The Friday Night Fright: The Toolbox Murders
For this weeks Friday horror flick we have some late seventies sleaze starring the one and only Cameron Mitchell. Most people when they pop down to B&Q have a little DIY on there minds but our Cam has other plans for a Black and Decker power drill than putting up a few shelves.
What we have here are generous helpings (at least in the first half of the film) of bloody violence (no big effects shots though, the budget wouldn’t stretch to that) nudity (the bath scene is like a soft core porn film) and naff ‘70s country music. In fact, given that his victims are all listening to the kind of country music that’s so saccharine it could rot your teeth, one has to feel a little sympathy for Cameron; surely this is a case of justifiable homicide?
The film slows down in the second half after Cameron kidnaps a teenager to act as a surrogate for his dead daughter. In fact, until the over the top climax where we find that Mitchell isn’t the only barmy bugger in the family, it’s a tad dull. Luckily the climax is worth the wait and must surely have been an influence on Scream.
This is trashy fun in the way that only bad films can be, Cameron is suitably demented but it’s Tim Donnelly (brother of the films director, Dennis) who makes the biggest impression (for the wrong reasons) in the scene where he’s hitting on the kidnapped girls mother.
