Boston Chainsaw Massacre: Pieces (1982)

Pieces (AKA Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche) (Spain/ Italy/ US, 1982)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Christopher George, Frank Braña and Lynda Day George

Oh God, I can't believe I went through this one! Okay, I'll admit that it's bad! Really bad! But is it bad enough to be GOOD?

Yeah, for a lot of obscure reasons!

The plot is simple as it is; in 1942, a boy was caught finishing a nudie puzzle when his mother enters his room. She breaks into one hell of an angry ramble about his husband and something about her son being like him. (Well, he IS a dude, lady.) When she asks the boy to fetch a plastic bag, he leaves and comes back with an axe, which he buries repeatedly into his mum's head before cutting her into bits and pieces with a saw. When his nanny returns home and felt uneasy that no one's answering her calls, she fetches the cops to accompany her, only to find a blood mess all over the boy's room. They then find our murderous kiddie locked in a closet, pretending to be a surviving victim. Sure enough, the cops believe him and he moves in with his aunt.



Forty years later, someone is cutting up the girls attending a college in Boston with a chainsaw. They call in Lt. Bracken and Mary Riggs to investigate the murders. They suspect it might be an inside job and the perpetrator's one of the staffs. But who?

It's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again, as more girls start ending up in pieces with parts missing, as if somebody's childhood obsession of puzzles is far from over.

And that's just as good as it's going to get, though I will say a lot of scenes here just doesn't add up hilariously. First we got this accident that occurs early into the film concerning some girl in a skateboard running through a large display window. And then, BAM! Next thing we know we're at some garden, in broad daylight and some girl gets her block sawed off with a chainsaw. And yet, no witnesses! 



Want more? How about some Bruce Lee wannabe attacking one of the investigators and after he gets knocked out in a fight, he gets up and apologizes to everyone, blaming the attack on bad chopsuey. I've eaten a lot of chopsuey in my life and none of them ever gave me kung-fu powers or the urge to randomly attack bystanders. And I've eaten bad ones!

More? How about another unfortunate victim getting chased around in an empty hallway and once she reaches the elevator, she meets a familiar face (obscured to us, of course) before they both go inside. The thing is the "familiar face" is the killer. You know what else? He successfully hid a chainsaw behind his back. You either have a short of attention span to not see that motor-based power tool behind some guy's back!

It's bad cheese upon bad cheese as the film continues to roll to its confusing ending. I can't think of anything to lighten up this film's bad reputation, except the fact that it's unintentionally funny! Yes, I laughed at the horrible dialogue, I laughed at the randomness, I laughed at the "bad chopsuey" scene and I definitely laughed at the infamous "Bastard" line delivery! (You'll know it when you hear it!) 

The murders are another reason to like this film. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) may had introduced the chainsaw as a murder weapon for slasher villains to come but, unlike that movie, we get to see the blade actually touch the body in Pieces (1982) and the whole bloody moment is onscreen! Any true gorehounds out there would love it, any slasher fans out there would appreciate it, horror fans will remember it as piles among piles of dead bodies limp in bits while blood flows like rivers!

Penned by Anthropophagus (1980)'s Joe D’amato and directed by Juan Piquer Simon, who later dictates an army of Slugs (1986) into eating people, Pieces (1982) is a simple gory treat from its opening depiction of matricide to the random lady-Frankenstein attack. As relentless as the film could be, its ideals are to leave logic as a necessity to enjoy the grue, a trait that makes this film more refreshing in each repeated viewing. It's one big joke that's made with a wink and for us who got a sense of humor, that's all we need to to make this film a cult hit!

You don't need to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre, cuz Spain's Pieces (1982) is just as crazy, illogical and more violent. It make the phrase "so bad, it's good" easier to understand, as it is indeed one of those films!

Bodycount:

1 female repeatedly axed on the head

1 female decapitated with chainsaw

1 female dismembered with chainsaw

1 female arms sawed off with chainsaw, bled to death

1 female knifed through the head, exits to mouth

1 female cut in half with chainsaw

1 male shot on the head

Total: 8

Personal note: I never counted the ending de-groining. It's just too random to be taken seriously, even for this bodycounter!