns threatened, a bizarre location (although not an axe-wielding clown despite what the promotional posters depict)."

A creepy skeleton in 'The Funhouse'

"In the movie 'Poltergeist' both of the terrors that plague Robbie came from Steven Spielberg's own fears as a child, a fear of clowns and a tree outside his window."

"During the scene where Robbie (Oliver Robins) is being strangled, the clown's arms became extremely tight, and Robins started to choke.

When he screamed out, "I can't breathe!" Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper thought that the boy was ad-libbing and just instructed him to look at the camera.

When Spielberg saw Robbins's face turning purple, he ran over and removed the clown's arms from Robbins' neck."

"The skeletons that emerge from the swimming pool while Diane searches for help are actual skeletons. JoBeth Williams didn't know this until after the scene was shot."

And on the cover on the 'Poltergeist' re-boot there is just the clown doll, so I guess they know what scares you;-) 

"Steven Spielberg asked Tobe Hooper to direct E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), but he turned it down because he was busy on 'The Funhouse'. 

However Hooper and Spielberg would work together on Poltergeist (1982)."

"Dean R. Koontz wrote a novelization of the screenplay under the pseudonym Owen West.
The book contains a lot of backstory added by Koontz.
Because of this, and the fact that the book was released before the movie due to a delay in post production, it is often mistaken that the movie is based on the book, but the book is in fact based on the movie."

"Tobe Hooper re-used some of 'The Funhouse's props when he directed the music video for Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself.""

No wonder my attention was drawn to the Billy Idol poster at the Sirromet Winery when I went to the 'Burning of the Vines' -
Burning of the Vines
I kept thinking of Billy's song "Dancing With Myself" and thinking there was a death surrounding it in some way and I was hoping it wasn't Billy's, but I didn't think it was and shrugged it off to my imagination at the time.
But I always know there is something to these feelings when I get them.
I didn't know that Tobe Hooper directed Billy's film clip for the song though.

Billy Idol at "Day on the Green" March 2015 dancing
with himself on life's stage, while I look on from my seat

Lifeboats, Flying Fish and the Sea of the Subconscious

"The animatronic fat lady laughing at the end of 'The Funhouse' is a reference to the phrase "It ain't over till the fat lady sings"."

Crazy Clown Time and Trump's Shock Doctrine?