Pieces (1982)

June 5, 2018

"You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw Massacre!"

Pieces is such a bizarre film. There are so many parts of the film that are really creative and well done... and so many parts of the film that are truly awful... The filmmakers, using a small $300,000 budget created some of the most brutal murder scenes in any movie up to that time. Unfortunately, it looks like the budget was entirely spent on those scenes with the sound dubbing being off, the acting being terrible and the script making very little sense. Filmed entirely in Spain, this spaghetti horror, when all is said and done, really is a fun slasher with some very memorable scenes.

The film opens on a scene of a boy putting together a puzzle with a naked lady on it. When his mother discovers the puzzle she chastises the boy and he immediately murders her with an axe. Jump forward a number of years later and the boy who is now grown up has begun murdering women at a college in Boston and collecting pieces of their bodies. Why? To make his own pieced together puzzle of women's body parts. All we ever see of the killer is a shadowy figure in a hat.

There are numerous red herrings throughout the film that try to throw us off the trail. The film really tries to make you believe it is the groundskeeper, a huge bearded guy with a permanently cocked brow look (like the Tall Man in Phantasm or Jack Nance's characters in anything he's done). He bumbles around starring menacingly at characters, acting bizarre, and if my memory serves (which it doesn't always) he even attacked one of the characters and was covered in blood in another scene. The guy of course turns out to not be the killer, but I really think the school should do an extensive background check on this guy. He's got something to hide for sure.

Mr. Redherring (the groundskeeper) and the Dean.

What really sticks with me is the murder scenes. There are seven murder scenes in total and each one is absolutely horrific. The first scene is the introductory scene where the boy murders his mom with an axe. It is followed by a very lengthy scene of him cutting up the mom with a hacksaw as blood spurts over the room and puzzle. The room and the boy are completely drenched in blood as the authorities come to stop the boy.

Prior to another murder scene, two coeds are talking about sex and drugs (two no nos for horror survival... thanks Jamie Kennedy!). "The most wonderful thing on Earth is smoking pot and screwing on a waterbed." Classic line! There is no screwing on the waterbed but instead the killer uses a huge kitchen knife to stab a woman about thirty times with so much blood and water to turn the room into a literal pool of blood. This is probably the most memorable scene in the film... probably.

The other scene that rivals the waterbed scene is when a coed tennis play is sliced in half with a broken piece of mirror. The filmmakers used a pigs carcass for the closeups which is really disturbing to watch. When the body is discovered the legs are missing what is left is just the torso in a room completely covered in blood. There are also other gory scenes: a decapitation, the chainsawing of a sun bather, the stabbing of a women through the back of her head so the front of the knife comes out of the front of her head.

Aside from the gore, watch also makes the movie memorable is the weird and bizarre dialogue, scenes, and acting. It is apparent that most of the actors had never acted before and IMDB says that the director took an improv take to the dialogue and plot which gives the movie a disjointed and confused feel. What should be a straightforward "Who's the Killer?" slasher plot becomes convoluted with a meandering and confused storyline. There is a undercover detective who is also a famous tennis player? She is sent to teach tennis but really to secretly investigate the brutal murders. At one point she plays the least energetic tennis game with another student. Watch it. The detective/tennis star barely moves.

There is also quite a lot of jazzercise scenes that include a Devo-esque soundtrack. There is a lot of topless women in the movie... but we also get one guy who hangs dong.

And then there is the karate guy scene. Out of nowhere a karate guy attacks the detective as she is walking the streets looking for the killer. She is able to fight him off and knock him down. Another guy comes to her aid and notices the karate guy is the school's karate professor to which the karate guy gives this great line: "I was just jogging and then I was done on the ground. Must've been something I ate. Bad chop suey. Ha ha. So long!" Apparently, the director was also making a kungfu film and wanted to put his Bruce Lee impersonator named Bruce Le (in the late 70s and early 80s there were dozens of these Bruce Lee fakes.. even some great blaxploitation ones... Bruce Leroy is a personal favorite) into the film. The scene makes absolutely no sense but it great nonetheless.

Pieces is going to go down as one of my favorite slasher films. Come for the gore but stay for the weirdness.