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While the name of Tobe Hooper does not carry the cachet it once did, he still deserves his place amongst the modern masters of horror with the likes of Romero, Argento, Craven, and Cronenberg. Hooper, having never been able to equal the raw energy and success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre...and never being able to do so in the future...definitely has regained his form with this version of The Toolbox Murders. On the surface I thought I was going to sit through some lame rehashing of an older horror film, but I found myself pleasantly surprised with this high energy, suspenseful, stylish, well-acted film. Evil lurks in the old and dilapidated Lusman Arms, an aging apartment building in severe disrepair with renovation abounding all over. The film opens with a rainy evening and a blonde woman getting the point of the film hammered into her skull. Next, we meet a young couple moving into the apartment building. Beautiful and talented Angela Bettis plays the protagonist of the film as a woman who realizes people are disappearing around her and that the Lusman Arms has some major secrets as well as a demented killer hidden in its walls. Much of the film involves her unraveling of the Arms's secrets, though no full explanation as to how the black arts is incorporated is ever explained. The film is tightly woven from beginning to end by the consummate work of Hooper who knows how to use the camera and gets the most from a largely unknown cast. The actors are peppered with some movie veterans such as Rance Howard giving one heck of a good performance as a man that has lived there virtually his whole life, Juliet Landau as a running girl "headed" for trouble, and the wonderful Greg Travis as the guy in charge of the apartments. Travis had me in stitches with his dialog about the charm of old places like this, etc... Hooper works with some interesting, inventive, and implausible storyline, but he makes the most of it. Here and there Hooper plays homage to others, like the scene where Bettis and husband find old teeth in the wall. An obvious salute to Roman Polanski's The Tenant. While not a great film, The Toolbox Murders delivers. It shows just enough blood without going overboard and has just enough humour in it to balance the unpleasantness of the plot. I was pleasantly surprised on all counts.
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