Very boring…and here's why
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Toolbox Murders
seanstanley — 19 years ago(August 25, 2006 04:42 PM)
A movie like this is trying to hold your attention by one of two ways: fear/gore (the horror elements) or mystery. It fails the first way, because it quite frankly just isn't very scary. Just standard slasher movie stuff, the occasional jump scare, etc
As for the mysterywell this is where the movie really shoots itself in the foot. Because it keeps hinting that there's something mysterious with this building. We're supposed to follow around Angela Bettis' character and are supposed to unravel the mystery of the building along with herexcept there's one problem. We, as the audience, already knows what's going on! We know that these people are getting maimed by some mysterious figure. No one else knows this, they're trying to figure that outso there's basically no mystery for us, because we're already 4 steps ahead of the characters. Very boring.
At one point it occurred to me that this movie would have been much more interesting if they cut out all of the kills. That would turn it into a real mystery. The question becomes: Is Angel Bettis' character paranoid or is there really something mysterious going on with this building? And then she could slowly stumble upon the grisly murders and we, the audience, would find out with her.
But insteadyawn. -
Warge — 19 years ago(September 18, 2006 11:17 AM)
About 2: Come on! It's not what you see that thrills and scare, it's what you don't see. So I have to agree with the original poster about that - the movie is boring, plain and simple.
3. And spawning a sequel is the curse of slasher movies - So far, I'm sooo happy this hasn't happened yet.
4. If you are talking about the Ring, I'm with you - the Japanese original was indeed a true horror movie without the annoying Hollywood habit of writing everything on our foreheads. Remakes are the curse of Hollywood.
That said, I would rather see one of the crap remake movies of any Japanese production than seeing this again. A total waste of money. -
malfunction-1 — 19 years ago(August 30, 2006 06:15 AM)
i totally agree with you really boring!
a black dressed guy killing people in a building one by one,
some unexplained voodoo-symbol-stuff and some gory killings with tools,
oh.. who would have guessed that with that title i mean, come on!
and there are really BIG plot holes, too many things are just left open
and you just wonder WTF?
the only mystery with this movie is that you ask yourself
"Why oh why am i watching this crap" -
dstancey — 19 years ago(September 28, 2006 06:44 AM)
Actually, you're entirely wrong. Not knowing anything in advance of the character is how you get a jump scare. Knowing more than a character is where you get tension and suspense. Hitchcock does this all the time. We see the killer is holding a knife, but the woman is offering him coffee not knowing he's the danger. Hitchcock described it with a bomb. A jump scare is two people talking at a table and then a bomb suddenly going off. Suspense is two people sitting at a table and us seeing there is a bomb, and wondering the whole time when and if it is going to go off before the protangonist can stop it or flee.
We follow Angela while she's putting together - knowing way more than she does, and that's the point. We know she's walking right into it. If all you want its more "BOO!" moments than there are plenty of teen-horror movies that deliver that. Cause its easy to suddenly jump from soft to loud while something leaps from the shadows. Whether its a madman or a cat (the equally 'jumpy' false scare) - the jump is easy to create.
What you consider boring is probably a short attention span. Tobe Hooper has mostly avoided going with a fast-cutting MTV style of horror that has become the norm and sticks with the slower paced, building movies. He plays with the characters nicely, with sattirical quirky comedy rather than horror-sight gags or punchline jokes. I love his movies even many that others hate. I think they just go in expecting the wrong thing - like jump scenes. Yippee.
I don't see how the film would have been better if we weren't 4 steps ahead of her. How easy is it to keep someone guessing when you simply withold information from them. Yeah, that makes a jump scare easy cause ANYTHING can SUDDENLY happen. Weeeeeee. It's so much more psychological and tense when we know the danger. We know whats around the corner, and know that she doesn't know it yet. But we know she is going to find out. -
alejotsv — 19 years ago(October 02, 2006 09:59 AM)
OK so, you're a fan, but I really think this was a reaaaaaaaaaally stupid and boring movie. First of all, it is not original at all. Think about it, all the elements of a predictable movie were there the nosy girl and the husband who's not gonna be around when needed, the ridicously creepy guy who's alike the killer but, a million horror movies later, we KNOW is not the real one. And all of the false jumps (along with the 'horror' violin). Is there anything original in this movie well, yeah, the huge number of plot holes.
