The Barrows couple move into the Lusman building in Hollywood, a building in perpetual state of renovation where, in the 30s-40s, most of the young cinema stars resided. However, one by one, the inhabitants of the building start dying under the murderous fury of a guy who uses carpenter's tools, scattered throughout the floors of the building, as weapons. Nell Barrows begins to suspect that something strange is happening, but, after a series of false alarms and the disappearance of her friend Julia, Nell decides to investigate and discovers disturbing truths about the building's past and its mysterious architecture.
Author of a great masterpiece like "Don't Open That Door" and other gems produced at the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, Tobe Hooper, after a period of inactivity interrupted by movies probably made only for financial reasons, returns in this first decade of the 21st century. A return that sounds as such only on paper, since the performances given so far are of very poor quality and of little interest to the horror fan spectator: these are two low-budget films made one year apart, "The House of Massacres" and "The Caretaker".
"The House of Massacres" ("Toolbox Murders" in the original) is the remake of a film directed in 1978 by Dennis Donnelly and known in Italy with the title "The Los Angeles Slayer", this time proposed as pure horror, seasoned with a series of imaginative and very bloody murders. In the end, what can be most appreciated about this film by Hooper is precisely the high level of gore and atrocities, committed by a villain who, visually speaking, appears as a cross between Leatherface and Darkman; a villain who acts with common carpenter's tools such as hammers, electric drills, and pliers.
Unfortunately, however, the charm of "The House of Massacres" ends here, as the rest seems rather amateur and impersonal; in fact, Hooper's touch is only noticeable in the set design of the assassin's lair. The rest of the sets appear poorly cared for and surely unsuited to a film that elects as the story's protagonist a dilapidated building from the first half of the 900s.
Surely the most evident of the film's weak points is the screenplay written by Jace Anderson and Adam Gierash, which in some points seems weak and redundant and in others too rushed, leaving some important issues unresolved and unclear explanations for the viewer, as if the production's censor scissors had intervened to ensure the feature film did not exceed 90 minutes in duration. Furthermore, the Italian dubbing work does not help to enhance a generally unconvincing acting performance; actors not particularly memorable and little-known (some later recycled for the cast of "The Caretaker"), among whom Angela Bettis ("Girl, Interrupted"; "The Devil's Mouth"; "Carrie") can be recognized in the role of the protagonist and Sheri Moon ("The House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's House") who, however, exits the scene in the first ten minutes.
In conclusion, "The House of Massacres" simply turns out to be a modest slasher movie with excellent gore moments but with a disastrous screenplay and very few other reasons to be remembered; we hope that one day Tobe Hooper can return to the heights of his early career.
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