Tobe Hooper, a 29-year-old Texan and film-school dropout, had wanted to make a work of art - a cinematic masterpiece in the mould of his Italian idols, directors Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.
Walking through a bustling Montgomery Ward department store days before Christmas in 1972, he found inspiration for a grislier kind of movie in a display of gleaming chain saws.
"I thought, 'I know a way I could get through this crowd really quickly'," he told Texas Monthly in 2004. "I went home, sat down, all the channels just tuned in, the zeitgeist blew through, and the whole damn story came to me in what seemed like about 30 seconds."
The resulting film - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) - was a low-budget, blood-soaked horrorfest made with college students, teachers, a menagerie of dead animals and two human skeletons, one of them real.
Most critics were disgusted, with one Harper's magazine reviewer calling it "a vile little piece of sick crap". But its reputation has improved ever since, winning praise as one of the greatest horror films of all time, credited with popularising the slasher genre in the 1970s.
Hooper, who went on to direct the Steven Spielberg-produced Poltergeist in 1982, died at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday. He was 74.
The Los Angeles County medical examiner's office confirmed his death but did not provide a cause.
Hooper (his first name is pronounced Toby) directed nearly 20 films, numerous TV episodes and the zombie-populated music video for the Billy Idol song Dancing With Myself. But he remains best known for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which he produced, directed and co-wrote. He described it as an updated version of the Hansel and Gretel story and likened its villain, a 300-pound (136kg) butcher known as Leatherface, to the 1950s cartoon duck Baby Huey. But while Hooper's story retained the cannibalistic element of the Brothers Grimm fable, it was far more sinister, replacing a pair of sweet-toothed children with a group of five young hippies, and swapping the witch's oven for a butcher's hook and a sharp-toothed power tool.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre grossed more than US$30 million and became a mainstay at drive-in theatres.
Hooper and his co-writer, Kim Henkel, based their story in part on Ed Gein, a Wisconsin serial killer who made masks out of his victims' faces. But they filled in their own gruesome details for a plot that pit Leatherface, played by Gunnar Hansen, against a blonde-haired heroine played by Marilyn Burns.
Despite being banned in England and other countries, it went on to gross more than US$30 million and became a mainstay at drive-in theatres and a favourite of horror directors such as John Carpenter.
Hooper began shooting movies at 3, using his father's 8mm camera, and studied film at the University of Texas before dropping out after two years.
Hooper directed a 1986 sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with Dennis Hopper as a retired, revenge-seeking Texas Ranger, although the film proved less successful than its predecessor. A half-dozen sequels followed from different directors. Hooper insisted that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was not nearly as bloody as many critics said it was. He told Texas Monthly that he frequently consulted the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's rating agency, in an effort to ensure a PG rating.
"'I have this scene where a girl gets hung on a meat hook.' Long silence. 'What could I do?' Long silence. 'I guess it would help me if there was no penetration shot.' 'That would be correct.' 'And no blood?' 'That would help.'"
Hooper decided to keep the blood, and his movie was rated R.
