The Carpenter

"The Carpenter" is not likely to win many fans from the guts and gore crowd. The carpentry tool killings are so over the top, that they are only going to hold interest for admirers of "black comedy". Throw in at least average acting, a story with some originality for a change, and of course a deranged Wings Hauser. Since my girlfriend didn't leave the room and kept watching, even after arms were being cut off with a circular saw, I can confirm a certain romantic angle that I didn't see coming. Without the presence of Wings, this is completely forgettable. Wings fans will not be disappointed. In good conscience I cannot recommend this as a date movie, but I do recommend "The Carpenter" as a good dark comedy. - MERK

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.

Wouldn't it be so much cooler if John Carpenter had directed this movie? Then the box of the VHS could loudly announce "John Carpenter's … The Carpenter"! And also, it probably would have been a much better film if John directed it… "The Carpenter" is a rather weak and laughable 80's slasher movie that desperately tries to add in some deeper psychological themes, but fails. It centers on a beautiful, thirty-something housewife that just got released from a period in a mental institution because she cut up her husband's business suits for no apparent reason. They move into a new countryside house that still needs a lot of renovation and Alice stays indoors whilst her husband cheats on her with a hot blond chick. Meanwhile Alice falls in love with the reincarnation of carpenter Ed (portrayed by 80's stud Wings Hauser). Ed is an old-fashioned workaholic who died in the electric chair 40 years earlier after he went a little berserk and killed some people that didn't allow him to finish his work. Together, Alice and Ed butcher a couple of lazy handymen and talk about dancing. How adorable! It's a pretty ridiculous film overall, with too much talking and only a couple of demented murder scenes to make up for it. The killings are similar to the ones in the 'video-nasty' cult classic "The Toolbox Murders" (a nail gun, a bench vice…) but not nearly as gross or memorable. I always thought Wings Hauser is a bit of an idiot and didn't really like him in this role, neither. His tedious speeches about how "handy-work is holy" are implausible and not exactly terrifying. The climax is just plain retarded.

THE CARPENTER is one of those forgettable direct-to-video films made in the 1980s that was filmed in Canada (probably financed by a Canadian cable network). There's almost nothing memorable about it. Bland cast and acting. Bland story. Bland music. Bland horror. Bland everything. The dull story doesn't fit any known horror category: is it supernatural? slasher? psychological horror? Probably but it's so shallow that calling it a psychological horror is too generous.

So this carpenter (a ghost?) kills all the people that annoy a mentally disturbed woman, who, during the beginning of the film, experienced a nervous breakdown (no reason is given for her breakdown). The film almost works on a feminist level: most of the victims are men and the nonsensical dialogue Wings Hauser spouts throughout the film sounds like feminism 101. But calling this boring horror a feminist statement would be an insult to feminism, whether if one agrees with feminism or not.

Anyway, too many words for a crappy film. There's almost nothing memorable about this film except for one scene: the woman is having a blissful dream with the carpenter. They're both dressed in white and dance cheek to cheek to music when the carpenter, at one point, unzips himself and the woman screams in horror at what she sees off-screen: we hear the sound of a drill. The carpenter has a drill for a penis. Totally ludicrous scene which made me laugh out loud. Had THE CARPENTER had more scenes like this, it would have been much more entertaining.

The Carpenter would not appear to be a very well liked film, and it's really not difficult to see why. It seems that certain occupations lend themselves to horror; while dentistry, for example, has obvious horror themes that can spring from it, all carpentry has is the idea of someone murdering people with his tools, this idea has been used many times before and generally isn't all that interesting anyway. The fact that the plot here focuses on a dead carpenter who has come back for revenge doesn't really help since that idea is also massively overused. The plot is also rather boring in the way it plays out. However, I do have to say, in spite of all that I've already said, that The Carpenter isn't a film without any merits at all. Wings Hauser is good in the title role, and the scenes that see him taking some revenge on various people that he doesn't like are generally quite well done. The way he yacks on about 'the working man' etc can be a little dreary, but the delivery is good and Hauser makes for an effective villain. Overall, however, I have to say that The Carpenter is not a great film and there's not enough about it for me to recommend it.