Where in the bloody fuck is Tobe Hooper's Toolbox Murders?

Lions Gate picked it up. It's being released next fall. As in 2005.

Why do I have the feeling it will hardly be worth the wait . . .

Still I want to see any movie Tobe is invovled in that does not have Crocodile in the title.

Try ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

Anchor Bay brings it out theatrically in November in the UK with and early 2005 R2 disc.

Elmie, don't go in expecting a 70's masterpiece and you may be pleasantly surprised. I was. 70s in feel definitely. Grimy. With some good old fashioned jumps in this one. It's a solid footstep back up the hill for Hoper. Most assuredly.

Thanks Strax, with that in mind, my interest is now somewhat piqued ...

Ah, I'm going to have to take the opposite stance, I'm afraid. Watched the DVD the other night, and it was dull as dishwater. Nothing remotely new, it was a tired, predictable, boring film that's been done a thousand times in a thousand other forgettable slasher flicks.

Just watched this movie and i agree, the movie is quite awful, the most maddening thing about it is its mediocrity. they have a whole building to work with, yet most of the stalking scenes feel like they go for about 20 seconds and involve an incredibly lame killer chasing someone across the living room and getting a kill. and they have to be some of the most poorly handled kill scenes around, no fear, no intensity, they actually kinda look like amateurs running around in front of a camera without having choreographed any of what they are doing.

this is the man who made texas chainsaw massacre for fucks sake, the man practically invented the genre, and he is reduced to remaking a movie that was a shameless knockoff of one of his own films to begin with, its like wes craven remaking Urban Legends: final cut. the killer hardly even seemed important, no motive was given, no identity, he just popped up occasionally and kills someone really badly when needed. the killer also kept jumping out of ridiculous areas, soon i thought he was gonna jump out of the fridge or a matchbox or something.

i literally cannot understand why lion's gate would want anything to do with this, maybe because angela bettis from May is in it or something. its definately not cinema grade material. compared to this, Ripper: Letter from Hell is the texas chainsaw massacre remake. there are some moments with nice photography or lighting, but whenever the kill or stalk scenes come around, any goodwill is lost. seriously, if they wanted to create a 70's feel horror flick, they should film the whole thing on 16mm, handheld, and ridiculously lowbudget. that would give it some gritty credibility.

That would be awesome with like a loud BOING sound effect.

Yeah, saw it sitting on my video shop shelf on Saturday.

Looks pretty shit really and Im yet to read a decent review of the thing.

Did Hooper only have one decent film in him or what?

he did poltergeist aswell, people seem to think thats was all spielberg's doing, but i think thats a bit unfair.

From accounts Ive read Speielberg directed that film in all but name actually Speed.

mad all accounts eh? thats pretty substantial.

Are you taking the piss?

Jesus mate - I'll try and find a link if you want me to but I don't think I read it online.

Maybe it plays better in theatres. Or to those not comparing it to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It went down a storm at Frightfest. Bunch of picky geeks there. Horses for courses.

perhaps they were just excited because it was such a geeky event, seeing a new tove hooper movie in the cinema, but the thing about it is that its so below-cinema quality. the killer is hopelessly underdeveloped, and no one who pays to see it in a cinema will let it slide.

No, it just works really well on a big screen. We saw the new Argento the same day on the big screen and that remained awful.

I saw it at the Anchor Bay press screening last month with a bunch of experienced and reknowned horror journalists and most everyone agreed it was a low rent, but pretty nifty and grimy b-movie with some infuriatingly effective shocks moments

As for the "killer coming from bizarre places" -- that was just what was I found entertaining about it. Deceptively clever on Hooper's (and the writer's ?) part, playing (albeit quite unsubtley) with a seasoned audience's expectations and the sometimes irrational internal logic of these pictures (altough with the reveal about the tower block, it makes perfect sense both figuratively and literally).

Great sound in this picture, too. Good performace from Bettis.

