The Toolbox Murders (1978)

Episode 434, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, straight out of In Space Month, back to Earth and back in time. I really wanted to just reach back into time and to do something very low budget grindhouse from the 70s. That has been on my list since I was a kid, to be completely honest with you. If you’ve seen the cover of this movie, the poster slash video art, you’ll know why.

It’s, it’s got a buxom babe in a bathtub, and uh, there’s a guy standing behind her with a drill. And it’s called The Toolbox Murders. The tagline is: “Bit by bit, by bit. He carved a nightmare.” And I do remember this from my childhood, but also I’ve been reminded constantly on the internet that apparently Stephen King at one point said that it was his favorite horror movie of the seventies.

He probably said that in the seventies. 

Craig: He, I think he said something about it being one of the scariest movies he’d ever seen, and I wonder if we saw the same movie. 

Todd: I know, right? Well, Stephen King was high for a considerable amount of time. That’s true. The time back then, and I looked for the evidence of this, right?

I mean, I’m sure it’s in, maybe it’s in Don’s Macabre or something like that, which I read a long time ago. Right, sure. And I haven’t read since, but, uh, I mean, I don’t doubt that it’s true, but, yeah, a lot has changed since then, and a lot of horror movies have come and gone, and I don’t think I would put it in that category anymore, but, uh, you know, it’s an interesting grindhouse movie for us to, uh, check out, and again, one of those fulfillments of my childhood wishes.

Nobody requested it, I doubt it was on your radar, but, uh, I’m finally happy to check it off our list. Had you even heard of this before? 

Craig: I don’t know, I mean, the title is familiar, I don’t, I don’t know if I knew that it was a movie, or if it was a real story, or Which, by the way, it purports to be. It does. I guess it’s loosely based, potentially, on some murders.

Some guy killed some women with tools. But, no, I hadn’t heard of it. You know, I, growing up, wasn’t really drawn to these gritty Movies of this era. I saw them on the shelves, but that wasn’t my cup of tea. I was more of a Freddy Jason Michael Myers leprechaun. Hmm. I don’t know these these these franchises.

Yeah, not that this one is as bad as Some of them, but the just really graphically violent person on person violence never really appealed to me. I started watching them in college just because, you know, for science. You’re a completionist. 

Clip: Yeah, right, exactly. 

Craig: And, you know, I can appreciate them. for what they are, and some of them are actually very well made, but it just was never my cup of tea, so, no.

This didn’t appeal to me then. You know, we were talking just a month ago or something about the fact that we don’t very often have the opportunity to see something for the first time, so, I was looking forward to that. Ultimately, I was Disappointed, but whatever. We can talk about it. 

Todd: I mean, you’ve got to put it in its time and you’ve got to put it in its place, right?

The movie’s, the genesis was there’s a producer who was really taken by how much money Texas Chainsaw Massacre had made. And so, he had it screened and said to a couple of his writer friends, Can you write me something that would be kind of like this? And so, it’s supposed to be a knockoff, but it bears no resemblance.

at all really to that except that it’s oh, you know, somebody’s going around killing people and it was done cheaply and at a lower budget and obviously didn’t make as much money, although it made a significant amount. I mean, the budget was 165, 000 and the box office gross was over half a million by the time it was done.

So and the people in this were well known at the time. So this movie came out in 1978. This is when I was born. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So it’s going on 47 years old now. And I was really Kind of surprised at the names in here. One of the names that jumped out at me in the very beginning was a name we’ve come across in this podcast a couple times.

The cinematographer is Gary Graver. Gary Graver became a close personal friend of Orson Welles and famously worked with Orson Welles on that long lost movie, The Other Side of the Wind, that he had been working on, you know, in his twilight years for decades and never quite finished and then recently got finished.

But he Gary Graver also has done a lot of low b I mean, if you look at his IMDb pages, he’s got hundreds of movies that he’s either directed or been the director of cinematography for, dipping in and out of exploitation fare all this time, much like, you know, Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham did as well.

But he dabbled a lot in porn, under different names, and we did Trick or Treat. Do you 

Craig: remember 

Todd: that one or trick or treats? 

Craig: Was that the, the rock and roll killer guy? 

Todd: No, I wish. No, that was the really insufferable movie about the kid at home who, 

Craig: Oh, yes. Oh gosh. Yes. I definitely remember that now. 

Todd: I was filmed in some famous person’s house and I think it had one of the caridines in it and it’s, it’s lame as hell.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Then you can kind of see, I mean, as a cinematographer, I, he’s fine. I don’t know if I’ve been impressed really with. Much that I’ve seen of him so far, it’s just fairly pedestrian. There’s some interesting angles and shots and stuff in here. I mean, everything’s really crisp and clean, you know, you can see everything.

It’s not all in shadow. 

Craig: It feels very of the day. I feel like these types of movies at this time were shot and almost. This is gonna make me sound stupid because I’m not educated in these things, but almost in a documentary style, like, it’s just very, just shoot it, you know, like, just shoot it straight on, not a lot of creative approaches, just, just shoot it, which is fine.

I, I, I feel that it gives it kind of that gritty cheap feel that we expect from these movies and that in itself may be a stylistic choice. I don’t know. I didn’t find the shooting of this movie to be particularly interesting. Actually, there are parts of it that I found to be frustrating and part of that.

It’s from the very beginning. It starts out with somebody, I think somebody in black gloves, you don’t see their face, driving around at night. And they drive by Like there’s a car accident. 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: outside of a car lot and a girl falls out and then it goes back to driving again And then this is what frustrated me from the beginning.

