Robert Shayne was only 27 when he formed New Line Cinema back in 1967. At its conception, New Line was strictly into distribution; mostly providing a pipeline for foreign and art house fare for college revivals, scoring its biggest hit when Shayne repacked Dwain Esper’s Reefer Madness, which had been recently unearthed by Keith “Legalize it Now” Stroup in 1971, whose draconian and overblown stance on the wacky-weed went over big with the under 30 crowd. New Line also provided a wider market for the likes of John Waters and other regional independent entrepreneurs; and when Friday the 13th hit big in 1980 New Line managed to secure the rights for Tobe Hooper’s magnum-opus and introduced it to a whole new generation. By this time, New Line was also dabbling in producing their own product and would eventually take the profits from this re-release and funnel them into their own fright flicks like Alone in the Dark and Xtro; not to mention their most famous slasher, who, while not much of a mystery to I.D., I’ll keep on the Q.T. until I post the ads for it in a couple of days.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Vortex :: New Line Cinema / P: Jay Parsley, Tobe Hooper / D: Tobe Hooper / W: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper / C: Daniel Pearl / E: Larry Carroll, Sallye Richardson / M: Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper / S: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen
Scenes from the Morgue 
