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 "Pieces" is the kind of enjoyable trash that leaves you to wonder just how seriously it takes itself. It has a few comic relief moments--like a false scare involving a crazed kung fu instructor--but overall this movie does not try to be very funny. Despite its apparent intentions of being at least a semi-serious slasher, there are plenty of unintentionally hilarious scenes. Most of the laughs come from the bad acting (particularly Lynda Day screaming "Bastard!" after finding a dead body and the dean who sounds like an evil relative of Ricardo Montalban), but the killer's cardboard silhouette gliding behind a door window and his heavy breathing are good for a chuckle too. "Pieces" even co-stars Bluto (yep, the same scruffy bully from Robert Altman's "Popeye") as a groundskeeper who ends up assaulting three inept policemen but never serves any time for the crime! That oversight might be attributed to the fact that this is a foreign-made film (Spanish crew & director, Italian scriptwriter). Also, only in such a movie can a college-age cassanova possibly look like Screech from Saved by the Bell and be deputized by the police, even though his sexual relations with some of the victims around the time of the murders would qualify him as a suspect! Aside from the rather warped sense of America and its laws, "Pieces" is also like many other foreign horror movies for more redeeming reasons--such as its choice nudity and extreme gore (in the same ballpark as the extraordinarily gruesome Italian necrophilia movie, "Buried Alive") The camera never turns away when the killer cuts up comely college girls with a chainsaw. Instead, it just zooms right in on the parts being severed! "Pieces" may be a ridiculous horror movie, but it sure isn't afraid to be as graphic as humanly possible. The bottom line: While a laughable movie, "Pieces" does deliver on the gratuities. Recommended primarily for gorehounds. |
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QUARTER BY QUARTER ANALYSIS OF MOVIE
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OVERALL RATING
** NOTE: The more dots on the domino, the higher the rating. 11 or 12 dots points to an essential item in a horror video collection. Even the dung beetles would be repelled by a movie rated with one or no dots. ** |
    
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The Worm-Hole Reviews are written by Matt Barnes.