Harefooted Halloween: Toolbox Murders (2004)

What I Liked: Tobe Hooper can sure make a setting look and feel utterly disgusting.  He did it masterfully with the first two Texas Chainsaws and he does it again here.  The slum apartment building where the whole thing takes place is dingy enough in the areas accessible to the tenants but it’s also under partial renovation making it even more unlivable.  Plus almost nothing works, including the ability to get clean running water, the neighbors are loud and/or obnoxious, the landlord is a total scumbag who refuses to fix anything, the handyman is a weirdo who wears dirty coveralls and occupants keep disappearing.  But again, that’s only the stuff you’re meant to see.  We find out there are secret areas of the building (minor spoiler) that are filled with nasty ass nightmare shit.  Is Hooper simply copying his own aesthetic from Chainsaw?  Well, yea sure.  But damn, it looks fantastically creepy.

Angela Bettis (Bless the Child) goes all out in the lead role, Nell.  Her and her husband (Brent Roam (The Sheild)) just moved in and immediately regret it.  They’re the only sane people in the place.  Nell keeps coming across unusual stuff like she finds a small box filled with human teeth hidden in her wall.  She’s rightfully concerned but since the landlord dismisses everything she takes it upon herself to investigate.  By the end Bettis is a hysterical wreck who goes surprisingly hard for this little slasher movie.  And really most of the cast goes beyond what you would expect for a small budget horror remake (we’ll circle back to that).  Maybe Hooper knows how to get good performances out of his actors.  Or maybe they were all excited to work with a legend despite him being on the outs and having not made anything of note in at least a decade.

The killer uses a different implement for each kill.  That may not be anything new for one of these but I appreciate the effort put into raiding the toolbox and figuring out which items would be the most devastating to employ.  So hammers, saws and the like are all fair game.

(Sort of spoiler on this last item, if you’ve seen one of the posters then you already know what the villain looks like) Even though the design of the bad guy is, once again, something straight out of Texas Chainsaw, it’s still grotesque and I dig it.  He looks more like Darkman than anything else where parts of his face are obscured by a head covering and other parts of his face are missing altogether.  This seems like kind of an extensive makeup job and it pays off.

What I Didn’t Like: The majority of the side characters are pretty annoying and flat.  You’re not really supposed to like any of them that much so you don’t feel bad when they die.  Of course this is typical for a horror picture but due to the handling of the bad guy and overall plot they play a bigger role than normal so that’s unfortunate.

Speaking of the plot, I don’t exactly understand what the hell the backstory is all about.  I won’t go too into it in case you decide to check this one out but, supernatural shit is strongly hinted at and then never fully explained.  We don’t find out why the killer is murdering folks or why anything is happening at all.  It’s confusing.  This is why I mentioned the characters are more important than normal because they need to pick up the slack and they don’t.

Some of the editing goes for that Saw technique that was popular in the mid-2000s where you cut out frames to make some actions seem faster/creepier.  Also, according to Wiki the production shut down early because one of the financing companies went under so they had to make some, uh creative, editing choices.  This is most apparent during the finale where we get some very awkward transitions and then the movie abruptly ends.

Overall Impressions: To be honest I had little hope going into this piece but actually had an alright time.  It’s no lost gem or anything but I will say it’s leagues better than the original film.  Guys, I tried to watch the ’78 version (which has a “The” in front by the way so you don’t choose the wrong one) and it was utterly atrocious, like in every way.  After a half hour I quit and jumped to the remake.  From what I can tell the only real commonality is that they’re about a series of murders in an apartment complex, but otherwise they’re totally different.

Although there are a few issues this is an ok slasher.  It’s fun in the same way that Butcher Boys is where once it goes off the rails it turns into a good time.  A perverse time, but a good time nonetheless.  While not nearly as crazy as that picture you do come out a touch exhausted on the other end.  And with some tweaking, ok a fair amount of tweaking, you could turn this into a Texas Chainsaw sequel.  Based on that you’ll know if this is for you.