As an aficionado of 1980's horror flicks and having a general appreciation of the, er ...let us say 'cinematic oeuvre' of Wings Hauser, I was surprised to recently discover the film title The Carpenter. Surprised in that I had no recollection of having seen this and hadn't heard of it before. Figured it'd be good for some retro/nostalgic cheesy laughs. I mean, the movie poster of a wide-eyed Hauser brandishing a bloody drill basically sealed the deal in terms of me watching it, despite the other overwhelmingly lukewarm reviews - most of which were 4 stars or less - on this site which I had read in advance of getting a copy.
Well, I will say the general reviewer consensus here wasn't inaccurate.
I suppose my not having heard of the movie has to do with it being a very low budget undertaking - reportedly made for under a million bucks - that was made in Canada, may have had a limited theatrical release back in the day but feels like something that was quickly released to cable tv and home video rentals and subsequently forgotten.
On the plus side, while I suppose The Carpenter could be generally termed a slasher flick it wasn't a completely mindless one in that it didn't copy the Heavy Breathing Masked Killer With A Pointy Weapon Chasing Horny Teens theme which had been done to death by the time the 1980's were coming to a close. There was SOME originality in terms of the plot concept and characters.
I won't go into much of a detailed plot synopsis, mostly because by way of explanation reviewing The Carpenter really doesn't require one. The basic crux is a recently institutionalized wife who suffered a nervous breakdown moves into a large house in the country purchased by her husband while she was in the looney bin. The house needs a fair number of renovations, so her husband hires a general contracting crew to fix the place up. One of the crew is Wings Hauser, whose general labor specialty is that of (you guessed it) a carpenter. An insane, homicidal carpenter. That's about all the info setup one needs to generally guess where the story is headed toward.
I will say I did find the initial plot setup of some interest. I actually thought lead actress Lynne Adams turned in a decent performance portraying the crazy wife. And Wings did not disappoint as the nutty, murderous workman.
Beyond the somewhat unique premise and the capable performances of leads actors Adams and Hauser, though, the rest of the movie didn't really get the job done even within the limited parameters of the film. Obviously, The Carpenter was an inexpensive horror flick from the get-go. Even with that said, outside of Adams and Hauser the rest of the cast turned in amateurish performances. The pacing is alternately disjointed (lots of 'is this a dream/hallucination or really happening' moments) and VERY slow moving. The Carpenter is not even quite 90 minutes long but feels much longer, which had the effect of making the conclusion a bit underwhelming in that when it finally arrives it was more of a sense of relief the movie was over than one of shock or surprise.
For whatever it is worth, I watched The Carpenter in the form of the 2025 Vinegar Syndrome bluray restored in 2K from a 35mm release print. Apparently, this version includes some extended and/or previously unreleased kill scenes taken from a lower grade workprint, easily visually distinguishable from the original release due to the slightly grainy quality of the insertions. In terms of the slasher violence content, as a fan of the genre there's really nothing particularly unique or scary in those scenes (as is true for the movie in general re: scary effectiveness). So, if one is a real diehard Wings Hauser fan who collects his movies, I suppose there is a bit of value to be had. Short of that, The Carpenter is a bit forgettable and thus very skippable.
