"These things! They're huge, ugly, slimy, giant Mr. Potato Heads!"

However it is you wound up on this blog, you probably already know that Tobe Hooper died on Saturday, and you should already know that he directed the groundbreaking 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Most of the obituaries covered his participation in Poltergeist and Salem's Lot as well, but Hooper had some strange deep cuts in his filmography.

There's one on Hulu called The Mangler that was based on a Stephen King short story and stars Robert Englund. It's about a laundry press that's possessed by a demon. Someone's posted Spontaneous Combustion on YouTube. It's basically Firestarter, but except for little Drew Barrymore, you get full-grown and sorta whiny Brad Dourif. Shudder has one called The Toolbox Murders, which was a remake. 

The best one I watched so far is also a remake. This week's Thursday Thriller is Invaders from Mars.

Hooper directed this remake of the 1953 film of the same title. It's about a boy named David Gardner (Hunter Carson) whose dad (Timothy Bottoms) works for the space program/military industrial complex and whose mom is Laraine Newman. She's studying to be an accountant or something and before the movie is over, she does the Conehead voice. 

David stays up late watching a meteor shower with his dad one night and just as he's going to bed sees out his window something strange land just over the hill. He cries out to his parents that he just saw a UFO, but they don't believe him. In the morning, Dad isn't quite himself. He stumbles around and barely says a word to anybody. He's missing a slipper and pours a whole box of Tic Tacs in his coffee before drinking it. Pretty soon, Mom starts to seem distant, too. And a few policemen. David suspects that aliens have planted mind control devices in their necks.

At school his teacher Mrs. McKeitch (Louise Fletcher) has never been fair to David, but she seems meaner than usual. David catches her eating a whole frog. 

And she catches him catching her. David runs to the school nurse Linda (Karen Black) for help. Linda helps David escape the school but McKeitch is already after him. He manages to hide in her van. It's a good thing, too, because she drives to a cave in the woods that leads to a vast system of underground tunnels to check in with her alien boss, who looks like Shredder's boss from the Ninja Turtles. 

From there David and Linda's relationship takes a bit of a strange turn? She's often in the role of damsel in distress and David is her knight in shining armor, but if they have to go anywhere she has to drive. The situation stops just shy of being like one of those teacher ladies in Florida or wherever who seduce their students and go to prison, then get out and marry since he's legal. The movie is rated PG, so it doesn't get too kinky about it. It's subtle. 

Dan O'Bannon, of Return of the Living Dead fame, co-wrote the screenplay with Don Jakoby. Stan Winston made the brain monsters. Invaders from Mars is nostalgic, comic book-style fun. It streams on YouTube. 

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