There’s lots of flashing Really really quick cut flashes to like maybe a child’s funeral. I didn’t know what was going on. It took me a while To figure out what was going on. And then when I did figure it out, I just thought I don’t know, it was kind of stupid. 

Todd: I think, I think I know what you mean, because the editing is also very weird here at the beginning.

We’re in a POV of a car, but like you said, there’s a car accident that happened, and at first I thought, oh, well, the car we were riding in had the accident, but then the car is driving past the accident after it gives us those flashes of a woman falling out, and then the woman being loaded into an emergency vehicle, and then at the hospital or on the gurney or something, her arm sort of falling off the gurney.

And then there’s some freeze frames. I can only guess they were missing some footage or they were short of footage or something? Yeah. I didn’t understand the freeze frames. I thought, okay, this movie’s at least going for some style. So I’m hoping that it’ll be a little stylish and except for this and maybe another part where it gets equally weird with flashing.

It doesn’t really have any style. 

Craig: I would have to say. No, and this, you know, this, this felt more just kind of in service of being an opening credits sequence. It’s not something that really, really continues throughout. I don’t know. I feel like there was questionable editing in a couple of places. Right. I hate to jump ahead, but I’m afraid that I’ll forget.

There’s one point, a young woman gets kidnapped and people are looking for her. And one of the main people who’s looking for her is her brother. Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but it appeared to me that at one point he found her, but then just kind of carried on with the rest of his day as though nothing had happened, and then came back.

Did that ha I don’t I think, I know what you’re talking 

Todd: about, and I think that was his friend. I don’t think that was him. Okay, alright. Because, because I, I had to rewind it actually there, because I had the exact same feeling, and I think I know the reason is because the camera does follow The brother, as he’s getting in his car and going somewhere, and then we pick up later, a kid comes out of his car, which seems like it would be him, only as the scene goes on, you realize, only due to the hair color, as far as I can see, that it’s actually his friend.

Okay, what I’m And I had to rewind to confirm that. You’re right, the editing was a problem, because you can’t just butt up two people driving in a car, one guy gets in, To a car. Another guy gets out of a similarly looking car a second later and have them be two different people. You know, that’s not very good.

Craig: I mean, ultimately I didn’t really care because I wasn’t particularly invested, so whatever. Who cares? What it comes down to, you know, okay, so then there’s a guy with a toolbox and he’s wearing a ski cap. 

Todd: Well, he isn’t at first. Is he? I don’t think he is at first. He pulls it out later. I 

Craig: think he is because I don’t know.

I mean, this is just a choice. It’s a fine choice, I suppose. But you know who the killer is from the very beginning. At least, spoiler alert, one of the killers. Because, like, he wears that ski mask, but he’s very recognizable. Like, you can tell that as soon as he came on screen without the ski mask, and like, he’s just the chummy owner of this apartment complex or whatever.

I was like, Oh, it’s him. Like I just saw him in the mask. Yeah. He looks just like 

Todd: him. They did. It was almost like they weren’t even trying to hide it really. I 

Craig: don’t think they were. 

Todd: I don’t think so either. A lot of times these movies, right? They do that trick where they’ll put a different person in the mask or then, but this, they didn’t even bother.

Craig: We just saw that with that terrible hospital movie. 

Todd: That 

Craig: surgeon walking around the whole time was not the actor who played the killer at the end. Not at all. But then my question is, why bother? Like, why put him in a mask? We know who it is. Well, I don’t know. Who cares? I guess it’s 

Todd: more menacing? Maybe it’s more menacing.

Craig: Or maybe he’s, you know, the character legitimately is trying to disguise himself and just doing a terrible job of it. 

Todd: Well. 

Craig: Who knows? Whatever. 

Todd: That’s some of it. By the way, he’s played by Cameron Mitchell. Veteran actor. 244 credits. 

Craig: He looked very familiar to me, but I I just scrolled through all of those credits and nothing stood out as being familiar to me, but he, he looked familiar.

Todd: All over television, like every television series you can imagine, he was on at least one episode. So he was one of those guys who popped in and out. Once I saw the list, I remembered, oh yeah, he was Jeremiah in the Swiss Family Robinson. 

Craig: That’s right. I did remember that. 

Todd: So that was about it. But yeah, he’s very recognizable guy.

He’s got that kind of a cross between Tom Jones. And, uh, David Hasselhoff. 

Craig: Yes. I don’t know what you’d say. Yeah. Definitely got a Tom Jones vibe for sure, 

Clip: yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, he’s the killer. And first, he kills some woman who clearly is familiar with him. He kills her with a giant drill bit. Yeah. Like, that you use to like bore holes in boards or whatever.

Yeah. Like inch wide holes. And then a girl takes off her shirt and shows her boobs. You know, she’s just changing her shirt, but boobs. But she turns on the hot water 

Todd: before she changes into her shirt. I didn’t even notice that. I thought we were gonna get a shower scene Here she, she comes in, she takes off her clothes, shows her boobs, turns on the hot water, puts on her shirt, and then walks outta the bathroom and starts doing something else completely.

It’s like, why did she turn on the water? Does it take that long for her water to heat up that she’s got to put a shirt on in the midst of it? I don’t know, 

Craig: but the, the, the masked guy knocks her out. And then, yeah. 

Todd: Cause she goes outside. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t even, I don’t know why she went outside. Did somebody knock?

I don’t remember. Whatever. She went 

Todd: to get a package or something. 

