Eggshells (film)

1969 American film

1969 (1969)^[1]^[2]

Running time

89 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$40,000^[3]

Eggshells is a 1969 American independent experimental film directed by Tobe Hooper in his directorial debut. Hooper, who co-wrote the film with Kim Henkel, also served as one of the film's producers. The film centers on a commune of young hippies, who slowly become aware of an otherworldly presence that resides in the basement.

Plot

A group of young hippies, having recently moved into an old house in the woods, slowly become aware of an otherworldly presence residing in the basement of the house.^[1]^[2]

Cast

Mahlon Foreman as Mahlon
Ron Barnhart as Ron
Amy Lester as Amy
Kim Henkel as Toes
Pamela Craig as Pam
Jim Schulman as Jim
Allen Danziger as Allen

Production

Hooper reflected on the film later when recounting his first efforts as a filmmaker: "It's a real movie about 1969. It's kind of vérité but with a little push. Like a script on a napkin, improvisation mixed with magic. It was about the beginning of the end of the subculture. Most of it takes place in a commune house. But what they didn't know is that in the basement is a crypto-embryonic-hyper-electric presence that managed to influence the house and the people in it. The influences in my life were all kind of politically, socially implanted."^[4]

Reception

In 2017, Zane Gordon-Bouzard of Birth.Movies.Death stated that the film "lay[s] out its rambling vision of hippie life in Austin, Texas in a series of acid-splashed reveries". Gordon-Bouzard also noted that the film displayed many of the themes and motifs that would become a staple in director Hooper's later films.^[5] Louis Black from The Austin Chronicle gave the film a positive review, stating that the film very much emulated the works of Jean-Luc Godard. Black also praised the film for its capturing of 1960s Austin attitudes and lifestyles, as well as the psychedelic visuals and Hooper's direction.^[6]

Citations

^ ^a ^b Macor 2010, p. 19.
^ ^a ^b Towlson 2014, p. 143.
^ TexasMonthly 2004.
^ Baumgarten, Marjorie (October 27, 2000). "Tobe Hooper Remembers 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'". The Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011.
^ Gordon-Bouzard 2017.
^ Black 2009.

Sources

Books

Macor, Alison (February 22, 2010). Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: Thirty Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77829-0.
Towlson, Jon (March 20, 2014). Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7469-1.

Websites

Black, Louis (March 13, 2009). "SXSW FILM - Found Film: The rehatching of Tobe Hooper's 1969 debut, 'Eggshells'". AustinChronicle.com. Austin, Texas: The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
Bloom, John (November 2004). "They Came. They Sawed". TexasMonthly.com. Texas Monthly. Archived from the original on February 7, 2012. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
Gordon-Bouzard, Zane (September 14, 2017). "The Psychedelic Illumination Of Tobe Hooper's EGGSHELLS". BirthMoviesDeath.com. Birth.Movies.Death. Retrieved May 13, 2020.