Tetrady not as good as all the hype

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

HumanoidOfFlesh "The Toolbox Murders" opens with a string of brutal and bloody killings at a small apartment complex in Los Angeles.An unknown assailant wearing a ski mask kills various sexually active and 'lewd' women.The nude murder scene of Marianne Walter with a nail-gun is the most noteworthy and has to be seen to be believed.Unfortunately after four gory and misogynistic murders the film becomes pretty tiresome kidnap/captivity/detective psychodrama.Come on!The first half of "The Toolbox Murders" blew my mind with its sleaze and unflinching violence.The climax is also disappointing and abrupt.The acting is good with excellent central performance of Cameron Mitchell as the Toolbox Slasher.Overall,"The Toolbox Murders" is a solid exploitation sickie.A must-see for fans of "Maniac","Don't Go in the House" or "Born for Hell".8 out of 10.

InjunNose For me, watching "The Toolbox Murders" is a maddening experience. How can you *not* be vexed by a film that gets off to a solid (if unspectacular) start, approaches brilliance, fizzles into dullness, tepidly attempts to redeem itself, and finally screeches to a halt in laughably awful fashion? I like the fact that director Dennis Donnelly employs a nontraditional storytelling formula (at least for the horror film) here; it makes "The Toolbox Murders" oddly compelling, if not consistently interesting. I also like the setting: there's something about the slightly run-down apartment complex that makes the lives of the victims seem so sordid and hopeless. The horror to which the viewer is subjected in this movie is distinctly American--it is the horror of a nation that saw the '60s come to a grisly end with the rampages of the Zodiac Killer and the Manson Family, a nation struggling with the hangover from the previous decade that Son of Sam represents. This ghastly emptiness is underscored in the film's one near-great moment, when Cameron Mitchell kills adult film star Kelly Nichols with a nail gun. I don't think I've ever heard a song used to such potent and fascinating effect in a film as George Deaton's 'Pretty Lady' in this scene. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. The movie shifts from the deadly seriousness of the murders and Pamelyn Ferdin's abduction to Nicolas Beauvy and Wesley Eure awkwardly exploring the apartments where the killings occurred, and this portion of the film bears more resemblance to an episode of "ABC Afterschool Specials" than anything else (which I'm sure was not Donnelly's intention). There's a slight improvement when Mitchell delivers a lengthy monologue to the bound and gagged Ferdin, but the material isn't written well enough to impart any truly special quality to the scene; it passes muster only because Mitchell handles his lines so deftly. The bottom drops out of the film altogether during its final ten or fifteen minutes, when things cease to make any sense. Why is Eure's character as crazy as his uncle (Mitchell)? Is it something genetic, or is the viewer just supposed to assume that the death of Mitchell's young daughter--Eure's cousin and secret lover--drove them *both* off the deep end? And why does Eure set Beauvy on fire, citing his responsibility to protect his uncle, only to taunt and kill Mitchell just minutes later? What was probably intended to frighten the audience ("Look, the whole family's insaaaaane!!!") and make them wince in shocked disbelief is an abysmal failure. If you're in a good mood, you'll snicker at the ridiculous conclusion. If not, you'll wonder bitterly why the director and screenwriters botched a film that had such potential. The considerable strength of "The Toolbox Murders" lies in its early scenes; after that, it really becomes a different movie, and not a particularly good one. But every horror aficionado should see it, if for no other reason than to be convinced that a graphic murder scene involving a nude woman can be handled tastefully, and with depth. The stark opening and closing theme (synthesizer overlaid with piano and strings) is very effective, too.

