toolbox_murders_storThe Lusman Arms is a run down apartment building rich in history.  Once decadent and luxurious, it’s a bit sleazy now.  But for Nell and Steven, a young married couple just starting their life together, it’s a stepping stone to better things.  She is a teacher, he is a medical student starting his internship.  It’s the first year of marriage that’s the roughest, as they say, and things do get rough for the couple.

The Lusman pops and groans with strange noises and is filled with rather eccentric characters.  The building manager is a sleaze who refers to the Lusman in glowing terms that belie the reality, and the maintenance guy is appropriately creepy.  One other quirky tidbit about the place is that people tend to disappear at the Lusman Arms.  When they don’t simply vanish, they are brutally murdered.  Savagely killed.  It gets nasty.

When their neighbor, Julia, disappears, Nell sets out to find her.  She receives advice and guidance from another kind neighbor, “Jazz” Rooker, and old-time actor.  He knows some secrets about the apartment building, and they are the kind of secrets that could get a person killed.  Or skewered.


Tobe Hooper directed this remake, and though I’ve never seen the original Toolbox Murders, I do like this one.  This movie holds up, and though the ending becomes a little silly it’s still a enjoyable.  It’s not Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it’s still Hooper’s best work since Poltergeist and TCM 2.

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