Capsule Reviews: <i>Pieces</i>

Capsule Reviews: Pieces

Quick-hit movie reviews for the masses.

Few cult films remain as notorious as Juan Piquer Simon's Pieces (1982). The film was seized and confiscated in the UK during the infamous video nasty era. And boy howdy is it a video nasty, all right.

Sometimes I marvel at the fact Pieces even exists, and then I thrill to the knowledge that not only does it exist, but we get to watch it and revel in its bloody good existence. Pieces engenders great love and affection from cult horror hounds the world over precisely because of its gloriously gonzo style. The Italian-Spanish-Puerto Rican slasher-giallo extravaganza is absolutely insane.

After the stunningly bizarre opening, set in the 1940s where ten year old Timmy is just playing quietly by himself—constructing a jigsaw puzzle of a stark-naked woman. His mother isn't happy about it, orders him to throw away the puzzle, and, well, soon enough Timmy's exacting revenge by hacking mom into pieces.

Then we jump ahead to present day (1982), where an unhinged and unidentified killer is chainsawing, hacking, and slashing pretty young coeds to death with maniacal fervor. The kill scenes are, to put it mildly, some of the most inventively outlandish ever filmed, with blunt-force, repressed male sexual rage viciously destroying female bodies with impunity. For instance, the waterbed scene quite literally becomes a blood-red sea of sexual carnage for one poor chica, with the killer's phallic knife standing in for his sexual organ. This kill is even foreshadowed earlier, when one female student confidently declares, "The most beautiful thing in life is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed." The decapitation in broad daylight on a sunny college campus is equally disturbing. The aerobics class scene—where a nubile, leg-warmer-wearing cutie is stalked—is paced expertly for maximum creepiness.

Inexplicably there's even a weirdly random kung fu moment, where American actress Linda Day (Mission Impossible) is nearly attacked by a ninja. Don't ask, just roll with it. Day is believably disturbed by the proceedings throughout, eventually reduced to a beautiful, petite, blonde and exposed raw nerve. Then there's that ending. Without question, it's one of the most unexpected and outré final moments in movie history. Completely jaw dropping.

Pieces is a masterwork of blood-soaked early 1980s horror excess, and few films since have ever come anywhere near its gleefully brazen display of gore and sleaze. Stunning work. Highly recommended for horror fanatics and lovers of strange cinema.

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