The Toolbox Murders

Well I gotta admit, the first time I saw the trailer for The Toolbox Murders and that hoarse-voiced guy that kinda reminded me of Grandma – God rest her chain-smoking soul – said “this man is about to commit the most atrocious crimes in American history!” I kinda shrieked “Sweet baby Jesus, he’s gonna pimp his Ford!”, but no, it’s just Cameron Mitchell paying the bills for his latest facelift by walking from apartment to apartment hacking up the female tenants with various power tools. We’re talking some claw hammers, screwdrivers, drills, nail guns – pretty much everything except them chainsaws. But for a second there I thought we were gonna get hella nasty folks!

Anyway, this thing takes place in Los Angeles – where men are weird and the women frustrated – and Cameron stars as the super of an apartment complex where there sure lives a lot of dubious ladies doing all sorts of dubious things to themselves in the privacy of their own home. He knows this for a fact because uh, he’s been checking it out at night for the sake of their own good if you know what I mean. Now, his much-beloved daughter recently did herself in in an automobile accident and it kinda made this poor man’s Babtist mind go “Well, I’m talking a walk out into them woods people and am not too sure when and if I’m coming back, but I might send a card later, okay?” And soon he starts dressing in the most god-awful Hawaiian shirts, humming on weird Top 40 songs and putting the Fear of God into them loose women using all sorts of appliances.

First up is this kinda alcoholic woman that likes to get hammered at night while listening to 70s country music – hey, we’ve all been there right? Her death is quickly followed by two women that do get hammered and drilled and I gotta admit I was about to make a tasteless joke about that, but I recently received this brochure stressing the importance of keeping it clean and let’s just say it got through to me. Anyway, three kills in one night – Cameron’s pretty satisfied with his work (as was I before that dang brochure was handed to me). The cops show up soon enough going through the standard procedure of kicking-the-corpse-making-sure-it’s-dead and checking the mail boxes to see if the killer might be hiding in there – to no avail. The neighbors got no clues to offer of course and kinda claims that the hollering and bloodcurdling screams death-by-power-drill usually generates made ’em think it was just some Barbara Streisand special airing on TV or something. A couple of nights later this hella nasty girl – played by original nasty girl Kelly Nichols – gets interrupted when she’s in the bathtub making sure her parts are clean if you know what I mean (and I gotta admit I kinda reacted like she did and shouted “C’mon let her finish her work dammit! This is important for the overall story!”). Old Cameron – wearing a ski-mask to increase visual impact I guess – is branding one of them rusty old nail guns and soon poor Kelly is running ’round naked and hollering with her arms flailing like she tried them Vietnamese Insanity Mushrooms or something.

Anyway, with her dead Cameron accidentally stumbles across virginal Laurie (excellently portrayed by Pamelyn Ferdin) on his way out and she must’ve reminded that old psycho about his daughter because he kinda looks like a Girl Scout caught in the headlights of a dump truck when he sees her and soon he’s whacked her on the head, thrown her into the trunk and taken her home. Tying her up in the dead girl’s bedroom he actually believes it is his daughter that has returned from the afterlife so he kinda blubbers all over her while serving cookies and milk – when he’s not too busy scaring the bejeebers out of her by acting like a crazy person that is. The cops again can’t really offer much help. About a zillion dollars worth of fancy spy satellite equipment only led to the conclusion that the killer-slash-kidnapper apparently isn’t hiding on a roof so they’re up for suggestions. Now, Laurie’s brother ain’t too impressed with their work – especially after they kinda implied that he might be the killer – so he starts doing a bit of sleuthing on his own. And soon enough he’s onto Cameron’s trail, but with Cameron’s unabrow nephew tagging along to help out (and apparently that kid’s got some weird issues with the dead cousin himself – we’re talking the Deliverance kind if you know what I mean) things might not turn out the way he expected…

Released in 1978 this lil’ beast actually managed to hold the top position of most popular video rental in the trades for some time – thanks to a lot of good Christians and politicians telling people that they were pretty much going to hell if they saw it, including Donahue who aired the highlights of it on his show to let everybody know what they’re were missing out on – and it also received some sort of award in the United Kingdom claiming it was what they call a “Video Nasty” (they were right), but I’m not too sure if that means director Dennis Donelly went there to receive some sort of award or they just sent him a plaque or something. Written by a total of three screen writers – so you know it’s gotta be good – it was actually deemed mysogynist by some feminist groups, kinda odd considering two of said writers were women.
Available on VHS.
Check it out.