Legendary director Tobe Hooper died on Saturday at the age of 74. Variety reports that the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office confirmed Hooper’s passing, but his cause of death is not yet known. The master of horror changed the genre forever in 1974 with the second feature film he ever made, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was revolutionary for its gritty aesthetic and what was at the time an extreme level of violence. The movie was instrumental in creating the venerable subgenre of the slasher film, while introducing both the concept of the Final Girl and the first iconic super-killer figure. Before there was Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger, there was Leatherface. Hooper directed the sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, as well as one of the great supernatural horror films Poltergeist and the well regarded miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. His passing comes a little over a month after the death of fellow horror pioneer George A. Romero.