Pieces [DVD]

In 1942, a young boy called Jimmy is discovered by his mother putting together a jigsaw of a naked woman. Disgusted with Jimmy, she orders him to go and get a plastic bag so she can get rid of all the filth in his room. Whilst she is looking for things to throw out, Jimmy enters the room with an axe and proceeds to hack his mother to pieces. For some reason the police feel it necessary to break into the house when the nanny reports she knocked on the door and there was no answer, upon entering the house they find the severed head of Jimmy's mother in one closet and Jimmy weeping in another. The police question the whereabouts of the father, the nanny claims that he's in europe with the Air Force but he has an aunt who lives an hour away, and she can take Jimmy there.

Flash foward 40 years to 1982, and we're at a college campus in Boston. It's obvious that the killer is now a grown up Jimmy, and despite a few red herrings it's obvious which character Jimmy is despite a change of name. Girls at the campus are being butchered and chopped to pieces with the killer's favourite weapon being a chainsaw, it is upto Lt. Bracken, Sgt. Holden, Mary Riggs who works as a tennis coach but is an undercover officer, and a student called Kendall to discover the murderer's identity.

The acting is pretty dreadful, but if there's one type of film where I don't mind bad acting it's 80's horror films, specifically 80's slasher films. Christopher George plays Lt. Bracken, George should be well known to horror fans for his work in City Of The Living Dead, Graduation Day and Mortuary. His acting is poor yet strangely enjoyable, his character is probably the worst Lt. ever seen on screen. All of the actors give mediocre performances but like so many 80's slasher movies, the film is all the better for it. The dialogue between characters is absolute gold, and the movie is unintentionally hilarious. There are a few other well known faces in the film including, Paul L. Smith who appears as Willard the janitor, he played the vicious warden in Midnight Express and Bluto in Popeye.

The film was directed by spaniard Juan Piquer Simon, and just like another movie of his that i've reviewed called Slugs, this film was also based in america but mostly shot in valencia, spain. Just like Slugs, this film has alot of spanish actors in small roles who are dubbed and it makes the film funnier. This is one of the gorier slasher films from the early 80's, with a pig carcass used for the close-ups of chainsaws tearing through flesh. Some of the gore is fantastic, there's heads, arms and torso's being severed throughout the movie, and bucket loads of blood. Eli Roth has called the film "a masterpiece of early 80's sleaze", and it had two of the greatest taglines ever. "It's exactly what you think it is" and "You don't have to go to texas for a chainsaw massacre".

Pieces is a film that divides alot of people, for somebody like myself who loves gore, crappy acting (only in 80's horror) and shockingly cheesy dialogue then this is fantastic. If you don't love all those things then you probably won't enjoy Pieces all that much. For fans of unintentional comedy, there is so much to enjoy in Pieces. There's a totally random scene where Mary Riggs is attacked by a kung fu professor, the push button phone in the 1942 scene despite the fact push button phones weren't available to the public until 1963, the Lt. asking whether the chainsaw covered in blood lying next to the severed body could have been the murder weapon, the professional tennis coach who is clearly awful at tennis, Mary screaming a swear word three times but more over the top each time, or maybe the sewn together, decaying corpse at the end suddenly shredding someones crotch. Probably only The Wicker Man with Nic Cage has been this accidentally hilarious.

As usual with an Arrow release there are plenty of extras on the disc.
Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork
Double-sided fold-out artwork poster
Collector's booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by Stephen Thrower, author of 'Nightmare USA'.
Introduction by star Jack Taylor
Pieces of Jack: An Actors Experience of Spanish Splatter - Actor Jack Taylor recollects his experiences of performing in Pieces
Pieces of Deconstruction: Looking Back at a Grindhouse Gorefest - Hostel producer Scott Spiegel, filmmaker Howard S. Berger, critic Michael Gingold and horror historian Santos Ellin Jr. reflect on the lasting legacy, and lacerations, of Pieces!
Audio Commentary with Fangoria magazine's Tony Timpone, sharing first hand recollections of the golden age of slasher cinema, moderated by Calum Waddell.

Some people have complained about some of Arrow's blu-ray releases, but when it comes to releasing some of the rarer 80's horror movies on dvd, surely no other company shows this much care and attention. The movie is great for horror fans who don't take their films too seriously, or have a love for cheesy 80's horror. I'd give the film 3.5 - 4 stars, but yet again it is a fantastic release from Arrow that I'm delighted to give 5 stars. By far the best version of this movie we've had on region 2.

I don't own this movie on any format but I have seen it, so this review is of the film in general & not a reflection of this DVD release/version.

It's about a boy who is Illtreat by his mother & when she discovers him piecing together a jigsaw comprised of a naked woman she flips out & hits him, the situation ends with the boy killing his mother.

Then some time later he is at college & students start being murdered. I won't spoil anymore of the plot for you, but the film is definitely worth picking up & watching & It's available for a pretty cheap price on here. I'm a DVD/Blu-ray collector & this would be a welcome addition to the shelves.

This is indeed a must own classic slasher horror from the early 80s, one of the best in terms of a good classic who did it story where everyone is suspicious, very twisted in places with a great shock ending, plenty of juicy blood and gore moments with a chainsaw most of the time, it has all the classic ingredients, if your into horror and love old school horror from the 80s this is a must see at any cost.