Der Killer mit der Bohrmaschine (1978)

Der Killer mit der Bohrmaschine: Directed by Dennis Donnelly. With Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Wesley Eure, Nicolas Beauvy. A ski-masked maniac kills apartment complex tenants with the contents of a toolbox.

“u0026quot;The Toolbox Murdersu0026quot; is a late-u0026#39;70s slasher flick that I watched some years ago and could remember nothing about. Thatu0026#39;s probably not a good sign.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI will say one thing for it: itu0026#39;s sleazier than most. Three girls disrobe in the opening twenty minutes. The last one gets fully naked and stays that way for a decent stretch. We also watch her masturbate in a bathtub.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe killer has a pretty lame mask. Hell, Michael Myersu0026#39; was just a painted William Shatner mask they got at a joke shop, and it became iconic. The one in this movie is just a woollen ski mask.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie does have a decent gimmick, though, which is alluded to in the title. Yes, the killer uses a toolset to dispatch his victims, first a claw hammer, then a nailgun – which is used much more convincingly than the one in u0026quot;The Nailgun Massacreu0026quot;, even if they forgot to tell the actress playing the victim to look scared while he uses it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut get this: for the third victim, the killer just smothers her with his hands! Was the toolbox too heavy or something?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe protagonist seems to be a guy who looks like a third-rate Luke Skywalker clone whose 15-year-old sister is kidnapped, presumably by the killer. He doesnu0026#39;t appear too worried. He teams up with a guy who looks a bit like John Stamos, but less charismatic. They decide to do some snooping of their own to find the kidnapped girl, and discover a vibrator in the masturbating womanu0026#39;s house, as if to underline what a sex freak she was (?).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie then makes the regrettable decision of revealing the killeru0026#39;s identity to us. Some slasher movies do this, granted, but here it seemed unnecessary. We get a long, boring scene with the unmasked killer and the kidnapped girl.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHe seems to talk about the masturbating woman from before. Apparently heu0026#39;s some kind of religious crazy who wants to punish women for doing u0026quot;unnaturalu0026quot; things, like masturbating. How did he even know she did that?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd if the movie is just going to show us the killeru0026#39;s identity, what was the point of the mask, which certainly wouldnu0026#39;t have helped his homicidal efforts? The only people who see him get killed. Anyone else would have been immediately suspicious seeing a man with a mask running around. If not for that, probably nobody would have even noticed him.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s also a u0026quot;twistu0026quot; at the end which is so out-of-nowhere that you just feel cheated. A u0026quot;goodu0026quot; character turns evil. Why? They donu0026#39;t even bother giving you a shot of him making the revelation of whatu0026#39;s supposed to be the turning point. And what a turnaround. It just feels stupid and tacked on.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThen thereu0026#39;s a laughable text-edit ending that tells you the movie was based on a true story and what happened to the characters in real life or some such garbage. Sometimes when a movie is supposed to be u0026quot;based on a true storyu0026quot; I actually look it up to see if thatu0026#39;s really the case. This time, I donu0026#39;t think Iu0026#39;ll bother.”