The most anticipated sequel of the year…
Written and Directed by: Dean C. Jones
Starring: Chauntal Lewis, Chris Doyle, Bruce Dern (Dear God… why?!?)
The H-Bomb: The original Toolbox Murders was a low-rent exploitation junker from 1978 that was pretty much forgotten about, until it was loosely remade by famed horror maestro Tobe Hooper in 2004. Hooper is best known for making a seminal film in which a killer dispatches his victims with a certain gas-powered cutting tool, so, having him helm a flick in which the killer has a whole toolbox full of goodies to play with, seemed like a match made in horror heaven. Sadly, it wasn’t. With shoddy production values, uneven acting, and a overly-elaborate script that tried to give the killer a complex back story, Toolbox Murders was an average-at-best slasher that is just as forgotten as the 70’s film that inspired it.
Now, eleven years later, we get a sequel to the remake of a movie that no one remembers, Toolbox Murders 2, aka Coffin Baby, brought to us by debuting writer/director Dean C. Jones, who was the make-up effects artist on the 2004 movie. Allegedly “picking up directly after the events of Hooper’s shocking film,” we find that the Toolbox Killer (Doyle), or TBK, for short, has moved out of that decrepit Hollywood apartment building, and into some dingy, abandoned warehouse leftover from the Saw series.
Our masked killer now stalks the streets of L.A., in search of new victims. After gruesomely dispatching young Sabrina Forester (Isabelle Fretheim), TBK abducts her sister, Samantha (Lewis), and inexplicably doesn’t kill her, opting instead to lock her up in a cage in his warehouse. For what seems like an eternity, he keeps Samantha in this cage, at times giving her a bottle of water and some popcorn. Every once in a while, he’ll roll out a TV, so she can watch all her favorite public domain movies.
Occasionally, he’ll provide Samantha with live entertainment by bringing in his victims and carving them up as she watches. He even fries up pieces of their body parts and feeds them to her, as she gradually loses her mind. It’s only after he cuts off one of her hands for no apparent reason, that Samantha decides maybe she should get the fuck out of there. It may not sound like much, but believe it or not, I have just described the bulk of this film’s plot. You may think I’m a thoughtless asshole for giving away as much as I have, but please trust me, I am doing you a ginormous favor, by taking away any reason you would ever have for watching this vile waste of celluloid.
Before I go any further, I must offer the makers of The Gallows, Area 51, and Unfriended my humblest, and sincerest, apologies. Those films are certainly bad, and represent much of what is wrong with modern horror, but compared to the subject of this review, they are absolute classics of the genre. As flawed as they are, they at least had characters that were developed to some degree, and plots that were somewhat coherent and told some kind of story. That is a hell of a lot more than I can say for Toolbox Murders 2.
Seriously, this movie sucks gigantic, fat, throbbing, pulsating dicks. If you find my choice of words offensive, then sorry, but this fucking load of excrement fucking deserves it. Yeah, I really, really loathed this movie. This is probably the worst movie I’ve covered this side of The Human Centipede 2. If the zero star rating were still an option here, I’d most definitely slap it onto this deformed fucking helmet child of a movie. Jesus Christ bananas!
Toolbox Murders 2 is the kind of senseless, brainless filth that gives the slasher sub-genre its shit reputation. It’s 95 endless minutes of people we don’t know, and don’t give a fuck about, getting hacked apart on a fucking slab. There are some lovely gore effects, I will give it that, but good gore alone does not a good horror movie make. An actual fucking plot would be nice, or maybe a lead character to get behind who isn’t a badly acted, obnoxious bimbo bitch. How about some actual tension or suspense? Maybe? Perhaps? Nope, sorry, not in this movie.
Director Jones, as stated, was the head make up artist on the 2004 Toolbox Murders, so no shit he got the gore right, it’s just that in all the other aspects of film-making, such as writing and direction, he has proven himself to be woefully inept. A solid hour of this cinematic water-boarding session consists of this terrible, terrible actress sitting in her own piss and vomit, eating popcorn as strangers get sliced up in front of her. To call it dull would be a severe understatement. To say I could feel my brain atrophying from intellectual inertia while watching this shit storm would be infinitely more appropriate.
It would help if it didn’t look like every dime that went into this literal bargain basement production hadn’t gone to buying off Bruce Dern. Yes, two time Academy Award nominee Bruce Dern is in Toolbox Murders 2. No, Jones and his crew did not pull a Bowfinger by following him around without his knowledge, though they might have gotten a better performance out of him, had they done that. Instead, for the approximate five minutes that he’s in the picture, he looks as though he’s in a kind of confused daze not uncommon with geriatrics, as he spouts off pretentious gibberish, and prays to the Heavens above when he should be running for his fucking life. There is a revelation about his character that makes little sense and has no payoff. If you’re thinking about checking out the movie for him: DON’T.
As for leading lady Lewis, the only words I can find to do her performance any kind of justice are God-fucking-awful. Her cringe inducing turn here is one even the fucking Razzies won’t touch. Her every emotion was utterly forced and insincere, her every line delivery an oral bowel movement. She fucking sucked with a capital Suck! To think she actually has had a career as an actress, and wasn’t just plucked out of a strip club or some Midwestern beauty pageant is mind-boggling. Lewis will leave anyone unfortunate enough to watch this yearning for Angela Bettis, or fucking Sheri Moon Zombie, or anyone from the first movie.
Not that anyone who reads this will see Toolbox Murders 2, not unless, by some sick sense of morbid curiosity, they want to find out just how painful a painfully bad horror movie can really be. I shit you not, dear readers, this blast from the ass is hands down the worst fucking movie I have seen in ages. The first Toolbox Murders is a masterpiece next to this. Hell, I Spit On Your Grave 2 is a masterpiece next to this. Yes, it really is that wretched. A bottle of rum and a case of beer barely made it watchable, and now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to hit the booze again, to cleanse this rotten, maggot infested corpse of a motion picture from my mind, once and for fucking all.
