Tobe Hooper, who realized just how terrifying a chain saw in the wrong hands could be and used the insight to make one of the most influential horror movies of the last century, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 74.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Sunday that he died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Hooper’s other directing credits included “Poltergeist,” the 1982 ghost story he made with Steven Spielberg, and episodes of television shows like “Tales From the Crypt,” but his most enduring contribution was certainly “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” a low-budget 1974 sleeper that became a cult hit, helped establish horror conventions that are still widely used and influenced countless other directors.

[In ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre,’ Sympathy for the Devil]

Mr. Hooper said that as a young man he loved the horror genre, but found that the films in it had become boring.