Craig: It’s really, it’s really unclear. No, it doesn’t matter. And he knocks her out and then. It kills her with the claw end of a hammer, like hits her in the face with it. Kind of out in public. Just out in the hallway. This is like It’s an open hallway.

This is Daniel LaRusso’s apartment tenement. Yes. From Karate Kid. That’s what it looks like. 100%. One of those, you know, California 70s stucco Apartment complexes with like a courtyard in the middle and she’s on I think the second floor So she’s kind of out, you know, like on the balcony or whatever, but he kills her right out there right there And then he carries her back into the apartment Then another girl walks into that same apartment sees the dead girl on the floor and then she gets stabbed with a screwdriver Mm 

Clip: hmm 

Craig: Yeah, well, I mean, I don’t know like this is all like 

Todd: Who cares?

It all happens in the first 10 minutes. Yeah. I had to say, I was kind of, at first I was like, Oh, at least the movie’s really getting into it, you know, it’s getting into it fast. It’s a little giallo at the beginning, right? Cause he’s got the black gloves and we’re not seeing his face. And it, it, then it switches to POV at one point where he’s approaching her with the drill.

Blood splatters, blood splatters everywhere. It gets a little silly where, you know, she. We’re talking about the first woman where she runs into the bathroom and backs herself up against the door and it seems like this woman is almost waiting for that drill bit to come through the door before she runs away from it.

You know, they’re trying, they’re trying to create some tension and some excitement here and it’s pretty gory. He drills into her, and like you said, the, the hammer, the back end of the hammer, he stabs the other woman, blood splattering everywhere, it’s pretty brutal, it’s a very grindhouse, it’s low budget brutal, but then like, this, this third girl, and I’m like, wait a minute, is this what this movie’s gonna be?

Is he just gonna go from door to door, in this apartment complex, and kill people? 

Craig: Yeah, and apparently, like, this whole complex, most of it is inhabited by Co eds, like, like, just, just sexy girls in lingerie who dance in front of their open windows. Because he literally 

Todd: After he stabs that one woman in the gut, he literally goes over to the window of her place, looks out the window, and we get almost like a rear window style view of the rest of the apartment, where we see the top one, and there’s like, I don’t know, some couple that are standing there?

And then you look down, and there’s like a woman dancing in her lingerie? To disco music? It felt very porny at this point. I, what is this woman doing? And then she like opens the window? What is this? I just 

Craig: didn’t get it. Her apartment faces the courtyard. Yeah. It’s not like, you know, I can understand. You know, you’re vacuuming in your underwear and you’re dancing.

That’s fine. No, she’s putting on a little show. Yes, for nobody. She’s standing in the window facing outdoors. It is dark outside, light inside. Like, this is just a little peep show. I don’t know what’s happening. It’s just for the 

Todd: service of the movie. It’s fine. 

Craig: It’s great. 

Todd: Dude, cleans a screwdriver on his shirt, packs it away and leaves and goes to the next apartment.

And that was when I was like, he opens the door, by the way, does anyone in this apartment lock their door? Because this guy just walks into every room. He looks at on a couple in there and then he closes the door and moves on and at this point I don’t know There’s like a woman who’s like taking out the trash and he she stumbles upon the obvious blood stains on the staircase Out in the open where he had that body calls for husband John they knock on the door there Where Deborah and me up Marie are and they open it and they see the mess.

There’s just this long lingering shot on the body of the woman who was Who came in after and got stabbed and now yeah, the cops are there and they’re asking questions 

Craig: Yeah, and there’s a detective named Mark and they’re asking questions and stuff and like we’re introduced to the building owner Kingsley who is clearly the killer You know this immediately when you see him right now, you know it and he knows He says something about being invested in his clientele or something, like he knows everything about the people who live in his building.

And then we meet what I guess become our main characters who also live in the complex. It’s Lori. She’s supposed to be 15, but she doesn’t look 15. No. She was 17, she was cash. She was 18. When they started filming and I read the, I don’t know if it was the director, the producers, I don’t know, but when they found out that she had turned 18, they really pressured her to do a nude scene.

And she just refused and eventually threatened to walk if they didn’t back off. So they backed off. Good for you girl who played Laurie, right? 

Todd: Imagine that. Oh, she’s 18. Go in there. Show us your boobs. Show your boobs for our movie. 

Craig: She’s supposed to be 15, but let’s. Get her naked 

Todd: right so gross men are disgusting.

She doesn’t look look She looks like she’s in her 20s. Honestly, this woman’s played by Pamela and Ferdin who was a longtime child actress and at first I thought okay This was her trying to get out of her child acting role like she was in she was in Disney movies She voiced Lucy from the Peanuts cartoons I think.

I think she originated that role. She voiced someone in Charlotte’s Web. You know, she’s been in a lot of these things, but then I read later, no, she actually didn’t even like acting. She was in it because her parents forced her to be in it. And she more or less retired from acting a couple years after this movie.

I think she did come back to play some voices in a couple cartoons, like in the early 2000s, but that was about it. But yeah. She’s in this movie. Right, fine. She’s fine. Whatever. She, yeah, she doesn’t 

Craig: have a lot to do, really. She seems cute and sweet, and that’s what they’re trying to, you know, they’re setting her up as this cute, sweet girl, and she lives with her mom and her brother.

And so then we get more murderer shots, and he’s humming to himself as he walks around the complex. I 

Todd: thought that was funny, actually. The, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. He’s carrying the toolbox up on his shoulder, and walking by the camera so he can’t see his face. 

