Der Bohrmaschinenkiller

While this is no flawless masterpiece it is still an entertaining enough slasher that has a simple straight-forward plot, and the killers MO of killing with various tools is an interesting one. For fans of the genre this should be solid entertainment.

"The Toolbox Murders" follows a series of killings in a Los Angeles apartment complex, which culminate in the kidnapping of a 15-year-old girl, Laurie (Pamelyn Ferdin) who resides there with her family. From thereon, police attempt to unravel the crimes with the assistance of the building owner (Cameron Mitchell) and his employee nephew (Wesley Eure).

While it has been often written off as cheap exploitation fodder, "The Toolbox Murders" is something of a minor unsung achievement, especially when you examine the context. It was made and released pre-John Carpenter's "Halloween", and while it definitely riffs on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," it does deserve some credit for being an early adopter of the slasher mould. The main criticism of the film (not unwarranted) is that it makes the shift from slasher flick to police procedural at the midway point, which is a bit jarring on a tonal level. The last half of the film mainly focuses on young Laurie being tied to a bed and subject to the religious ramblings of the villain.

This issue aside, where "Toolbox" excels is in its elaborate, effective death sequences, and moody cinematography. The film is shot remarkably well by Gary Graver, and the murders--most of which occur in a slam-bang succession in the first 30 minutes--are effective and disturbing. The locations make for '70s overload, full of furnishings and styles that evoke "The Brady Bunch," but there is a seedy L.A. aesthetic to the film that gives it a gritty and sometimes unpleasant edge. Some moments, particularly the surreal, foggy flashbacks that help explain the killer's motive, predate similar sequences in Paul Lynch's "Prom Night," released two years later.

The performances here are better than the material warrants, especially from Pamelyn Ferdin (best known for her voice roles in the "Peanuts" cartoon and as Fern in "Charlotte's Web," but also in the fantastic 1971 film "The Beguiled"), who proves herself a legitimately talented young actress. Cameron Mitchell hams it up here big time, but his performance is enjoyable and over-the-top.

All in all, I truly believe that, despite its shortcomings, "The Toolbox Murders" is an underrated entry in the slasher film canon. While it does make a downshift in pace and tone in the latter half, it remains a nasty, hard-edged odyssey through the shiftier characters of '70s Los Angeles. Slasher fans will no doubt love the first half, though the second will leave them divided. My suggestion is to take the film on its own terms, and remind oneself that it was made before the slasher prototype was fully edified with "Halloween," which came in the latter part of the year. 7/10.

The Toolbox Murders is one of those early pre date slashers that came out even before Halloween and has become well known among slasher fans due to it's entry on the Video Nasty list back in the 1980's, This is a film that I have seen many times, I dunno why I've never reviewed this movie before, no reason just never got round to it.

"The Toolbox Murders" starts out with a bang, as we get too see various sexy looking women getting murdered in an apartment building, (dunno why people still live there why don't they just move) not that it's a bad thing, just adds extra cheesiness. Hammers and Nail Guns are the weapons of choice favoured by a convincing menacing serial killer, nothing to complain about there and we even get a likable final girl who is quickly menaced by the killer early on and even kidnapped leaving her brother to try and find her and solve the murders. An interesting subplot even.

But then this movie takes a sudden dramatic turn, everything that is shown in the first half of this movie, namely the murders, is almost abandoned in the second half, when the killer is revealed and kidnaps the female lead and has her tied to the bed. It's at this point where the movie quickly becomes rather tame and all the fun of the first half has been sucked out here. Okay like I said before we do get a rather interesting sub plot involving her brother attempting to solve what's going on but that's over way too quickly in a rather unsettling twist. Okay I do like the fact that they have attempted to do something different rather than the usual stalk and slash fest, but in my opinion it does feel rather out of place when it comes to the second half of this movie and even when they do try to flesh out some of these characters it's just not enough development in my opinion. And when it comes to the final moments of this film it does kind of fall flat as it tries to be shocking, which does work in a way.

The performances in this movie are quite strong especially from veteran actor Cameron Mitchell who gives a chilling yet convincing performance that's rather menacing and yet quite engaging. Pamela Ferdin who plays Laurie is very sweet and convincing.

All in all "Toolbox Murders" is a decent enough entry, with an awesome first half just try not to be put off with the second half.

