The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was inspired by a crowded department store

Pioneering horror filmmaker Tobe Hooper, who died on Saturday, on the source of his inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

It came to him, he said, in the hardware department of a Sears-like store during a busy Christmas season, with his low tolerance for crowds as a catalyst.

"I was kind of freaking, just wanted to get out of there, get out of the crowd," he said in the documentary. "And so I found myself in front of a chain-saw display in the hardware department, and that's where the idea came from - 'Well, if I pick this damn thing up and start it, they'll part like the Red Sea and I can get out of here.'"

"Tobe Hooper, Director of 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,' Dies at 74" (New York Times)