Tom DeSimone, the director of the cult films Chatterbox, Hell Night and Reform School Girls, died on October 17, 2026, at a senior care facility in Palm Springs, California. He was 87. His younger brother, the actor and comedian Bob DeSimone, told The Hollywood Reporter that he had terminal cancer and chose to end his life with medical assistance.
Days earlier he had posted a farewell to friends and fans. “It appears that my time has come to say thank you and goodbye,” he wrote. “I am not afraid but mostly curious.”
Cult films
DeSimone directed the 1977 comedy Chatterbox, starring Candice Rialson. It led to Hell Night (1981), a haunted-house slasher film starring Linda Blair and Vincent Van Patten, which has kept a loyal following. Frank Darabont worked on it as a production assistant.
After The Concrete Jungle (1982), a women-in-prison drama with Tracey E. Bregman and Jill St. John, he wrote and directed the genre parody Reform School Girls (1986), starring Wendy O. Williams, Sybil Danning and Pat Ast. He also directed Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988).
Adult films
DeSimone began his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s making gay adult films under the name Lancer Brooks. His 1970 film The Collection is regarded as one of the first in that genre with a real plot and dialogue, and much of his work was distributed by the studio Hand in Hand Films. “I was interested in exploring gays in love or at least relationships,” he said in 2019. He was inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame in 2005.
Television
From the late 1980s he worked mainly in television, directing four episodes of Freddy’s Nightmares as well as episodes of Swamp Thing, Dark Justice, Super Force and Pensacola: Wings of Gold. In the mid-1990s he spent about a year in Mexico directing every episode of the telenovela Acapulco Bay.
Early life
Thomas DeSimone was born on July 1, 1939, in Massachusetts, the second of three children of a chef and restaurateur father and a mother who owned beauty salons. He studied directing and theatre at Emerson College in Boston and earned a master’s degree in film production at UCLA. He is survived by his brother Bob.