Not the saviour of a genre by any stretch, but a great throw back to some of the unassuming and vibrant video fodder of an age we all lament in these times of anemic Resident Evils and Valentines.

i dunno, i dont think you can make a terrible movie good just by watching it with an audience. the movie had lack of inspiration, of imagination, of logic, hell one part saw three guys walking up a staircase, the killer appears out of nowhere and snatches one away with out the other guys noticing, then somehow appears in his little lair with the guy lying on a table with his head in a vice, all in the space of 2 seconds, while the other guys are still up 5 flights of stairs, and then they notice the guy is gone. stuff like that is just ridiculously crap, and it happens all the way through the movie, things that lack any sort of logic are thrown in for the sake of the killer to knock a couple more people off.

I'm somewhere between Strax's enthusiasm and Speed's disdain. I liked it, but it was cliched, but it had decent gore and makeup effects, but the kills were really just for killing's sake, but it had great people in it (Juliet Landau, Sheri Moon, Angela Bettis), but everyone seemed kind of underused. I go back and forth on it, but I'd still say it's an effective little slasher and a step up for Tobe from recent fare (though I recently watched The Mangler and found myself enjoying it).

Also, I definitely liked it more than I would have had I seen it just on video. It definitely plays well in a theater with the sound cranked way the hell up.

Is it as good as CHAINSAW 2?

It's not a terrible movie, so that's not what happened.

Horses for courses. Sorry you didn't have a good time with it. Maybe I'm over compensating. It wasn't a genre classic. But I think Reg puts the best most even headed case.

Charlie -- it ain't no TCM2 for sure. But it's better than Night Terrors, Crocodile, [/B]The Mangler[/B] and -- for my money -- Eaten Alive/Death Trap. Not nearly camp or operatic enough to outdo TCM2 or Lifeforce though

I keep calling this film HOTEL FREAK (CASTLE FREAK 2).

I saw it at the AMSTERDAM FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL and was looking forward seeing it after all the praise it got over the internet with remarks as glowing as calling it Hooper's big return to form. None of that turned out to be true. It goes below mediocre, it's plain bad. Bettis is the only good thing about it. Everything about this film is underdeveloped and some situations are mindnumbing stupid, as the kid spying on his neighbour.

or stupid instances where characters get introduced for no reason other than to be killed. like the chick at the beginning, what the hell is that about, she doesnt even tie in to the story at all. its not as if she's like drew barrymore's character in scream, that had a purpose that fit with the story.

edited to not spoil who gets killed.

Very sorry you didn't get anything out of it.

I did. And with any luck, so will Hooper's career.

As for the girl at the start, that has a pupose if you watched more closely. The credit scrawl tells us of all the faceless actresses who disappear every year in Hollywood - then boom, one (literally, she's a no name bit part) dies right before our eyes. Granted, it's not Shakesperean satire, but I found it grimly amusing.

And the kid spying. Logical plot point. You have Bettis seemingly crying wolf. How does she prove her theories ? With a neat, character driven plot point that bolsters the main character's resolution of the central dilemma. Screenwriting 101.

Hooper also has fun The Conversation-style with wide angle surveillance camera style diretorial tricks. Which entertained me. There's a lot of to get out of this picture for the discerning viewer.

I think the problem is too many people sitting back and not wanting to work with the picture and stubbornly challenging it to impress after all the buzz about Hooper and were disappointed because it wasn't the last word on slasher pictures or didn't have creative enough deaths or.....and it never set out to do that.

Your loss I guess. This is a minutely budgeted direct to video slasher picture. Compare it to the stuff Tempe or David De Couteau spit out on a regular basis...

if you had watched more closely you'd realise the thing about the faceless actresses in hollywood who disappear ends up being completely irrelevant as none of the other victims in the movie are actors or actresses.

Huh ? Which picture did you see ?

No it wasn't Stagefright but its setting in Hollywood was more than coincidental.

The first victim is an actress. And the old guy in the building played by Rance Howard: an actor. He carries around his resume shots for all to see and laments about how it was different in his day when stars and starlets used to swarm throgh that part of town.

Which of course is all subtextual for the eventual unvieling of the prop-laden lair of the killer, his seat on the rooftop where he can easily spy on the denizens, using them as his own photoplay writ large.

