Rating:

From time to time, there is a particular scene captured on film that transcends the movie in which it appears and becomes a part of our cultural consciousness, forever etched into the soft, spongy brain of the nation. Rick telling Ilsa that the lives of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans. Dorothy learning that if her heart’s desire isn’t in her own back yard she never really lost it to begin with. Taylor banging his fists and screaming upon seeing what’s become of the Statue of Liberty. And now, some creepy janitor getting his head sliced in half across the eye line with an electric saw and then having the top of his head plucked off.

Yes, the glorious moment I’ve just described does exist and it can be found in Toolbox Murders, the 2004 name-only remake of a beloved, memorable and stupid “Video Nasty” from 1978. Unfortunately, as wonderful as that particular incident is, it’s really the only thing one can take away from this movie. That’s not to say this movie is terrible, but rather that it stands as nothing so much as a monument to enormous potential that goes unrealized. With that title and with Tobe “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” Hooper at the helm, the viewer immediately expects this to be a delightful throwback to the unapologetic slasher films of a bygone era. And clearly, that’s what the movie wants to be, it just never quite manages to get there.

Tobe Hooper has directed other movies since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, of course; some were good and others were not. However, the style and subject of Toolbox Murders are inevitably going to draw comparisons to that movie and that movie alone, so Hooper seems to have embraced that idea. In the wake of the flashier Hollywood remake, we may have forgotten that what made the original TCM work wasn’t so much the individual scares as the overall atmosphere of oppressive creepiness. Just such an atmosphere is created here, with everything about the apartment complex in which our characters live seeming off kilter and spooky. While you’re not ever really afraid that a killer might get you, you know that you, like the characters, would definitely be afraid to live in that building even if there were no killer at all, and that adds to the tension.

And what about those characters? To be honest, it isn’t really fair to call the people that populate this movie “characters;” in essence, what you have are just an assemblage of paper dolls who are either Victims or Red Herrings. And thank god for that! This is trying to be like the slasher films of old, remember? The audience doesn’t want to learn about people. The only thing we want to know about their inner workings is what those innards look like when spilled onto the ground. That’s why it’s called a slasher movie and not a slashee movie; we’re rooting for the bad guy because we want to see outrageous bloodshed.

Unfortunately, the movie skimps a little on the bloodshed. Outrageous killings? Sure. But there simply wasn’t enough gore–or even a high enough body count–to satisfy my unquenchable thirst for blood. (Believe it or not, the original TCM was relatively free of gore as well, although it worked in spite of that.) We were promised toolbox murders and toolbox murders we got, but in my senseless teen exploitation horror movies I expect a certain level of splatter and this movie just didn’t meet that requirement. Actual amount of blood as measured in gallons aside, the movie did provide us with images of people getting killed with a nail gun and an electric drill, so it isn’t all bad, just not perfect.

As an aside, just who is it that gets killed with that electric drill? Why, it’s Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which leads me to one of the best things about this movie: every time she is on screen, you can practice your impression of the goofy British accent she uses on that show! For example: “Spoike! Ay wont to eayt a puppayyy!” It may just be the thirteen beers talking, but that seems like a pretty fun way to pass the time.

So what’s the final verdict? While it may seem like a slasher movie that skimps on the slashing and doesn’t even have a single tit-shot (something the 1978 original had in droves) would be a total wash-out, it’s not. On the other hand, it’s not a movie I’d recommend owning or even actively seeking out at the video store. It’s good enough that, if you were to see it on TV while channel surfing, you would probably want to stop and take a look and you probably wouldn’t regret it. But if you put in any more effort than that, the cost is going to outweigh the reward.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Halloween: Resurrection
• Freddy Vs. Jason
• Halloween in September
• Plot Holes in Star Trek and, Why Not, Jurassic Park
• Dead Alive