Toolbox Murders 2: Coffin Baby

For the last 10 years or so, there has been an emergence of films that fall under the "Rob Zombie" brand of movie-making, brazenly dedicating themselves not to story, plot, effective special effects or even shock, but instead focus themselves on a simple depraved formula: blood, pain, gore and torture.

There is really precious little that this film offers besides blood, pain, gore and torture. For the first half of the film, it barely even offers that! The acting is hamfisted at best, the filming is barely above amateur. Something vaguely resembling a plot is inserted at various parts of the film, but is so poorly conceived that it is hard if not impossible to follow. And if I could follow it, it's so idiotic that I wouldn't want to believe that any movie maker would be so simpleminded as to think that this would make a good film.

The makers of "Coffin Baby" make the mistake that ALL of the makers of these types of films make: they fall in love with their villain. He's so scary and evil, faceless and effective, completely psychotic with just a hint of intelligence. The Devil's own precious baby boy. He'll scare people! And so that is what the movie is about, the villain.

The only problem is that this particular sort of villain has been used time and time and time and time and time(x700 million) again. It's not original, and has never made a good movie. If the villain is not interesting, then the movie fails to be interesting. And guess what! This villain is a thirty-and-a-half foot drop below interesting.

I was bored throughout.

Horror sequels or sudden additions nobody asked for usually don't go so well- especially if the base film is something not many would consider memorable. But when you combine this with zero story, zero reasoning, we get a movie like this that feels like and makes us feel zero care.

Usually these gore-hound or torture porn films don't feature much in the realm of story or plot, but take that a step further and you've got this film, where zero things that usually would matter exist. Character development, establishing scenes, information? Nope. We get thrown into this .. ordeal from the jump, and the movie wastes no time with throwing us into plenty of other pointless things too. When you reach midway, toward the end, it becomes known 1000% the ideas, care.. or writing is gone. This film has no payoff, nothing new to offer, other than some brain cells lost, or the new sense of confusion, growing with every new minute you waste in this. Some small bit of substance could've made a difference, even by a small bit, that is, if any effort was put toward that.

If you came for mindless gore or flat out action, there's some effort toward each, and that's about the only credit I could find for the two stars given in the score. Even with this being said, the gore and effects truly were not the best, as it lacked and even seemed a bit subpar, feeling more like random excuses for filler or random scenes and occurrences just because. Tension proves low, with the exception of a time or two actually managing to capture attention involving a feeling other than confusion.

As mentioned prior, around the mid to end of this film, all hope was lost. The film takes a strange and completely out of place turn with religion, and you read that correctly; the ending, sudden and jarring introductions and everything you see before your eyes, to me, felt rushed, forced and even more confusing than the rest of this film and the random occurrences that led, creating a tedious new flow.

If you want to watch a sequel that sustains absolutely nothing new, really interesting or exciting, while throwing different bloody scenes at your face with zero context or plot, this will easily do it for you! But if you're wanting NOT to waste your time, watch another gorehound flick, it won't be much different. But it'll surely be better than this Hollywood deep web home-video.

Hmmm, where to start and end with this one. I'm not anti horror I enjoy horror but this one apart from being incredibly lame storyline wise seems to be an excuse for the special effects department to offer their splattering s to us the audience in blooded bucketful's. What kind of brain thinks up this sick nonsense? Seriously it really concerns me that this sort of film is even made. Trouble is making comments like this only tends to fuel the fascination, ergo adding appeal to the curious and perhaps not so balanced minded person. However, I did sit through this messy production in all senses of the word. If you like wading through an intestinal and cannibalistic horror movie I guess this will be right up your street. Pity that such a good director was involved in this mess.

Toolbox Murders 2 (2013)

What passes for the film's plot is simple on the page but convoluted and messy on screen where it makes no real sense at all. For the most part the film concentrates on one poor young woman's horrific plight as she is caged in a serial killer's gloomy abode. There are flashbacks and supernatural elements none of which seem to make much sense and just add to confusing what should have been a straight forward exercise in exploitation. Rather than make a pig's ear of trying to explain things I'll hand over to the film's writer and director Dean C Jones who details the plot as below.

Hollywood, California is turned upside down by a series of strange and horrific murders creating chaos and turmoil in tinsel town. One particular victim, Samantha Forester (Chauntal Lewis), is kidnapped, held captive and subjected to witness the torture and murder of numerous other victims. It is by her will, strength, and faith that she must survive the ordeal. Her escape seems hopeless and only worsens when outside supernatural forces become more difficult to contend with than her captor.

This alleges to be a sequel to Tobe Hooper's reasonable 2004 remake of the 1978 cult favourite The Toolbox Murders bringing back that film's killer Coffin Baby for another stab at a franchise. Quite how two-time Academy Award nominee Bruce Dern (as Vance Henrickson) was convinced to star in this muddle will remain a mystery although to be fair, and possibly to Dern's relief, he's barely in it five minutes. The same applies to the film's other recognisable face Brian Krause, starring as Detective Chad Cole, who appears and disappears quickly from proceedings.

Originally shot back in 2011 Toolbox Murders 2 had additional footage added by the director, unbeknownst to the studio, following a poor festival reception and was retitled called Coffin Baby. This was independently released in 2013. Due to legal issues it is only now that the film can be released as Toolbox Murders 2 and here it is. From the Se7en style opening credits (it's like twenty years now since that film opened and people are STILL imitating it, enough already) through to its nonsensical ending Toolbox Murders 2 is more of an ordeal for the viewer than it is for the leading lady. So much about this film irks, rather than entertains, its audience from huge gaps in logic - how come not one cop sees Samantha taken from the police car - to how clean Samantha remains in such a hell-hole given the period of time she is incarcerated.

I was also rather perplexed by how it is not one person has ever spotted where our serial killer lurks and works. It's not like the building he takes his victims to be off the beaten track; in fact it looks rather localised. Perhaps our killer needs to be near the local amenities; after all he does need to pick up a nice bottle of wine and cooking condiments to add to the taste of his victims. It would also explain where he managed to find such a lovely fresh flower to offer to Samantha as the only nice gift he thinks to give her.

Toolbox Murders 2 feels thrown together rather than edited with any sense or meaning. The acting is miserable and the film is ultimately pointless. Gore-hounds will get off on the decently handled make-up effects - a victim sawn in half is a particular highlight - but otherwise this is a resounding dud. You'll get more satisfaction out of watching a clock tick away for an hour and a half than you will from watching this and I rather wish I had.

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Ok, I enjoy a well made horror film but I am not above an all out gore fest now and again. This film is not a great example of a horror film. Most of the acting was sub par the two well known stars had barely more than cameos. The star of this film is American Makeup And FX they provided the SFX which were abundant and well done, mostly. Yes, we have seen this plot bled to death ( pardon the pun ) and the characters were, well, not very likable. It was enjoyable to watch each of them get jacked up. Enjoy this film for what it is, a gore fest.