Craig: Well, and it also, you know, it makes sense. He easily, he could walk around here in broad daylight and nobody would think anything of it.

He owns the place, like, you know, he could be doing maintenance, whatever. 

Todd: That’s true. 

Craig: But, then we get to this, you know, this, there’s this redhead in her apartment and she gets Buck naked and gets in the pub and she gets in the tub and she starts jerking off and like that’s fine Get it, you know, whatever.

It felt very porny. It was super porny. Why am I watching porn again? I thought 

Todd: Again, knowing Gary Graver, I thought, surely he pulled this woman out of porn. You know what I mean? Like, she is very comfortable being completely nude here with these crotch shots of her masturbating just underneath the suds in this.

And then, uh, it turns out, yeah, after this movie, this woman, Kelly Nichols, who at this point had no problem doing the scene because she had already been nude modeling, went on to be a full time porn actress, apparently very, very popular in the late 70s, early 80s. 

Craig: And that’s fine, too. I just Oh, I 

Todd: don’t have a problem with it.

Craig: I know you don’t have a problem. I don’t have a problem with it either. I suppose it’s just ultimately there is a motive for it because you know, what’s the point in trying not to spoil anything? Like, I guess that the killer is like a moralist or something. Like, I don’t know. It’s not any different, I guess, than Jason killing all the bad people who have sex and do drugs.

Like this guy thinks that people who have. premarital sex or touch themselves, apparently, are dirty and must be killed. He stands there. The reason that this scene really bothered me is because not only is she masturbating in the tub, fine, I’ve jerked off in the tub a million times, who cares? But It’s just that it lingers for so long and like he’s like he stands there and watches her come like come on like this Yeah, so Exploitive isn’t even the right word sleazy.

It’s sleazy. Yeah, it’s easy gross 

Todd: But it’s kind of what you expect kind of what you expect in a movie like it’s checking all the boxes I mean you could see this movie. I mean who’s gonna come see a movie called the toolbox murders It was probably playing in some dirty theaters in Times Square or in drive ins 

Craig: drive ins 

Todd: Yeah, they were, they were wanting this shit and the movie delivers a hundred percent.

This is where they also do another one of those crazy cuts, like right when she comes, like suddenly it’s like really flashy cuts to her, her crotch and her face and her hands and the bubble bath and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. 

Craig: So he kills her. He chases her around fully nude. Yeah, through the house, 

Todd: that was something.

And 

Craig: then shoots her with a nail gun. 

Todd: Now, let me tell you something about nail guns. We all know how nail guns operate. We’ve talked about this in horror movies a million times. Obviously this nail gun that he has isn’t a very modern nail gun. It doesn’t look anything like what I’ve had, but usually they don’t work unless you actually have them pressed up against wood.

Right. Precisely so you can’t run around and shoot them like guns. Shooting 

Craig: people. 

Todd: But the other thing is nail guns operate under pressure and they usually have to be hooked up to something. There are electric nail guns nowadays, but most nail guns are air powered. This is hooked up to nothing. This has no battery in it.

This is kind of before batteries were good enough that you could get high power tools that are battery operated. It’s not plugged into anything. And you can look at this in the handle. I mean. It’s really silly, this idea that this nail gun that he’s running around could shoot nails across the room. It just wouldn’t work.

It’s missing power and he loads it like a fricking double barreled shotgun, kicking it back and putting more nails in it and closing it. It was a groaner. Let’s just put it that way. And he’s shooting at her and she runs onto the bed and she ran onto what I thought was a waterbed. I thought I saw where this was coming with it.

I thought I saw where this was going because I thought, Oh, he’s going to shoot her on the nail bed, water bed. We’re going to get something cool, like pieces, you know, with that awesome kill on the water bed, which, which this movie reminds me a lot of too. Cause it was equally sleazy, but a lot more fun.

And then like all the girls in this movies do like, they don’t really do anything logical. They just sit there and wait to be killed more or less, or just cower in the corner and writhe around a little bit. 

Craig: Well, actually this one, this one I thought was. One of the more uncomfortable, the kills are very fast, usually.

And this one, he menaces her for a little while. And yeah, she tries to negotiate with him. I think basically she’s, she’s offering to have sex with him. Just, just don’t, just don’t kill me. And of course it doesn’t work. He kills her anyway, but I actually thought that this actress. Did a fine job. Like, she, she seemed scared, but also, Oh god, I’m analyzing it far too much.

She seemed alert, like, like, she was really, like, I could, I could see in her head, like, the wheel spinning, like, what am I, what am I gonna do? How, how am I gonna get out? Well, at 

Todd: least she ran. 

Craig: Yeah, you know, she, she seemed scared. So, I thought she did a good job. Good job, naked girl. 

Todd: Yeah, good job, uh, Miss Kelly Nichols, but then he, so he sits down next to her and he starts rubbing her boobs, but she must get second thoughts or something because he’s put the gun down.

Like she could probably pull this off, but she decides to dive off the bed. And this is where we get those jump cuts again, back to the accident. That was shocking. I wasn’t expecting to have a reference back to that. It actually matches up really well. Yeah. Her falling from the bed, and this person that we had seen earlier falling from the car.

And she runs all away, and he picks up the nail gun again, and as she’s by the door, he shoots her in the stomach. That is enough to completely incapacitate her, because she turns around and kind of lays back down? In, not also a very provocative way of dying, but, anyway, she’s, she’s laying back, and he stands over her, he reloads the gun, and shoots her right in the forehead.

