Also released as
- The Maniac Drill
- Τα σύνεργα του τρόμου
- Los asesinatos de la caja de herramientas
- Кошмар дома на холмах
- Der Bohrmaschinenkiller
Filed under
The Toolbox Murders
The Toolbox Murders is a 1978 American slasher film directed by Dennis Donnelly. It is one of the 72 films on the Director of Public Prosecutions' video nasties list, later dropped without a successful prosecution.
The first fifteen minutes are notorious. The remaining seventy are a different and much duller film.
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Fifteen minutes of notoriety attached to seventy minutes of a different and much duller film.
The opening sequence is a series of killings in an apartment block, filmed at length, one of them scored to a gentle country ballad playing on the radio while it happens. That juxtaposition is why the film has a reputation and it is very effective.
Then the film becomes a slow kidnap drama with a religious motive, and the energy never returns.
Cameron Mitchell is doing real work in it, which is more than the material deserves.
Listed by the DPP, dropped, cut on its 2000 UK release and passed uncut in 2017. Remade by Tobe Hooper in 2004, unrelated in everything but title.
Banned, seized, prosecuted
DPP 72 · listed, then dropped
UK now Passed 18 uncut in 2017, after a cut release in 2000
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
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