"The Toolbox Murders" is a late-'70s slasher flick that I watched some years ago and could remember nothing about. That's probably not a good sign.

I will say one thing for it: it's sleazier than most. Three girls disrobe in the opening twenty minutes. The last one gets fully naked and stays that way for a decent stretch. We also watch her masturbate in a bathtub.

The killer has a pretty lame mask. Hell, Michael Myers' was just a painted William Shatner mask they got at a joke shop, and it became iconic. The one in this movie is just a woollen ski mask.

The movie does have a decent gimmick, though, which is alluded to in the title. Yes, the killer uses a toolset to dispatch his victims, first a claw hammer, then a nailgun - which is used much more convincingly than the one in "The Nailgun Massacre", even if they forgot to tell the actress playing the victim to look scared while he uses it.

But get this: for the third victim, the killer just smothers her with his hands! Was the toolbox too heavy or something?

The protagonist seems to be a guy who looks like a third-rate Luke Skywalker clone whose 15-year-old sister is kidnapped, presumably by the killer. He doesn't appear too worried. He teams up with a guy who looks a bit like John Stamos, but less charismatic. They decide to do some snooping of their own to find the kidnapped girl, and discover a vibrator in the masturbating woman's house, as if to underline what a sex freak she was (?).

The movie then makes the regrettable decision of revealing the killer's identity to us. Some slasher movies do this, granted, but here it seemed unnecessary. We get a long, boring scene with the unmasked killer and the kidnapped girl.

He seems to talk about the masturbating woman from before. Apparently he's some kind of religious crazy who wants to punish women for doing "unnatural" things, like masturbating. How did he even know she did that?

And if the movie is just going to show us the killer's identity, what was the point of the mask, which certainly wouldn't have helped his homicidal efforts? The only people who see him get killed. Anyone else would have been immediately suspicious seeing a man with a mask running around. If not for that, probably nobody would have even noticed him.

There's also a "twist" at the end which is so out-of-nowhere that you just feel cheated. A "good" character turns evil. Why? They don't even bother giving you a shot of him making the revelation of what's supposed to be the turning point. And what a turnaround. It just feels stupid and tacked on.

Then there's a laughable text-edit ending that tells you the movie was based on a true story and what happened to the characters in real life or some such garbage. Sometimes when a movie is supposed to be "based on a true story" I actually look it up to see if that's really the case. This time, I don't think I'll bother.

I heard about this film at the start of last year and instantly became deeply intrigued by it. I was overjoyed to see it finally released on the 'VIPCO' video label (here in the UK) but, alas, this all seemed to be in vain. I guess overall it was somewhat of a bathos and failed to rouse any serious interest in me whatsoever. The acting was, at the best of times, marginal and the plot...let's say it wasn't exactly ground-breaking: At the same time though I doubt that director Dennis Donnelly (who has also worked on episodes of 'Dallas' and 'Airwolf'...if I recall from my childhood) was attempting to change the world with the tale of a deranged Ski-mask wearing killer wielding, amongst other items, nail guns and chisels. The killings portrayed are rather nasty and bloody but, as I am now aware, are slightly cut here in the UK. I doubt (sincerely) that if they were shown in their entirety it would have made any valuable difference.

Perhaps what I found most disturbing about the film itself was the general visual aspect ( - vague I find you asking yourselves). The film looks very much dated now, which for some may not be a problem but it tended to make me feel decidedly 'sickly'. By this I mean that it just reminds me far too much of photos from my childhood *shudders*...with its ghastly floral interiors and fashion sense. I guess this is just a reflection of my own personal dislike towards nostalgia and is no serious reason to comment negatively on the film.

To conclude, 'The Toolbox Murders' is a tedious and poor (sorry to be harsh) horror flick at best. At times it appears to imitate Tobe Hoopers classic 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in the sense that the film was, allegedly, based on 'real' events. It also follows a fairly congruous and typical narrative: a series of murders followed by an abduction and, inevitably, torture...only to have the attractive protagonist narrowly escape death. The fact that 'The Toolbox Murders' focuses on the notion of the 'family-gone-wrong', a la 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', or Pete Walkers 'Frightmare', for example, only seems to strengthen this argument more. The main problem: it falls flat on its face in trying to do so. I consider myself to be a die-hard horror film aficionado but this was just unfulfilling; certainly not to be mistaken as a 'cult classic'.