The word of the day, when choosing something for my friends and I to watch on BAD MOVIE MONDAY, has almost always been “agony”. However, on the particular night that we watched this movie I thought it’d probably healthier for their collective sanity to at least try to pick something that wasn’t gut wrenchingly awful. Hence, we watched 1982’s PIECES. Partially because it has Christopher George in it, who’s sort of become my own personal bad movie mascot, and also because no one else but me in the group had watched it and I thought it was a rather important film. It’s a quirky mix of Italian Giallo and American Slasher movie tropes, even though the film is Spanish. It’s also not a bad movie in any way. Let me be very clear about that. However, it has enough bonkers moments and questionable logic to be shown on a “bad” movie night.
Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed “Bad Movie Monday”. The premise was simple: We’d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.
PIECES stars Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Paul L. Smith and Edmund Purdom. It was directed by Juan Piquer Simón, who isn’t as well-known as other “video nasty” directors such as Joe D’Amato or Lucio Fulci for example, but the guy had a lot of style. It’s such an absurd movie that you often find yourself laughing at the contrivances, but it’s also so well made that you never laugh at the film itself. To me, it’s the perfect combination of terrible and beautiful, exploitation and art.
This movie is so epic that it has not one, but TWO, of the greatest taglines in all of cinematic history: “Pieces… It’s exactly what you think it is.” and “You don’t have to go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre.” I have to say that these taglines are also surprisingly accurate. This film has more chainsaw kills than the first three Texas Chainsaw Massacres combined. So that’s cool! And, yeah, it’s exactly what you think it is. Chainsaws, Gore, Tits. That’s what you came for and that’s what you’re gonna get. Sure it’s ridiculous and vulgar, but are you really watching a movie called PIECES expecting it to be anything else? It’s fast paced, the blood and guts look very decent, you laugh and smile a lot, and it’s not horribly unpleasant to watch. That’s all I really want from my “bad” movies.
The high point is the acting. Christopher George and his wife Lynda Day George were working actors who never phoned in a performance. They always gave the audience its money’s worth. Edmund Purdom is also always great. He was a British actor who left Hollywood in the early sixties and became a B-movie regular in Italian cinema. The movies he made are of WILDLY varying quality, be warned, but he also always brought his A-game to most of the stuff he did. Then there’s Paul L. Smith who is… well… there. Don’t get me wrong, I like him a lot. I love his stuff. It’s just that he doesn’t have much to do here except try to trick the audience into thinking he’s the killer.
So what’s the back of the VHS tape say?
PIECES… It’s exactly what you think it is.
The year is 1941. A young boy is assembling a jigsaw puzzle of a nude woman, when his mother enters in a rage and tells him to throw the puzzle out. Instead he returns with an ax and hacks his mother to death, tricking the police into a believing a maniac had killed her. Forty years later at a Boston college, the terror really begins. A chainsaw-wielding madman is roaming the campus collecting pieces of beautiful co-eds for a ghastly human puzzle he is assembling – and the police haven’t a clue to the crazed killer’s identity.
CHRISTOPHER GEORGE (Mortuary) stars in this horrifying adventure into madness, hysteria and bone-chilling brutality.
As far as 1980s era VHS tape synopsis’ go, this one is very accurate and helpful for once. No BS, no outlandish lies about what you’re going to see. I appreciate that.
Alright! Onto my favorite part of the review where I list ten things that went through my head as I watched the movie:
#1 Apparently, murder is the natural consequence of having put together a puzzle. I’d hate to be at that kid’s house when he was playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.
#2 The actress who plays the mom in this movie’s prologue saw Faye Dunaway in MOMMIE DEAREST and thought “I can play crazier!”
#3 There’s a scene early on where a girl is skateboarding and stupidly runs into a giant mirror that we’re supposed to interpret as the trigger that sets our killer off. Except it’s so random and out of place that it looks like something from another movie.
#4 Paul L. Smith’s character isn’t called “Red Herring” but he ought to be. I don’t care how much he polishes his chainsaw in a sinister way. He is not the killer. We literally SEE the killer about ten minutes into the movie and he’s not 6’4” and 320lbs. One of this movie’s more charming quirks is that it’s kind of shit at being a mystery.
#5 No one notices a chainsaw if you hide it behind your back.
#6 With one line: “Bastard! BASSSSSSSTARRRRRD!!!” Linda Day George became a legend. Well, a legend to me anyway. She figured that if she was going to be in a terrible movie reciting terrible dialogue she might as well try to be the best damn thing in the movie. She succeeded.
#7 According to this movie, Bad Chop Suey will make you go crazy and think you know Karate. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this medical advice however.
#8 Running away from a man lumbering awkwardly under the weight of a heavy chainsaw is nigh impossible.
#9 Loud music can cover up the sound of screaming and chainsaws. PEOPLE WILL BARELY NOTICE WHAT’S HAPPENING.
#10 The “twist” ending is utter madness. In a movie that is populated with scenes that come out of nowhere with no explanation, this tops it all off like a delicious cherry atop a creamy sundae.