Pretty gruesome. And her arm falls down to her side, much like that arm on the woman who died in the accident. We get another cut straight to that. So I was like, what are they trying to do here? What is the connection they’re trying to make between this woman or this act and that woman who I already had forgotten about who had died in the car accident?

So I’ll give them that. You know, they were trying for something a little artsy here. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: I mean Or at least trying to call back to that, you know, remind us that it happened. 

Craig: Yeah, I it just it there’s not really much purpose to it. Like, I I feel like the killer’s motives are a little bit nebulous for me to to get to the motives.

Yeah, might as well. The next thing that we see is that I think Lori The young girl, 15 year old girl, is in her bed, and the killer smothers her with a pillow. And I thought that she was surely dead, and then the complex and the police discover the redhead’s body, but Lori is, they do not discover her body, she is missing.

So now I don’t know what’s happening. Yeah. Her brother Joe wants to find her, and the cops like interrogate him, and he gets all pissed off because he feels like they’re treating him like a suspect, and he just wants to find his sister. 

Todd: By the way, I love that interrogation. It’s the lamest, most unrealistic interrogation ever.

I don’t know why the cop is harassing this guy, but basically, his conclusion is, 

Clip: Look, Joey, we got four violent, bloody murders and a possible kidnapping. I’m supposed to think this guy butchered these girls and kidnapped your sister? I mean, it’s possible, but it, uh 

Todd: Why not? You’ve got an apartment complex where people are being butchered.

This guy’s sister is missing. Why does it not make sense that these could be connected? 

Craig: Well, yeah, the guy, Mark or whatever, doesn’t matter. Who cares? The detective is, is very aggressive. Not physically, but verbally, like, like, accusatory, you know, when, when Joe gets defensive, I would too, you know, like, Yeah, of course, and the cop just seems completely incompetent, and like you said, it’s, it’s not even like, how just are these things connected?

He’s like, oh, I’m sure she’s fine. She’ll show up. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Like, what is, are you stupid? Like, we’ve just found like 15 dead women, but don’t be dumb. I’m sure she just ran away. She’ll be fine. And Joe’s like, okay, well, I guess if you won’t find her, I will. And the cop’s like, yeah, I’m sure you will.

Okay Thanks for your help, sir. So then he goes Joe goes back to the murder scene. I guess he’s gonna be a detective now I don’t how and I don’t know and his handsome friend Kent is there have we ever met Kent before? 

Todd: No, this is our introduction to Kent. 

Craig: So he’s handsome. I guess he was the son on the land of the lost 

Todd: Oh god.

Yeah 

Craig: that that TV show where they got like They went through a time rift and ended up in prehistoric times and like had to live amongst the dinosaurs and stuff I liked that show. I loved it. I was so fascinated 

Todd: and scared by that show when I was a kid I still have weird feelings about it 

Craig: He’s this handsome guy and we find out that he is the nephew of Vance, who is the owner, the killer.

So we know this and he’s been hired by his uncle to clean up these crime scenes so that they can re rent the units. This was porny too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this movie. Those guys were seconds away from tearing each other’s pants off. There was so much sexual chemistry between these guys, like.

I was just waiting. And, and like, so, and, and at some point, you know, they’re just in this apartment and they’re talking to each other and Joe at some point says. You want to help me with something? I was like, here we go. Oh yeah. 

Todd: You’ve seen this movie. So many times. You look tense.

You could use a massage. 

Craig: Oh, and it gets, it gets even better. Like they break into the other murder scenes and one of them finds a Dildo and throws it at the other one, like, you guys.

Todd: And then they, they look at the nail in the wall. Kent’s like, Hey, come look at this. And he goes, a nail gun. And there’s a musical cue. Like it’s some kind of revelation. Like, I mean, I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that the killer killed her with a nail gun. This whole notion that they are doing some kind of detective work is.

Silly, because they find nothing. Nothing they find amounts to anything. And the cops are just lame. Again, it reminded me a lot of Pieces. Pieces had this sort of thrown in there because you have to have it in there detective, who couldn’t really do anything, who didn’t ask any of the right questions, just had to show up every time there was a body and go, Yeah, that really sucks.

I’m gonna need to get you down to the station. We’re gonna need to talk for a few minutes. So, as a mystery, it totally fails. 

Craig: Well, it fails because there’s a twist that isn’t really projected at all. So, when it happens, it’s like, what? Okay, whatever. But this part was so funny to me when they realized they’re like Hey, check this out.

She was killed with a nail gun because they find a nail shot into the wall, surrounded by blood. Explain to me how that happened. I know, right? The nail, did the nail like travel through her body and carry a large amount of blood with it and then impale itself in the wall makes no sense. But my favorite part about it is when he, Kent is like, she was killed with a nail gun and he looks over and he sees.

Something the toolbox. I think he sees the toolbox or something and there’s a look I wish this is one of the very few times I wish that we were still doing this on video because a look the most melodramatic look comes over his face like wait a Second. Like, you, like, you totally, like, he projects so hard on his face, like, Oh shit, I know what’s going on, but I’m not gonna say anything.

Cause he’s 

Todd: my uncle. Right. So funny that your uncle who fixes up apartments would have a toolbox. Imagine that. Oh. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: So then Lori’s mom, who is like, just portrayed as perpetually drunk or always at the bar. This scene is pointless. This scene goes nowhere. There’s no point to it at all. She goes into an empty bar, turns everything on.

There’s some guy named Al who comes over and comforts her. 

