The Toolbox Murders

"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.

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.

Which tool will he use next and how?

Not in the toolbox, a vibrator used in a highly erotic scene

Fun.

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 starts out with 20 minutes or so of grisly and very well done kill scenes, all of which involve tools. If you like violence, then you'll love the introduction of this film. I personally don't have a preference when it comes to nudity in horror films (since it's overdone and pointless 90% of the time), but if you're a sucker for that sort of thing, then you'll appreciate the introduction to this film for that as well. After the kills are complete, however, many people will be bored by the lack of action that takes place on screen until the final moments of the movie. The middle portion of this movie is a lot of talk with little or no gore. I didn't mind this, because I found the dialog between the killer and the kidnapped girl to be very interesting. "What's it like?" the killer asks, referring to dying. The girl responds that "everything is purple, like a lollipop, and you can't see God, and there are people flying around, and you can see all of their thoughts, and you know the answers to all of their questions, but you can't answer them because nobody can talk." I enjoyed listening to this conversation, and although I'm sure I didn't get it word for word, there is something creative and maybe even worthy in here. Lots of people complain that the acting in this movie is terrible. These people cannot be horror buffs, as I have seen countless other films in which the acting is much MUCH worse. I would go as far to say that the acting in this film is very decent. If you have the attention span to sit through 'slower' moments of this film, then you'll find something to enjoy in it. I give The Toolbox Murders an 8/10.