{"id":1942,"date":"2006-01-31T11:49:31","date_gmt":"2006-01-31T16:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cgm13.net\/wordpress\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2026-06-30T13:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:08:19","slug":"toolbox-murders-2003-a-mini-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/?p=1942","title":{"rendered":"Toolbox Murders (2003): A Mini-Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/06115.jpg\" alt=\"Toolbox Murders\" \/><br \/>\nTobe Hooper&#8217;s remake of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.toolboxmurders.co.uk\/toolbox.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>The Toolbox Murders<\/strong><\/a>&#8221; is yet another one of those remakes that has nothing really to do with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blue-underground.com\/movie.php?movie_id=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>original film<\/strong><\/a> other than the killer has a fettish for power tools.<\/p>\n<p><em>Director Tobe Hooper&#8217;s gory &#8220;retooling&#8221; of the late &#8217;70s chiller centers on a young couple (Angela Bettis and Brent Roam) who move into an old run-down L.A. apartment complex, only to find out that the structure is under the influence of an evil supernatural force that uses all manner of home improvement equipment to commit a grisly massacre.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I liked this movie a lot. It&#8217;s not the greatest horror movie ever made, but it far surpasses what is being churned out by the Hollywood cookie cutter. &#8220;Toolbox Murders&#8221; delivers all the gritty chills and violence that movies like &#8220;Hostel&#8221; and &#8220;Saw&#8221; promise and then never deliver. Hooper uses a nice creepy locale (the now <a href=\"http:\/\/theambassadorhotel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>demolished<\/strong><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seeing-stars.com\/Hotels\/Ambassador.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Ambassador Hotel<\/strong><\/a>) and a lot of visual misdirection for some really cheap thrills. Also on tap, are quite a few messy deaths involving the aforementioned power tools. The cast is very solid, led by a really solid performance by Angela Bettis. Sheri Moon even pops up in a nice bit part and is actually quite good (not so over-the-top like her performances in Rob Zombie&#8217;s two films). My major complaint would be the &#8220;supernatural&#8221; aspect of the film. I can get behind that the Lusman Arms was built with Satanism and evil in mind. It would have been more interesting if the &#8220;supernatural&#8221; aspects had been more misdirection rather than the final explanation for the killer and his wicked ways. &#8216;Cause I don&#8217;t like that you never find out just why a supernatural being would have a power tool fettish. That makes it kinda silly &#8230; until he saws the top of someone&#8217;s head off with a hand-held circular saw. Now that, I like!<\/p>\n<p>Bottom Line:<br \/>\nSomewhat flawed but definately worth checking out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tobe Hooper&#8217;s remake of &#8220;The Toolbox Murders&#8221; is yet another one of those remakes that has nothing really to do with the original film other than the killer has a fettish for power tools. Director Tobe Hooper&#8217;s gory &#8220;retooling&#8221; of the late &#8217;70s chiller centers on a young couple (Angela Bettis and Brent Roam) who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8EnCu-vk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11475,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/11475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}