Clip: Lori’s close, Al. Yeah? I mean, I, I feel it. I can just sense it somehow.

I keep thinking any minute I’m gonna look up and she’s gonna be just standing there. Well, she’ll call. She could call him. She, she will when, when she gets the chance. Oh, Al! And 

Craig: then 

Clip: that’s 

Todd: it. We’re back at the boy’s house. 

Craig: It’s like a five minute scene. Yeah, it’s 

Todd: ridiculous. It’s just to fill out time. I suppose.

But Stephen King loved it apparently, so. 

Craig: I guess. But you’re right. Now, now the two boys are together and they’re in the killer’s garage. And you see the toolbox. It’s not like this is any big surprise to us. We already know. So, I don’t know what the, like, okay. Thank you for confirming what we’ve known for the whole time.

Todd: As if to put an exclamation point on it, the guy pops out around the corner all shady and then pops back into his room. 

Craig: He pops back into the back of the house, into a bedroom, where he has Lori dressed up like a baby doll and tied to the bed with lace. This infuriates me. 

Todd: I know. It was so irritating. I don’t know.

Craig: I remember when I was a kid. Actually, there’s still this nice old lady that’s friends with my family and every year for Christmas She gifts my mother a tea towel with a little lace Trim she that she sews on the bottom that little lace trim that’s you know Maybe an inch in width is what this girl is tied down to the bed with yeah It’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever seen She could so easily just squirm right out of there and not only that But he’s got her gagged with it.

He may as well have her gagged with a shoestring. That doesn’t, that doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t. Like, that’s just annoying. 

Todd: Right. To say that she’s tied down is generous. She is sitting up in bed. These two long ass ribbons are from either end of the thing tied around her wrists. In the middle where she’s got her hands together like she’s praying, you know, just in a prayer position It’s like there’s so many this would be the easiest thing in the world to get out of And there are heart shaped pillows all around her and he comes in he starts combing her hair and stuff And this is where we get our long ass monologue about his kathy And at first I thought his kathy was his wife.

I guess his kathy was his Daughter and she’s the one who died in the car accident and God this monologue goes on far too long I suppose it was supposed to sound fascinating like we’re getting this deep psychological insight into this guy But it just goes all over the place and it’s so melodramatic about how the world is bad But when he hurts these people he makes it quick because he never wants to cause suffering and he killed the one He killed the woman downstairs who did Terrible things to her body.

The most unnatural acts to her own body. Oh my God. They were all committing unnatural acts with each other. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s all religious and just fanatical and it’s stupid. To be 

Todd: fair. This is projected a little bit, because the very credit sequence that we saw, there is like some preacher on the radio, in what is presumably the killer’s car, going past the scene of the wreck.

I don’t think it was the scene of the wreck, I think it was the memory of the wreck as he’s driving by, but nonetheless, there is that aspect to it. And then of course, when the cops are talking to him, he says, Oh, I know everybody in here, I know everything that’s going on, I can see everything. So, you know, they sprinkle these little It’s not like this comes out of left field, but, again, like we said, we already know who this guy is, all we needed was the motive, and the motive is just dumb.

Craig: Yeah, and he, like, he says, I mean, he just rants forever, and like, he’s a religious nut, and he’s like, I tried to keep her right, I tried to keep her good, and he keeps calling her Kathy, and she tries, like, playing along, like, calling him daddy or whatever, but it doesn’t really work, and he just keeps getting weirder, he’s like, did it hurt when you died?

And, she has a great line. 

Clip: Dying’s easy. It’s over in a second. But this hurts worse. Which I thought was, 

Craig: She’s smart. Was really smart. 

Todd: Yeah, she is really smart. It doesn’t work, but it’s pretty smart. No, right. Then he goes back to putting that little piece of lace in her mouth and moves on. 

Craig: Yeah, and then there’s another scene that I Have no idea what the point of it was.

I think the cop is talking to the mom and is he hitting on her? That was so weird 

Todd: He’s back at the bar. The detective’s talking to the mom and it’s really noisy. So he takes her to a booth And it’s just like, I’m looking for Lori, but I’m at a dead end. I’m at a dead end. I’m fishing. And she’s like, well, I’m only doing what I know to do, which is to get drunk.

And he’s like, I know, I’m also used to working long hours. Maybe you and I ought to get together and What? He puts his hand on her hand? And then she’s like, no, I think you just need to go looking for Lori. And he’s like, okay, nevermind then. Nothing comes of this scene. 

Craig: Yeah, and then I feel like we never see them again.

Todd: I don’t even think we see the cop 

Craig: again. 

Todd: Do we ever see the cop again? I 

Craig: don’t think so. I don’t, I don’t think so. This was the part that I was confused by because this is when we see somebody who I thought was Joey look in the window where Laurie is tied up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But I guess that wasn’t Joey, it was Kent?

Todd: I think it was Kent. Look, I don’t know, we’re back to the boys, but I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. Cause, you’re right, at first it’s Joey, and he’s going to his mom’s and he gets, like, her purse or something, and then he decides to go back somewhere, then he gets in a car, and then he’s in another room, I don’t even know, and then, you’re right, and then suddenly he, he, what looks like him gets out of a car, but actually it’s Kent, and he goes around to the back of this apartment, and he knocks on the window above, and you’re right, it’s above.

Laurie, and I thought, oh, why isn’t Kent doing anything? And then I thought, okay, maybe he is gonna do something, or maybe he’s gonna confront his uncle, or maybe he literally doesn’t see her, because she is, like, directly below him. 