Which in turn is a none too subtle (though still sly -- again, the relevance of the kid with the spy cameras) commentary on the very nature of cinema.

Like I say, much to see if you watch more closely.

the only person who qualifies is the girl at the beginning. the old man is an old man who was an actor freakin fifty years ago, he wasnt some young starlett who came to hollywood and disappeared shortly after. unless if by shortly after it means 50 years later as an old man. the movie doesnt end up having anything to do with that. its not how closely you look, its how far you can stretch things that arent there.

Because my standards are higher?

And it was all quite obvious, but it's not really used. In the end i even felt it was pretentious, as if he tried to give it some resonance, a deeper layer.

Contrived plot point and poorly realised. It was cheap.

I simply hoped for a strong horrorfilm. Halfway i got back into the film when Bettis starts looking for occult symbols. I thought this film might go somewhere interesting and actually get (atleast) suspenseful. That didn't last long.

You're kidding, right? I think it's even worse when someone who has potential dissapoints. I don't say: "Well, atleast it was better then SHARK ATTACK 3". If it's bad, it's bad.

You typoe as if these are revelatory musings, but those rebuttals are just as subjective as my evaluations of the intial faults picked. I say logical, you say contrived. (Though how a legitimate character trait can be contrived I don't know. If he was a computer whizz capable of hacking into a mainframe to retrive security camera fotage, that would be contrived. This is just a modern day Peeping Tom.) It's what each viewertaks fro it. Anchor Bay UK (who are releasing it theatrically no less) and Lions Gate obviously have faith in the picture...

It's subjective. I'm just redressing a balance of folk who didn't dig the picture. I did. Immensely. As I say, horses for courses. Esteemed British critics like Kim Newman were calling it Hooper's best picture in years and a wonderful, "gloriously grisly opus". I guess we're easier to please.

And it's hardly stretching a subtext to pretension by trying to give your picture a little more depth than your average slasher picture. I thought that would be welcomed by the jaded viewership of today. People complain at straight forward style over substance, yet the moment someone tries to inject a little substance into their style, they get lambasted for being pretentious. No wonder Carpenter, Hooper and their ilk don't really give a shit about making pictures for modern audiences anymore. Who can blame them ? That opening subtextual pun, the fact Ambassador's Hotel location was the first venue for the Academy Awards way back when and where infamous The Coconut Grove nightclub was situated. If you don't take anything from those little deails, then it isn't the picture for you. I'll take it with relish however...

Contrived. Perhaps i'm using the wrong word, my native language is not English. As i've seen the film back in april, i can't recall it precisely. The scene - like many others - just didn't work for me.

It's admirable if filmmakers try to give their films more weight, but let's not kid. It's not there. All those little details shouldn't make a film better, it needs to work on both levels, also for those that aren't aware. And i don't believe your statement on Hooper and Carpenter not giving any shit about making pictures because of modern audiences. And i don't mind well crafted straight forward storytelling. Not at all.

And perhaps i'm sounding a little hostile. I'm not. I just didn't care for this film at all.

SPOILERS (should be obvious by now, the way the thread has evolved)

Either the problem or one of the most attractive aspects about the movie (depending on which way you look at it) was the way it divided itself into two movies. It was a creepy little mystery with occasional gruesome moments (the woman nailed or stapled to the wall, for example). Then, once the mystery was solved, it suddenly launched into a fast paced little slasher. I'm definitely of the camp that feels the latter was the movie's downfall, but I still liked it. This second half is pretty much where all the problems were. The kills were kind of stupid, if fun to watch (like the vice with the lye) and there was just cliche after cliche like the boyfriend getting stabbed and then saving the day, and the killer escaping at the end. It especially didn't fit the rest of the movie, which had been well acted and surprisingly well written. Not Academy material, but for a Tobe Hooper film...people actually talked like people, they didn't just talk to themselves alot. I think that's what makes the movie feel so bad; the fact that it started out so good. If it had had a better payoff but the same first hour or however long it was, then I think you guys would have enjoyed it more.