Is it possible that in a building where there are hidden around 1,000 corpses no one realises that there's something that smells funny????? Then, when people start disappearing, they just think: "oh, he/she must just have left let's throw out all his/her stuffs and rent the apartment again". And the best of all what about that mistery that everyone is trying to unsolve, I mean, what was going on?? it seems like the writers ran out of ideas to explain the murders and they decided to leave it like that some vudu was going on and that's it Additionally WHY THE F DID THE GIRL WRITE THE SYMBOLS ON HER ARMS I guess either she thought it could be handy at the end to cover her face and move it around to distract the killer while the police magically arrived, or she just didn't have ANY PAPER at home (or maybe, just maybe, she'd always wanted to have a tatoo and she thought "well, this looks nice").
And the list doesn't end there SUPERHUBBY who didn't know that he was going to appear just when the machine was about to slash her??? and what kind of wife leaves her husband alone when he's about to die from a horrible wound after he saved her life??? no, she decided THAT was the perfect time for packing
And the worst af all is that I was really longing for a toolbox fight between the handyman and the killer!! -
lafferj — 19 years ago(October 03, 2006 10:42 PM)
I totally agree with alejotsv. This movie blows chunks. I did not understand the last 2 paragraphs and that is because ,by this time, I had turned the movie off.
Do not rent this piece of tripe. Bad acting, story line, plot, effects and the list goes on. Man, that is 1 hour of my life I will never get back.
Pet hate of this movie, like a lot of horror movies, when the killer is attempting to kill someone, they don't put up much of a struggle. The scene when the murderer was killing one character, he screams "hurry up and kill me". Funny, no. Just dumb, dumb, dumb. Someone's trying to kill me, I'll be kicking, screaming, tearing, biting etc.
The acting is so abysmal. Stay clear of this stinker. -
letranger-3 — 19 years ago(December 14, 2006 05:46 PM)
The girl had a map and was trying to find the different symbols. She wrote the symbols on her arms to help her memory as she looked for the symbols throughout the building.
Personally, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I was expecting a killer to kill people with tools and he did just that. I wasn't expecting a Criterion Collection movie. It could have been a really terrible movie with Busta Rhymes sending an group of teens to investigate the hotel, a toolbox killer in outer space - Toolbox Killer X, or another Ringu rip-off like Pulse. However, it was atmospheric, had some cool characters (I liked the super), and killings with tools. It wasn't avant garde, but I applaud Tobe for keeping it simple with some dark atmosphere. -
seanstanley — 19 years ago(January 21, 2007 10:47 PM)
First, there's no need to assume that because I disagreed with you that I have a short attention span.
Second, of course I understand how suspense works. That's not what I'm talking about here. I specifically used the word "mystery" and not "suspense." A mystery is not made better if we know the conclusion (well, I should say usually, one could hypothetically make a good movie that way I suppose, never say never).
If you re-read my post, I specifically divide the two things the director seems to be trying to achieve into: scares (suspense) and mystery. I didn't really elaborate on why I didn't find it scary, and having been so long since I've seen it, I couldn't properly explain it now. However, the entire mystery of this apartment complex didn't work for me at all.
Tobe Hooper has obviously made good work before. Unfortunately, like too many of my favorite horror directors of old, he's fallen into some sort of rut that I just can't get into.
I didn't even like Angela Bettis in this and I usually love her. Oh well.
And I realize I am super late in replying, so I don't really expect a response, but I thought I'd share because people post to this thread every once in awhile.
Sean -
-
barbie800 — 19 years ago(November 11, 2006 05:08 AM)
I'm a huge horror movie fan. I've watched them since I was 7 and I'm now 32 but I too agree that this movie was just boring. I started to fall asleep about 45 minutes in. I just did not like it. Just my opinion.
-
darkman01-1 — 19 years ago(January 15, 2007 05:12 AM)
I haven't seen it yet but i want to because Juliet Landau is in it. I read the replys to this post but as usual i never listen to them because any kind of movie (original or not)i end up liking it. chick flicks and Cabin Fever are the only movies i will not watch. Because they are beep
Execute Order 66 -
scottspinvinylnow — 19 years ago(February 08, 2007 11:28 AM)
I think the people who are bored obviously expected something out of nothing. I didn't expect much, it had some great killings, kept me interested. Unboring. Would I watch it again? Sure, would I buy it, Neigh!