In 2000, William Tony Hooper, son of the late horror icon Tobe Hooper, wrote and directed “All American Massacre.” The project was going to be a spin-off of the legendary “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise that his father created. And despite fan demand and being fully completed, it has never had a public screening. 

Last week, VHS copies of an unedited workprint turned up on eBay, and quickly sold for $8,500.

“All American Massacre”

“All American Massacre” revolves around Chop Top (Bill Mosley, pictured above in the center) after he has been incarcerated for years in solitary confinement at a Texas Psychiatric Hospital. Deemed one of the most notorious killers of the past century, he is being interviewed by a tabloid News crew. Very little footage from this film is available to the public, basically just enough to confirm it exists.

Given “All American Massacre” has been through the rumor mill in both the horror and lost media communities, the sale was huge news. Once the listing sold, horror groups were alight with excitement, everyone hoping that the buyer would not hoard their purchase. 

The Sale

The seller claims they found this copy of “All American Massacre” in a storage locker. “A couple years back I bought a storage locker at auction of a man named Stephan Lokotsch,” the listing reads. “He was an executive producer and one of the actors for this project. In the unit was this VHS tape & 40 promo film slides of the movie. The VHS tape is not the complete movie unfortunately, and it is made up of entirely unedited footage. For most of the tape, you can hear the director and crew talking. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes shots of the characters as well being goofy.”

“Although not complete, this is by far the most footage of the film ever available. I’d speculate it is around an hour or more of footage, but my VHS doesn’t say play time unfortunately,” the seller clarifies. Before signing off, by also clarifying that, “This is being sold as an ARTIFACT or COLLECTIBLE. This tape doesn’t not grant any “rights” to the movie.”

The Buyer

Thankfully, the communities didn’t have to wait very long, because the next day, the lost media subreddit revealed they had been contacted by the buyer. The purchaser, known on Instagram and YouTube as planet_chh, provided screenshots of the sale to admins as proof. “This account will be responsible for uploading and sharing the purchased collection of videos and photographs as soon as the full content is officially received by the buyer,” according to an r/lostmedia mod. 

These uploads will be of just the unedited workprint. Despite a complete version of “All American Massacre” being known to exist, it’s not in the possession of anyone who can/wants to release it.

Even though Chh doesn’t have the rights to distribute via this particular sale, that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have them period. It’s possible that this person has acquired some kind of rights to the film, but was bogged down by not having footage from it. (This isn’t an uncommon issue for foreign distributors of Hong Kong’s notorious Category III films. Since preservation for these titles is often non-existent, companies can find themselves with the rights to films but without the footage to fully release them.) 

Or Chh is just saying “damn the man” and putting the uncut footage from “All American Massacre” online. 

Chh will provide updates about “All American Massacre” on their Instagram page. We will continue to monitor this story as it develops.