Eggshells

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source: Eggshells

Eggshells

My dad went to film school in Austin, Texas in fact he was a freshman the year after Tobe Hooper graduated. He told me that as part of a class he had to watch 'Eggshells.' What he liked most about it was that it showed the power of editing, just simple cuts and that was all it needed. There was one scene in particular, of a man having a sword fight with himself he would swing the sword, and BAM! cut he would appear on the other side ready to parry, the scene probably took hours to choreograph but for the primitive effects it was truly remarkable. I would love to try to find a copy of it somewhere, i may just have to go to Austin to get it.

this film was a classic hippie film ..........i saw it in Florida at the midnight surf movie theaters. totally unique---- and i have been wondering about it for more than thirty years. hard to believe this director went on the the chainsaw thing............almost impossible to imagine since the love message of the late 60's was so central to eggshells. hopefully someone will know how to get a copy. it's is very satisfying to know that someone else out there remembers this great piece of film and that i just didn't imagine the whole thing. peace and twang, cg

I roomed with Kim Henkle in an old house off San Gabriel and 23 1/2 st. We shared a bedroom in the back. He got me in the wedding scene as an extra. It was filmed at Wooldridge Park. Friends David and Amy Spaw (then married, now divorced) were in the movie as was Allen Danziger and Ron Perryman (I think). The movie is hazy, I don't recall much other than the bathtub scene with Amy and the wedding scene. Myself, David and Amy, as well as Kim and Ron Perryman (now deceased) all owned 40 acres of land together in Colorado for awhile (along with several other people) - a place to escape to in case the Revolution came. I didn't know Tobe Hooper other than as an acquaintance. Kim and Tobe went on to TCM fame, Ron was active as a character actor, Amy went into jewelry-making, and David took over management of Spaw Construction. The Revolution never came!

I recently saw this at London's Frightfest, and it may well be the dullest film I have ever had the misfortune to view there. From one rambling, pointless conversation to the next, nothing of interest happens, apart from a guy having a sword-fight with himself. There may be some who would say that if you didn't like it, you probably didn't understand it, like it's the "emperors new movie", or something. These hypothetical people can get lost. I can't imagine that fully comprehending the film would make it any less dull. I didn't want to understand the presence in the basement, I just wanted it to do something. The film is really only of interest to Tobe Hooper fans, and people who like artsy sixties movies. By the way, I did ask Tobe Hooper what the meaning behind the title was, and he said it just meant "a very delicate situation".

I saw this film in Austin, Texas, where it was shot, back in the hippie days when I was in college. I just want to comment that I remember being impressed because it was "different" from the Hollywood movies I'd grown up seeing. It was the first movie I saw that struck me as somebody having fun making the movie, rather than whether or not the movie itself was good. I hesitate to comment much on the movie because it has been about 35 years since I saw it. But I can say that many times over the years it has popped back into my mind and I've thought "Hey, I'd like to see that one again." I don't remember anything about the plot. In fact, I'm pretty sure there is not much, if any, plot in the usual sense. What I do remember vividly is a great sequence of a paper airplane sailing through the air the way anybody who has ever folded and thrown one would LIKE for it to fly!

My summary line will be something of an inside joke that only people who have watched the movie at the Frightfest in London earlier this year (2010) will understand. Those who went ahead and watched it of course. And stayed until the end. Because this is very experimental. Very different too. And yes if you like it, you will state that this is good because it isn't like any Hollywood movie (well it's not supposed to be). And yes it has it's scenes (though the staircase montage gets a bit annoying after a bit). And also yes to the fact, that this is not really a horror movie. It is more a sci-fi movie than a horror movie. Just in case you expected that, from the man who brought you Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original that is). If you are into experimental movies with (almost) no story at all, than this might be for you. Ignore my rating (and all the others who said it's not good). I'm not gonna tell you, how to feel about the weird things you (probably) are about to see.

Back in the day when Tobe lived in Austin and was working on Eggshells, I knew several of the people who worked on the film, both on camera and behind the scenes. The house Tobe used to shoot the film was located on F Street and the working title was F Street Blues. At the end of the film is a series of stop-action shots of one of the downstairs rooms as it is being painted - a kind of living mural which turns black on-screen. Very avant-garde for the time. Horror is not my genre and I had always hoped Tobe would go on to create more films like Eggshells - even asked him once when he was going to make a film I could watch. In a strange twist of fate, the man I subsequently married was living in that room when I met him in 1975 and the walls and ceiling were still black!