Pieces [Import]

NO SPOILERS IN ANY WAY! (which would be easy to do by accident here)
I can't even begin to express the excitement I'm feeling, sitting here right now salivating over an Official DVD release of one of my favorite Genre pictures of all time!!! Juan Piquer Simon's PIECES!!!! If you understand as well as have any appreciation for the "Golden age of Gore" films (raw horror movies made between 1981 to 1986) or as what they refer to them now as "Grindhouse Films" this is a MUST OWN. The only print of this wonderfully little sleazy gorefest that has EVER been available was a BADLY TRANFERRED, washed-out and badly side-cropped fullscreen print (Depending on which label was on the VHS you could tell which "side" the film was centered towards in order to avoid showing the "decapitation in the grass" aftermath.BUT, I still get great joy out of even for all it flaws) that's been on DVD for all these years in public domain. This is time to rejoice!!!!
THE FILM: PIECES
Opening in a flashback with what (at the time, and still is) was one of the most taboo, brutalistic & disturbing axe murders ever shot, the movie quickly leaps to the "present" and follows a "typical" Italian (even though it's Spanish)Giallo style approach, with Sexy female college co-eds getting slaughtered on campus by a black gloved killer who likes to keep "trophies" from each girl (Chainsaws are the killer's fave instrument of destruction). Christopher George and wife Linda Day-George co-star as the stereotype, hardboiled gumshoe and the sexy, sweet undercover cop who starts teaching tennis on campus in order to investigate while remaining under the radar of the killer. (Hopefully.....)
The movie is FILLED with GREAT kills, beautiful college girls in various states of undress, hystericaly campy one moment and then sucker punches you the next, Dubbing that's so bad at times it actually ADDS to the fun experience, some lines that you can't help but laugh hysterically at ("BAAAAASTARD!!! BAAAAASTARD!!!"LOL) and quote for days, a few good red-herrings to try and keep you on your toes and a reveal and twist ending that most will have probably figured out by the halfway point, but it stays fun and keeps your attention very easily. There's also the wonderful, surprise at the ending that will have men cringing and women laughing for hours, but will have you thinking "Friday the 13th pt 1".
Not a big budget movie. But not a stinker in the cinematography dpt either. The camera is used effectively and the musical score is at times quite creepy & unnerving and REALLY creates some tense moements,reminding you at times of Fabio Frizzi or Goblin with it's 80's synth pulsing rhythmic themes. The scare stabs sound need to be noted as well. Ranking up there with the "ratchet noise" from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Don't expect 2008 big budget/studio quality here folks. Picture yourself at the filthiest, darkest, scariest movie theater in Manhattan at midnight, with sticky floors and all strangers around you. THAT was the environment you had to go to in order to view this slice of sleaze cinema. It's nasty. It's dark. It's an original taboo breaker. It's gore was not only realistic, but carried impact as well. It actually contains a well thought out "who's doing it?!" pace as the cops try to stop the killer from collecting another one of his "Pieces". A cool twist and completely fantastic double-shock ending, in the vein of the 1st two Friday the 13th film's cap it all off.
A great way to spend a saturday evening if double billed with "The Burning". Ahhhhh......My idea of a perfect night.

Back in the 40s, a woman scolds her son for putting together a jigsaw puzzle depicting a naked woman. Understandably the boy then hacks his mother into...pieces. Forty years later the killer is on a college campus, and he's determined to finish that jigsaw puzzle, but he's upped the ante and using real chicks. Why go on a killing spree forty years later when the puzzle could have easily been solved before then? Hell if I know, this is a slasher film. Maybe he's just sick of getting screwed on those jigsaw puzzles with the missing pieces they always seems to be selling at Goodwill. Using a chainsaw and clothed like a killer from an Italian giallo thriller, he goes about the campus collecting whatever body part is needed for the next piece. If you ask me, a chainsaw really isn't the most efficient tool for a slasher movie killer to use since there seem to be more cons than pros attached to them if you really think about it. It does get the job done and eliminates all that tiresome hacking with an ax or machete. A detective played by Christopher George(who everyone should recall played the reporter in Fulci's City of the Living Dead) is on the case and has difficulty...ahem.. piecing together the mystery. He enlists the help of a womanizing student and a tennis pro(a nice looking piece herself) to sift through the handful of suspects. One of them is the goofy maintenance man played by Paul Smith(the big dude who played the evil warden in Midnight Express), but it's obvious he isn't the killer considering how hard they try to make him look like the killer. The Dean and the anatomy professor are a little fishy too. So who is it?? The hell if I'm gonna tell you.
Pieces is a film that has all those ingredients all of us lovers of trashy slasher cinema love. It's got the nude chicks, the faceless killer, the snazzy soundtrack(which sounds quite a bit like Goblin at times) and gore. This is slasher movie that has a bit more gore in it than most of the other films of the time. That's probably because this wasn't done by a major studio like the Friday the 13th films, and probably wasn't under the microscope of the MPAA. It is a slasher film, but it has that killer with the black gloves and floppy hat that makes it also feel like a giallo. It also seems to have inspiration from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(the chainsaw of course) and Blood Feast(the collecting of body parts from young women). I guess you could say that it's pieced together from other horror films. Grindhouse Releasing have put together another fine 2 disc package for this film, so it's worth the cash if you're thinking about buying it.
To anyone who hasn't seen it and is a fan of the 80s slasher genre, I'd highly recommend it.
Piece out.

I have this as part of my Blood Bath compilation of movies for along time that was the only way you could get a copy of this. Pieces is a film you either love or hate. For the skeumish and the easly influenced this is not a good film to see. If you like limbs and other parts cut off and being used for a real Jigsaw puzzle that this film is for you. From the first few minutes to the last second of the film the blood really flys. Like all NASTY films of the time there is a bit of sleaze and sex, but mostly the butchers made this film bannd in the UK. The film starts with a gruesome scene of the killer as a young child butchering his mother after she caught him playing with a Nudy puzzle. Years later he now starts making a puzzle out of the flesh and body parts of women. Most people can't stand this movie because the acting is almost impossible to watch and other people argue that the rip off film Torso is much better. Most versions of this movie have terrible restoration problems, particurlly with the DVD looking like a VHS in which case my version does. Still if you like sick gory films it's worth a watch.