The archives here at The Dead Next Door are, to put it mildly, a bit disorganized, which is why I'm just now posting about another semi-lost regional horror nearly three years after I found out about -- and it was directed by one of the giants of the genre, to boot.
Back in 2008, Classic Horror Film Board member Paul Haight posted links to some interesting photos from the LIFE Magazine archive. According to the information on the site, the photos were from an amateur production of a Frankenstein film made in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by a crew of teenagers in 1959.
As it turns out, the teen director was none other than Tobe Hooper (that's him in the picture above, pouring chocolate syrup on one of the monster's victims), who would go on to later acclaim for his Austin-lensed Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Hooper himself joined the conversation briefly (you can see his comments here), sharing that The Heir of Frankenstein was his first 16mm production -- unfortunately, he didn't say whether it was a full-length feature or a short.
I've posted a few of the photos below, but you can see the whole archive at the LIFE site. (All photos are, of course, properly of LIFE.)
Wow, that is incredible! Great find.
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