The Toolbox Murders (1978)

The Toolbox Murders is the kind of scruffy, mean little 1970s thriller that grabs you by the collar with atmosphere first: sun-bleached Los Angeles, a claustrophobic apartment complex, and the uneasy sense that danger lives right down the hall. It earns its cult reputation with a brazen, tool-by-tool brutality that’s genuinely effective, staged with a grim confidence that modern slashers often sand down. Yet it’s not just gore for gore’s sake—there’s a pulpy mystery engine and a few surprisingly committed performances that make it strangely watchable even when it’s unsettling. Fair warning: it’s rough around the edges and very much of its era, but if you want an underrated slasher that feels dirty, tense, and unapologetically nasty, this one delivers.

The Toolbox Murders wants to be a grimy, urban slasher with a mystery hook and a nasty streak of grindhouse shock, and for a little while it actually delivers on that promise with some blunt, effective early kills. Then it starts dragging its feet, wandering into a different kind of movie altogether, and the pacing in the back half can feel like it’s actively testing your patience. The violence is frequently framed in a way that reads as mean-spirited and misogynistic rather than suspenseful, and the plotting and dialogue can be so clumsy and nonsensical that tension leaks out of the scenes. If you’re a diehard for sleazy late-70s exploitation horror and can tolerate rough storytelling, you might find it a curio; if you want coherent thrills or anything resembling empathy, this probably isn’t for you.