happyendingrocks This sick little number has all the poise and artistic elegance of a porno flick, but some truly shocking and memorable sequences and the haunting image that ends this film leave the viewer feeling genuinely disturbed and unnerved, making The Toolbox Murders a movie that ultimately presents its uncompromising vision adeptly.The film is flawed on many fronts, and at times tedious, so this certainly isn't a candidate for the "classic" category. The titular killings all take place within the first half-hour, and after that the pace slows to a crawling bore that The Toolbox Murders almost doesn't recover from.Far too much time is spent on an ultimately pointless police investigation subplot, which does nothing to augment the horror of the admittedly ghastly crimes. Only those familiar with the Hershell Gordon Lewis cult classic Blood Feast will recall ever seeing police officers as inept and clueless as the ones tracking the madman here, who aren't shy about letting potential witnesses walk all over their crime scene, and insist on questioning them while they stand over the brutally maimed corpses of the victims. When the main detective treats one of the film's attempted heroes like a jackass for suggesting that the fact there isn't any forced entry into the murder sites could suggest that the victims knew their killer, we quickly suspect that this is one case that won't be solved by tireless police work.The film resolves its whodunnit two-thirds into the running time, so any suspense in this caper is dissipated far too early. While there is a meager attempt at a twist afterwards, only the well-crafted denouement saves the movie from falling flat at the finish. I'm fairly certain that the film's "based on true events" allegation is a bogus ploy, but the where-are-they-now update at the end is a nifty way to conclude the tale, especially since it runs with the film's eerie final image in the background. The centerpiece of the film is of course the toolbox murders themselves, which are indeed gruesome and gory bits of mayhem. The splatter on display here is unflinching and definitely graphic enough to appease gore-hounds, but the film spends itself too quickly, packing in all of the killings into such a rapid succession that they blur together a bit and desensitize the viewer to the point that the bloodshed ceases being shocking. Had the film-makers drawn the mystery of the murders out more, and spaced them out throughout the film, these scenes could have had much more impact, and when we finally learn the diabolical motives of the killer, the killings themselves become essentially pointless. Although, it should be pointed out that the madman's (madmens'?) true intentions are suitably creepy and horrifying even without the killing spree that precedes them.Some of the film's successes are happy accidents, such as the drab colors and unattractive surroundings the events occur in. Of course, this is more a reflection of the interior decorating trends of the late '70s than a conscious effort by the film-makers to set these ugly deeds in ugly places, but the tone of the film is certainly enhanced by the bleak atmosphere.The music is uniformly great, as well, with both the score and the augmentation of one murder scene with a song called "Pretty Lady" setting a chilling tone for the more heinous segments of the film.While the film is assuredly far too grim and humorless to make this a standard dose of escapist slasher fare, one scene perhaps goes too far and momentarily veers the film into unsavory territory. I've always been unsettled by certain modes of juxtaposing sex with violence that turn up in horror films from time to time. The most blatant example I can think of is of course I Spit On Your Grave, which unabashedly tries to arouse the viewer with horrendously violent carnal images, and we've also seen a great deal of this irresponsible overlapping during the torture porn boom that characterized far too many of the genre offerings of the early 21st century. An extended bathtub masturbation scene in The Toolbox Murders, which shows an attractive actress pleasuring herself with the same thoroughness that the bloodshed in the film is rendered with, is clearly meant to sexually excite the viewer. But when the money shot of this soft-core fantasy is the woman's prolonged and nearly torturous dispatch via nail-gun, there is an uncomfortable ambiguity of intent on the part of the film-makers. Thankfully, the bulk of the film isn't nearly as misogynistic, and the affair as a whole is certainly more manageable as a result.Despite its iffy pace and unpleasant elements, the better aspects of The Toolbox Murders offer it some merited points of interest for discerning horror fans. You probably won't want to visit this blood-soaked apartment complex often, but the film is certainly worth a look.

fritz_fraugman Take a 70s primetime television director with aspirations to milk off the successes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a gorier sleazier misogynistic exploitation piece of his own. Add b-movie legend Cameron Mitchell and Welsey Eure (Will Marshall of Saturday morning's Land of The Lost fame) and Pamelyn Ferdin with very realistically disturbing on screen murders involving hand- and powertools, a sexy steaming hot bathtub scene involving female masturbation (featuring future porn queen Kelly Nichols in her debut role under the name Marianne Walter) that leads into one of the most pleasing murder set pieces ever, and for icing one whacky twist that introduces another yet whackier twist. Yeah, it doesn't feature wall to wall gore and the 7 minute body count like later films such as Maniac and Friday The 13th and the ensuing arrival of the notorious slasher in the early 1980s and the toolbox murderer takes no more female victims after the first half hour but this vintage exploitation sleaze left a wonderful taste to my palate. I loved it. SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! Before the final credits when Pamelyn Ferdin is walking like a zombie in a blood drenched dress armed with the scissors in the early dawn across the strip mall parking lot I couldn't resist a sigh and a smile.SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER!