THE TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978) (1978)

Cast

Plot

Banned for over 20 years, the non-discriminating folk at Vipco have finally brought this little ‘video nasty' to our screens – was it worth the wait? If it's all blood, gore and sex you're after then probably not. While the death scenes gleefully utilise all the various paraphernalia of the odd-job-man, they are not any more gruesome than that which passes for a 15 certificate these days. However, where The Toolbox Murders does excel is in Cameron Mitchell's performance of a man warped by grief at the death of his daughter, driven to ‘cleanse' his victims of their sin and to kidnap his neighbours' daughter in an attempt to regain his own perfect family. It is this narrative that affords The Toolbox Murders a sophistication usually lacking in its contemporaries – the loss of which irreparably damages the glossy remake by Tobe Hooper.