Sorry, this movie sucks

As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I watched the horror film, The Toolbox Murders the other night and i found it to be not to bad a film. It is about a man lunatic runs around an apartment complex, While he is there, the lunatic tries to kill all the tenants with the contents of a toolbox that he has with him. all of the people that he seems to pick on are women which he violently attacks. This film looked like it was done on a small budget, It was originally one of the 'Video Nasties' that was banned in 1982. I found this to be quite a good horror film by the end. I thought the film was quite disturbing at times, all thought it looks very dated by today's horror films 4/10

The stars of this film are Cameron Mitchell (232 performances in film), Pamelyn Ferdin (71 roles, including The Beguiled), Wesley Eure, and Kent Kingsley.But, the real star of this mystery is Marianne Walter, who started her film career in the King Kong remake. You thought you were seeing Jessica Lange's breast's didn't you? No, they were Marianne's, and she really puts them on display here in her first film role. She gets nailed by the slasher after a long masturbation scene in the bathtub. Someone must have noticed her talent, as she changed her name to Kelly Nichols, and made 84 more films, most of them rated X.This movie has some gruesome murders using tools, but it is not overly bloody. The real interest, aside from Marianne, is who the slasher is, and the reason for the murders, and how it ends. It has some real interesting twists and is made all the more interesting by the fact that is it supposedly based on a true story.You will feel a little guilty watching this misogynistic trash, but it is cinematic history as this is one of the 74 video nasties banned in Britain. It was released with 1 minute and 46 seconds cut in 2000.

Sick puppy from director Dennis Donnelly concerning how the car wreck demise of a young woman named Kathy causes her father and cousin to commit unspeakable acts towards innocent human beings. The father, Vance(Cameron Mitchell)is a simply deranged owner of the apartment complex for which he murders a set of beautiful tenants who represent "sinners" needed ridding of so that the world could be a better place. Laurie(Pamelyn Ferdin)shares an apartment with her mother, Jo Ann(Aneta Corsaut) and brother, Joey(Nicolas Beauvy)and Vance kidnaps her, holding the poor girl captive in his suburban home, commissioning his nephew Kent(Wesley Eure, of "Land of the Lost" fame!)to clean up his bloody messes! The police are baffled at the murders wondering just how the killer could operate so freely in dispatching them, moving within their rooms with only one forced entry. Joey, motivated by his sister's disappearance, opts to work as an amateur sleuth as he sees that Detective Jamison(Tim Donnelly)and the police have little to go on. Thanks to Kent, who seems to know more than he lets on(..while also displaying strange behavior when Joey speaks about the acts of violence and his calm demeanor around the crime scenes of the victims' rooms he's about to clean up), Joey suspects Vance once entering the sicko uncle's garage, finding the infamous toolbox, containing the devices used on those women during the nightly murder spree. But, Joey will not suspect someone else..Kent's not exactly operating with a full deck, either! We watch as frightened, and subdued, Laurie, tied to a bed frame, attempts futilely to coerce Vance into letting her go as he drifts into his own fantasies even believing she is his daughter incarnate. Kent, also, finds himself lost to the memories of Kathy, a kissing cousin with a history he is all too willing to share with good ole Uncle Vance, with shocking results.The film doesn't really create an air of mystery as to who committed the grisly, bloody murders at the beginning of the movie, and the reasons for doing so. The director opens inside the front seat showing gloved hands driving a car past the location of where a woman died as a result of a car crash. We then are *treated* to a series of murders(..perhaps not as notorious because of how the director pulls away the camera before the weapons really do their damage, but still repulsive acts of violence) with an assortment of weapons raging from a spinning drill driven into the back of an alcoholic who knows him and is surprised at his antics, a hammer slammed into the back of a victim's head after knocking her unconscious, a screwdriver stabbed into the stomach of a victim who stumbles upon the killer before he could leave, and a nail gun to the head of a model after her lengthly bath tub masturbation sequence. Unlike a lot of giallo thrillers and slashers(..which would follow a similar model as this film), the investigation of the murders is the weakest aspect of the film. The director instead, after bludgeoning the viewer with that wallop of a crime spree, decides to take us into the insanity of Vance, with actor Mitchell, a veteran from the old school Hollywood working in films like this for the money because of problems in his life, sucking a lollipop the first time we see him bringing din-din to Laurie. Mitchell just lets it hang out as the wacko holding so tight to the memory of his little girl and going on and on about the wicked sinners of the world with how he must cut them out like the Bible says. Eure, with those pretty boy looks and squeaky-clean image actually surprised me because he was such an innocent teenage idol on the LotL show. I could see how Joey would be startled at the true maniac that lies behind what appears to be just an ordinary young man looking for some extra dough handed out by Uncle Vance. Beauvy as Joey didn't really impress me, he's merely a plot device who makes a grave discovery whose fate is particularly memorable. Ferdin is a virginal sweetheart mostly tied to the bed hurting from the tightened bondage and worried for her life, a fawn trapped in the madness of a crazed predator(s). What I found most effective was the use of country music playing as Vance murders his victims, and the way the killer carries out his acts so cold-bloodedly, with calculated precision. This will certainly be unpleasant for the weak-hearted and easily offended.

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/