The Toolbox Murders (1978)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

In a small apartment complex that contains an alarming amount of beautiful women living on their own, a masked killer stalks carrying a toolbox full of weapons. Women are butchered with a hammer, a nail-gun, and a power-drill in a short period of time, and Detective Jamison (Tim Donnelly) is assigned to investigate. The killer, Vance (Cameron Mitchell), also kidnaps Laurie Ballard (Pamelyn Ferdin), a 15 year-old girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to his dead teenage daughter. With the inept Jamison refusing to believe it's kidnapping, Laurie's brother Joey (Nicolas Beauvy) starts to investigate the disappearance along with Vance's nephew Kent (Wesley Eure).Traditional gore-hounds tend to turn their noses up at this movie, as after the extremely bloody opening half an hour, the film grinds to a halt and spends time developing it's somewhat tedious plot and characters. But the opening murders are very well done, with Donnelly taking time to develop the set-pieces, and they're usually played out with crooning music in the background that works well as a contradiction to the bloodshed. The killer isn't an unseen madman that seems to have supernatural powers of movement which is usually the norm in slasher flicks, but he is clumsy and awkward, bumbling his way around the room with a lop-sided ski mask, which makes him all the more real.Another plus point is the performance of Cameron Mitchell. Like so many veterans of 1950's and 60's Hollywood, Mitchell ventured into European horror and TV in the 70's and 80's, as his old-fashioned style of acting didn't suit mainstream Hollywood, yet added the required gravitas to many a low-budget horror. His obsession with Laurie forms the most interesting aspect about the film, but it is criminally underdeveloped, and is resigned to just one extended scene. It spends far too much time focusing on the rather crap detective skills of her brother Joey, and his homoerotic relationship with Kent. I'm all for a horror film to slow down and take time to develop its characters, but they're executed with such an alarming blandness that the film becomes simply boring. But the film is well worth a look for a strong opening and Mitchell's performance, if not for just sight of the red-headed victim, who is one of the most stunning victims I've ever seen in horror (long live misogyny!).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Cam the Man Mitchell lives in this apartment building with a lot of young types. The majority of them are single, and very randy women. And most of them seem to be flight attendants. Perpetuating a stereotype here it seems.Cam ain't happy with the looseness of said ladies so he slowly (and I do mean slowly) invades their space and kills them. The title gives away the implements used so I would not be remiss mentioning the drill and nail-gun scenes. And I go anyone in the room double or nothing the producers of 'Nail Gun Massacre' got their idea here.Some of the actresses were porno vets either trying to do 'legit' films or hired due to their willingness to show it all and touch same. The lass killed by the aforementioned nail gun was masturbating in the bath at the time.Cam covers himself with a ski mask which makes his appearance almost trite these days. But while there were enough scares to make this decent....it did move a bit to slow and got repetitious by the third act. For Cam Mitchell and slasher prototype fans only.

The Toolbox Murders (1978)** (out of 4) Notorious horror film has a couple young men trying to solve a grisly series of murders that have happened at the same apartment complex. A group of women were murdered by tools found in a toolbox so the men try to find out the person doing the crimes.THE TOOLBOX MURDERS was a surprise hit when it was released. It got praise from Stephen King who called it one of the scariest movies ever made. It also gained a bit of notoriety because of its violence towards women. This was still a few years before Friday THE 13TH but there's no question this film became a cult item and it remains that after all of these years. To me, this film should have been one of the greatest exploitation films ever made but a strange switch in its direction prevented that but more on that a bit later.What makes the film so memorable is the first thirty-minutes where we get a really bizarre Texas atmosphere mixed in with some graphic death scenes. What I enjoyed most about the film was the look of the killer. The killer is dressed in black just like you'd see in a giallo but then there's the ski mask, which gives him a very creepy look. I really thought the direction early on was terrific and especially how we would slowly see the killer standing among his victims. The death scenes are graphic at times with the most famous one being the bathtub/masturbation sequence with Kelly Nichols, which certainly packs a strange punch.What really kills the film is that it switches to a mystery/detective film and it falls apart. Everything in the final hour is just boring and contains way too many boring dialogue scenes. It's really too bad that the creepiness of the start wasn't continued throughout the rest of the picture. We do get Cameron Mitchell delivering a fairly weird performance but I'm sure this job was mainly just a paycheck.THE TOOLBOX MURDERS isn't a masterpiece and it's not the worthless piece of trash some call it. The film starts off so well that you can't help but be really disappointed towards the end.

This is by no means a classic genre movie but for a low budget independent '70's horror movie it also certainly is one fine watchable movie.Biggest problem with this movie is that there is no main character. Basically for the first third of the movie you only see different murders occur. You just keep waiting for the movie to introduce its main 'hero'. Some times character's roles become bigger in the movie and you expect the rest of the movie to be focused entirely around them but every time then the movie cuts away again and takes a whole other direction with its story and characters. So not really the most consistent movie around.It's an '70's movie, so the movie uses lots of unusual experimental editing. It's fine looking but yet it doesn't all quite work out well enough. The movie uses the proper right required horror build up for its sequences but yet when it comes down to its most important part; the scare moments, the movie falls short. The movie just never knows to become truly tense and perhaps you can even call the movie a bit boring in parts. This is also due to some of the pacing problems of the movie. The fact that we get to know who the killer is pretty early on in the movie (the hairy arms gave it away) also takes away a lot of the tension and mystery atmosphere of the movie.Even though the movie gets gory in parts, I mean the murders are being committed with the contents of a toolbox, how can it not be gory but it's just never really shocking.Still fans of this sub-genre will probably most likely still enjoy and appreciate this movie.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/