The Toolbox Murders

The Toolbox Murders is a movie that shockingly is based on real life events. Naturally the real life events are turned into a series of grizzly, shocking crimes, designed to shock in this video nasty. You can understand why it was banned for so long, although it may seem somewhat tame by today's standards. I say the film is awful, that's perhaps a little unfair, but, the acting is certainly atrocious, the direction is shocking, and the pacing is poor. You get twenty minutes of brutal killings, it's a gore fest, then a bore fest. Once you survive the first twenty minutes, you get a dialogue heavy middle and conclusion. Why oh why did the victims have to behave in that odd way, the typical seventies victims. Plenty of nudity, at times it felt more like a soft porno then a horror, it does nothing to enhance the film, I'm sure it was done purely to get audiences.

So I've slated it, but I couldn't switch it off for some strange reason, I had to stick with it, the conclusion is pretty shocking, but satisfying in a way.

Not one I'll repeat watch, but I'm glad I've finally seen it. 5/10

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.

This was a film that my girlfriend and I rented because it said on the box that it had been "banned for 14 years", or somesuch sensationalist tag. We expected, rather naively, a powerful, shocking attack on society a la Texas Chain Saw Massacre. What we had was some bloke in an unfrightening woolly hat going around and, yep, you guessed it, killing people with a variety of tools. Of these, the initial murder with a drill is the most unpleasant. As the film goes on, however, it clutches at straws, ultimately having to resort to that oh-so-scary object of carpentry, the chisel.

Unfortunately, entirely pointless deaths only account for about half the film. Where it really goes wrong is when it begins to justify these with some bizarre "taking revenge on the evils of society" explanation delivered by the one character we were really certain WASN'T the killer, by virtue of his being such an obvious candidate.

But for all its faults (and there are many), The Toolbox Murders remains compulsively watchable. This is because its hack dialogue and direction are so unbelievably bad that the viewer is left wondering just what god-awful impersonation of dialogue or technique is going to crop up next. Whole chunks of background information go effectively unexplained, phrases are repeated by characters unnecessarily, and one scene goes on so damn long you can't help thinking it might be a deliberate Chain Saw Massacre-style experiment on the viewer's nerves. But no, it just goes on too long.

Two-out-of-ten stuff, then - but one way or another, you won't hit the stop button before the end.

"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.

Which tool will he use next and how?

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

Fun.