Craig: Below, yeah. I thought that that was a possibility, that maybe he didn’t see her.

I’m still uncertain, because Kent has really dark, dark hair, and Joey has blonde, light sandy kind of blonde hair, and I could have sworn that was Joey. Who cares? Doesn’t matter. Vance, the killer, sings to Laurie. That was weird. That was very weird. Also went on too long. 

Clip: Oh. 

Craig: And then Joey comes back to the killer’s house and looks in the toolbox in the garage, but then Kent confronts him and Kent says, I have to protect my family and, to my complete shock, douses Joey in gasoline, kerosene, something flammable and Then walks around, like, like, I guess Joey kind of falls to the floor and is kind of scrambling around.

And Kent is taunting him, lighting matches and throwing them in his direction, and singing, like, I just wrote, I don’t know, like Joey Joey burning bright. Something, I don’t know, but like, he’s obviously a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Lunatune. 

Todd: Ken is like a magician. He’s producing matches from nothing. It’s like, he keeps pulling them out of his, like a magician continues to produce cards from an empty hand.

It was so funny 

Craig: and striking them with this thumbnail, which I’ve always thought is really cool. I’ve never been able to do that. 

Todd: I think you have to have a special kind of match to do that actually. But yeah, I will someday I’ll just practice that. 

Craig: But I was shocked because I thought that Joey was the hero of this movie.

I thought that he was going to rescue his sister. No, no. Kent throws the match on him and burns him to a crisp. He’s dead. 

Todd: Yeah, that was surprising really surprising. It’s also surprising you didn’t burn down the rest of the of the house with it Also surprising that dad didn’t pop out to see what was going on because he’s literally down the hall 

Craig: Yeah, but he’s just you know talking to Laurie Nonsense, and and then Kent comes in he’s like, oh, here’s Kent Kent always helped me He helped keep the dirty boys away from Laurie and this scene was so So weird because now all of a sudden this poor girl is sitting on this bed witnessing two lunatics have a conversation 

Clip: and 

Craig: at first Kent is like acting all innocent as though he didn’t just emulate his best friend in The garage acting like he doesn’t know what’s going on, like, like he’s surprised.

Yeah. Like he’s surprised. And then he’s like, what are you talking about? I never helped you. And then he says, Kathy, who is his first cousin. He’s like, we loved each other. So all those times that we were going away, we were making sweet, sweet love.

Clip: Oh 

Craig: man. So Vance and Kent. Vow to kill each other and then take their fight out into the kitchen 

Todd: Vance is holding a doll. You got to mention that Vance is holding this doll that he was like 

Craig: In a wedding dress. 

Todd: Oh, a 

Craig: bride doll like a porcelain doll and I think that Kent picks up a knife and Vance grabs it by the blade or something it somehow it both cuts him and cuts off the head of the doll So there’s blood all over this white wedding dress of the doll and he says to Kent you hurt my Kathy You’re a heathen you killed her again And then Kent stabs Vance kind of really Vance kind of more walks into the knife than anything else But 

Todd: it’s so weird because it’s kind of at odds with his whole I got to protect my family angle that he had moments ago with Joe, but I guess he’s just a lunatic.

So Whatever. Then Kent becomes even more loony. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, he tries to put the doll back together, which somehow he’s able to do. I don’t know how he stuck that head back on. 

Todd: Washes it off. He’s super happy. He’s cackling. Yeah, 

Craig: he sprays it off in the sink. Ugh, 

Todd: so dumb. 

Craig: He unties Lori. She literally screams, I’m free!

And then he rapes her. Like, this, I 

Todd: I mean, you can’t remain a little girl for the rest of your life, he says. It was really gross. 

Craig: It was really gross, and I knew, like, I’m looking at the, the time, and I know that there’s literally, like, three or four minutes of this movie left, and, you know, thankfully, It’s off screen, you know, he, he starts to get aggressive with her, you can tell what’s going to happen and then it cuts to black and comes back in the aftermath and, and you know, you know what’s happened, but thankfully they didn’t show it to us, but they’re laying there.

Todd: He says to her, we’re married now, Lori, just the way Kathy and I were married. Oh, gross. 

Craig: Yeah, and he’s like, I’m gonna, you’re gonna be so happy here or something. She looks over to the bedside table where there’s a huge pair of scissors. And then again, it cuts away and the next shot that we see is her ambling in the early dawn.

Through a parking lot, and the, the nightgown that she’s wearing is covered in blood. So obviously she’s killed him. Good. Good job. Good for 

Todd: you. Very much like, um, Texas Chainsaw, right? So for, at least in this, you know, it kind of mimics that whole stumbling down the street at dawn. Final girl kind of thing and then we get that big long ass title card on the screen It says the events dramatized in this film actually took place in 1967 and it goes into great detail dates and things Laurie spent from 1967 to 1970 in a mental institution and her mother in 1974 was killed in a single car accident and in 1975 she was married and she and her husband now have one child and live in California in San Fernando Valley Just four miles away from all where all this happened And I ain’t believe a word of it.

I mean, it’s odd too, right? Like usually when they do this kind of thing with a movie, it’s used to promote the film. It’s like a, it gets people in the theaters. It’s at the beginning based on a true story, even though it’s not, which I suppose is what, isn’t that exactly what Texas Chainsaw did too? Yeah.

Isn’t there a based on a true story in the beginning? Oh yeah. Which if it legitimately kind of was, I mean, it’s. Based very loosely on Ed Gein, but still 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: what to have it at the end is weird when you’re trying to promote your movie It probably At least should have said something about it at the beginning.

