review

PIECES

A kind of 42nd Street giallo courtesy of Spain, the early-1980's horror flick, PIECES has a rabid cult following. For the life of me I can't figure out why. This is a film that revels in it's own filth. Filled to the brim with gruesome violence, disembodied limbs, naked girls and bad acting, PIECES is the kind of film all those exploitation exhibitors promised to their audience but never delivered. It's also incredibly weird, with strange performances, unexplainable kung-fu excursions and so many plot holes and inconsistencies that even Dario Argento's head would blow straight off his shoulders trying to sort them all out. And yet this film is exceedingly popular. I simply can't figure out why...


Tasting the sarcasm, yet?


Juan Piquer Simon's Pieces

PIECES is a freaking blast, a totally gonzo piece of filmmaking that can barely keep a straight face. This is a boot to the balls for those people who cover their eyes during all the nasty bits and pure heaven for those who like their horror films grimy, bloody and insulting to their intelligence. It's most certainly stupid but that's half the fun. It's "me too" attitude and construction almost acts as a parody of the still-emerging slasher film and the film can definitely seen as an homage film - it's always fun to try and decipher which films director Juan Piquer Simon is cribbing from. Lumped into PIECES are elements from DEEP RED, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and CARRIE, all tied up with a big generic bow.


Pieces Grindhouse Releasing

I know I recently condemned FRIDAY THE 13TH - both the original and the remake - for being incredibly stupid, pointless, and unnecessary and my approval of PIECES might seem to make me a hypocrite BUT neither the 1980 original nor the 2009 remake of FRIDAY THE 13TH had the same sense of humor that PIECES has. While stupid characters and stupid situations are the slasher film stock and trade, PIECES doesn't confuse them with "real" characters and "believable" situations the way the majority of American slasher films do. Nothing in PIECES is meant to be taken seriously. This is an all-out assault on morality and good taste, executed with a school boy smile and a glimmer in it's eye. PIECES might fall prey to the stupidity of the American slasher film but that's sort of the point. If you laugh during a FRIDAY THE 13TH film, they have obviously done something wrong. If you laugh during PIECES, you're in on the joke.


Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche

Of course, PIECES was probably never meant to be funny, per se, but time does strange things to generic pieces of work - how many people are still doing the Time Warp? Ed Wood's films are APPRECIATED?!? WTF with a capital F, my friends - and the sheer hilarity of PIECES has become all the more evident since the death of the 80s slasher film. While folks like Chas. Balum seem to be right on target - his essay included on the recent Grindhouse Releasing DVD is the perfect paean to this film - in their appreciation of what PIECES really is, there are a lot of people who still approach this film as a serious horror film. Not surprisingly, they are the people who don't seem to enjoy it all that much or hate it with every fiber of their being. It's hardly serious. It's a goofy little film made for peanuts that takes every cliche in the slasher film canon and launches them at it's audience at 100 miles an hour. It's dumb and pointless but it's also funny and refreshingly forthcoming about it's lack of substance and that goes an awful long way.


Highly recommended.


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