Poché Pictures

There’s something beautifully deranged about a film that opens with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and ends with a house imploding into the spirit realm. Poltergeist is that kind of movie—a gleefully chaotic descent into middle-class hell, wrapped in a Spielbergian glow and delivered by Tobe Hooper, who may or may not have directed it depending on … Read More ““Poltergeist” (1982): The Suburban Horror Show That Ripped Your Face Off and Sold It Back to You with a PG Rating” »

Here’s a riddle: What do you get when the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is handed a bigger budget, a sleazy setting, and four teenagers to torment? You’d hope the answer is “a nerve-shredding carnival horror classic.” Instead, you get The Funhouse, a film that spends 96 minutes building tension and then accidentally … Read More ““The Funhouse” (1981): Tobe Hooper’s Carnival of Boredom, Now with 80% More Fog and 100% Less Fun” »

There’s a moment about 20 minutes into The Dark where you realize the scariest thing about the movie isn’t the monster. It’s the fact that someone greenlit this radioactive burrito of a film and then handed it over to John “Grizzly Adams Ate My Career” Cardos after Tobe Hooper jumped ship like it was the … Read More ““The Dark” (1979): The Movie Where Tobe Hooper Quit and the Audience Should Have Too” »

If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to fall asleep during a high school production of Aladdin, only to be jolted awake by Robert Englund dressed like a haunted sex magician, then Night Terrors is the answer you didn’t want to hear. Released in 1993 — a year when the world was busy … Read More “Night Terrors (1993) — The Only Terror Here Is That It Was Made” »

If you’ve ever watched a man slowly burst into flames while screaming about government conspiracies, childhood trauma, and telepathic fire powers — all within a movie that feels like a fever dream written during a three-day blackout — then congratulations, you’ve survived Spontaneous Combustion. And if you haven’t seen it? Don’t worry. I did. So … Read More “Spontaneous Combustion (1989) — A Flaming Dumpster Fire, Literally and Figuratively” »

There are bad remakes, and then there’s Invaders from Mars — Tobe Hooper’s 1986 cinematic faceplant that took a beloved 1953 B-movie classic and dunked it in neon paint, bad child acting, and prosthetics that look like they were sculpted from mashed potatoes by a hungover art student. It’s not just a misfire. It’s the … Read More “Invaders from Mars (1986) — An Alien Remake That Feels Like a Martian War Crime” »

If you ever wondered what would happen if a hostage thriller collided headfirst with an animal-attack movie while both were blackout drunk, look no further than Venom (1981). Birthed from chaos, fueled by confusion, and directed by two men who apparently took turns steering the ship into the iceberg, this movie is the cinematic equivalent … Read More “Venom (1981) — A Snake, a Kid, and a Hostage Plot That Should’ve Stayed in the Terrarium” »

If you grew up in the ’70s, chances are you were either traumatized by Salem’s Lot or knew someone who was. It aired on network television in 1979 — over two nights — and yet somehow managed to scar a generation of viewers without showing a single drop of blood. Directed by Tobe Hooper (yes, … Read More “Salem’s Lot (1979) — When Vampires Wore Turtlenecks and Terror Came on Schedule” »

Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that you want to watch a film that’s loud, chaotic, and smells like it was edited inside a gas station bathroom. Congratulations, you’re the ideal audience for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror “classic” — and yes, I’m using quotation marks like they’re garlic to ward … Read More “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) — A Gritty Barbecue of Screaming, Sweat, and No Plot Whatsoever” »

There’s bad, and then there’s Ghoulies II. A sequel to a film that shouldn’t have existed in the first place, Ghoulies II is the cinematic equivalent of a grease trap catching fire at a state fair. Directed by Albert Band—whose name should set off alarms at this point—it’s a movie about little rubber goblins causing … Read More ““Ghoulies II” (1987): Now With 40% More Puppet Goo and 100% Less Plot” »