Craig: Yeah, gosh, I don’t know either. Yeah, I’m sure that at some point in time, there was somebody who killed somebody with tools. Okay, I’m willing to believe that. This whole convoluted nonsense with the nephew and incest and that’s all just silliness, but whatever. I mean, you know, we, even if This is even loosely based on some kind of true crime.

That’s even still more than some, you know, some, some of these movies just make shit up. Which again is fine, I don’t care. But I was turned off by the last 10 minutes. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I just felt like that, that, even the insinuation of rape was Unnecessary for me. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: The girl was supposed to be 15. I didn’t like it.

I get it. I know that horrible things happen and, and, you know, it’s not like something like I spit on your grave where I actually had to watch it in terrible detail. 

Todd: True. 

Craig: So I’m grateful for that. It just, it, I don’t know. I didn’t like it. Yeah. It, it The movie wasn’t good enough to warrant it for, for me.

I see, it didn’t 

Todd: earn it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s almost like two different movies too. It starts off as this really brutal slasher, and it’s just one body after another, after another, after another. And then like halfway through, suddenly it’s trying to be this psychological study of a killer, like maniac or something.

And, and it’s, it’s a change in tone, really. I mean, it all feels sleazy. So, that tone remains. But, the direction the movie was going in, I mean, the guy’s not killing anybody anymore. Now it’s, he’s taking this girl hostage. There’s all this weird shit, why? I mean, yeah, it’s just not a very satisfying story.

It’s trying to be twisty, and it’s trying to be interesting, and I’ll give it that it’s trying. It’s certainly more interesting than, um, some movies we watch, but, uh, But, yeah, it didn’t really Do it for me. It was okay. 

Craig: It was fine. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you are into these kinds of movies from the seventies, it’s fine, it’s serviceable.

We’ve, we’ve seen far worse. 

Todd: It’s almost like a perfect representation of these kinds of movies. I mean, really grindhouse film. Apparently in 2004, Toby Hooper did a remake of this called toolbox murders. 

Craig: I looked at, I didn’t watch it, but I, I looked at it a little bit. I don’t even, it sounds like an entire, it doesn’t sound anything like this movie at all.

The whole premise of it isn’t even similar. So I don’t know. I mean, I’d be interested in watching it because I like Toby Hooper as a director. I think he’s a good director, so I would definitely watch it, but. I don’t know. It didn’t sound like a remake at all. It’s it’s called Toolbox Murders. So 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: it purports to be a remake.

But I mean, even if you look just the the cover art shows some kind of like mutated deformed guy and like a burlap. And if you read, if you read the plot description, it’s like some girl, some woman or something moves into an old estate and there’s some ancient evil lurking there behind the walls. What?

Todd: It sounds very Toby Hooper. 

Craig: I mean, that sounds fine, but it doesn’t sound like this. 

Todd: Maybe there are tools involved. I’m sure 

Craig: there are. 

Todd: I don’t know. There’s also a sequel to that one that was announced in 2009. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, it got made in 2013 by a guy named Dean Jones, who’s done a lot of makeup for like the Star Trek series and stuff, and has Bruce Dern in it.

Apparently a bunch of other people were attached to it, but one by one they kind of And I think Bruce Dern was the only one left. 

Craig: Bruce Dern? 

Todd: Yeah, but it doesn’t look very good. It’s Again, you read the description. Samantha is kidnapped by a serial killer, locked in a cage, and forced to witness dozens of people being killed.

And after ten days in captivity, the killer begins to fall in love with her, until she is rescued by police. 

Craig: Well that kinda sounds more like this movie than the other one. 

Todd: It really does, doesn’t it? And I think it has the alternate title, Coffin Baby. So even Toolbox Murders 2 wasn’t enough to get that movie going.

Apparently. It also doesn’t have very high reviews, but uh, Bruce Dern’s in it. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, yeah, I like Bruce. He’s great. I can’t give this movie any kind of glowing recommendation. I know it was okay. I mean, it was whatever for me. It’s also not something that I would say, Oh, don’t watch it. Like you’ll feel like you’ve completely wasted your time.

I mean, it’s, it’s fine. It’s whatever. I just, uh, I can’t get enthusiastic about it. 

Todd: As an artifact of a typical 1970s exploitation film, this does indeed check all the boxes. It’s even got the people involved, who are crossing over into other genres and porn and all that stuff. It’s porny, it’s sleazy, it’s gory, it’s brutal.

It’s also very nonsensical, and doesn’t give really a shit about the plot. So, again, like you said, if you’re into those movies, or you just kind of enjoy watching them as I would say this is probably one of the better ones, but to be fair Pieces is ten times better than this and far more entertaining.

That’s kinda become my standard actually. I always compare these movies to Pieces. Yeah, you do. Is it better than Pieces? Is it as fun as Pieces? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And it’s not. Yeah, 

Craig: I would say that this is more in line with like Last House on the Left.

It’s not as brutal. And as brutal as Last House on the left is, Wes Craven was just a really talented director. And so you can at least appreciate the, the filmmaking. The filmmaking isn’t poor here. It’s just not exceptional. It’s so, anyway, I think I’ve said everything I have to say. That’s fine. 

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode.

If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. If you have other exploitation movies that you think we just need to see, go ahead and reach out to us. Just Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast, and you can find our website, ChainsawHorror. com. You can leave us a voice message on there to request something.

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