Rating: 
Summary: A Piece of this, and a piece of that.
Review: What can I say about this awesome Spanish horror flick, that hasn't already been said? A true masterpiece of the genre. The picture is pretty grainy, and the soundtrack isn't the greatest, it has drop-outs at times, but it doesn't take away the sheer brilliance, and laughter of the movie. Yes,laughter. And for those who have seen it, know what I'm saying.You have your corny acting, and some minor scenes when you will ask yourself, where the heck did this come from. Such as the Karate Kid coming out of nowhere to attack the lovely Linda Day George, who beats his butt by literally doing nothing but stand there. Seems he had some "bad chop suey" which didn't agree with him, and he drops like an egg in front of Linda.(remember, this is a B-movie) The blood and gore is over-the-top. And the killings are pretty violent, and depicted pretty good. The chainsaw is the main culprit, but who's at the end of it, doing all these dirty deeds?The chainsaw weilding madman started out as a child who was scolded by his mother, when he was caught putting together a puzzle of a nude woman. She scolded him, then he scolded her. She used her hand, he used an axe. A little extreme, but I assure you, she NEVER hits him again after that. When the police arrive, (who called them anyway?) the little boy is in the closet, hiding from the madman who did this to his mom. Poor kid, having to see something like that. Then after that, I guess nothing happens in between, cause we jump to 40 years later.Now we are at a prestigous University where the student body is getting chopped up by some madman wanting to collect "human" body parts to put together another puzzle. This right here, I think was a great idea by the director Juan Piquer Simon.(The Simon was added on for American audiences) his real name is just Juan Piquer. A kid putting together a puzzle, gets scolded, kills his mother for it, then some years later puts togeher a human puzzle, made of various body parts from his victims. What a great idea for a horror movie, huh? There is a really in-depth interview on a web-site that was e-mailed to me by a friend, with Juan Piquer, about this movie. It even makes the movie all that more enjoyable to watch again after reading it. It is called, "A Piece of Piquer".Anyway, like I said before, we have Linda Day George, in this movie, along with her then husband, the late great Christopher "Gates of Hell" George, and a few unknowns. Oh yeah, and also the guy that plays "Bluto", in Popeye. The late Joe D'amato (Beyond the Darkness, one of many great movies he's directed) did the screenplay.I heard that a company that is ran by Sly Stallones son, Sage, that his "Grindhouse Releasing" label, who also did a beautiful job at re-releasing Umberto Lenzi's "Cannbal Ferox", and Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond", is supposed to clean this movie up, picture quality, sound, and all that good stuff, and re-release it on his label. I pray this comes true. Otherwise if you have a region-free dvd player, that can convert PAL to NTSC, you can always pick-up the German release of this film, with English or German audio options. I'm just waiting till the end of this year, and if it does not come out by then, I'll just go with the German release. It's in widescreen and everything, yipee!! If you're like me, you try to get the best copy you can, and it just has to be in WIDESCREEN, along with the correct aspect ratio. Don't want to lose any of that blood and gore now, do we?Anyway, if this is your only option get this movie. If you have the VHS of this, get the DVD, you'll never wear it out. I just recently saw, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" on "Criterion". Are you kidding me? If anything deserves to have the Criterion label on it, it's this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Repugnant
Review: When I was a teenager, I was always curious about the awful horror movies that played at the local drive-in theatre. They were usually less scarier than than the newspaper ads depicted. PIECES was always a slasher film I was curious about as a naive 13 year-old, but certainly nothing I was allowed to see at that age. Now 17 years later, after my curiosity has been satisfied, I can honestly say PIECES is the most grotesque, repugnant piece of crap I have ever seen. Even the camp value of the unintentional humor is masked by the utterly grisly and graphic gore depicted in the film. To make it worse, this movie is not scary! Its utterly predictable, down to the ridiculous and gratuitous ending. Its such a pity to see actors like the late Christopher George and his wife Linda Day George waste their time in this tripe. The DVD even tells us Christopher George died the same year as this movie's release in 1983. What a sad epitaph this truly must have been! As for the quality of the DVD, its utterly poor. The transfer looks to have been taken from a lousy video tape. The picture is blurry, the color is faded and the soundtrack is horrendous. Not to mention the dubbing for this film is atrocious. The DVD also gives you 4 chapters to access the scenes (NOT that you would ever want to again!) The old addage "You get what you pay for" is so true with this pitiful DVD. Don't waste your time or money. My copy found its way to my trash can minutes after taking it out of my player. An utter disgrace of a movie. Not even "fun" slasher value.
Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly the most perfect movie of all time!
Review: Where to begin? I note that I give this film 5 stars as a _bad_ movie, not a good one, as this is as entertaining as bad movies get.Why hasn't Juan Piquer Simon, the Spanish Ed Wood, gotten the serious critical recognition he so clearly deserves? With a body of work spanning 20 years, from "Supersonic Man" to "Slugs" with a pit stop in Boston for "Pieces", Piquer has carved out (pun intended) a niche up there with the all-time greats. Watch this movie, and if you are a fan of bad film, I guarantee you will agree with me. You will note, upon starting up the movie, that the video quality is equivalent to the VHS tape... Also, the dialogue is spoken in English and later dubbed in English in many scenes, undoubtedly due to the poor quality of sound recording. There are four, count 'em, four obvious anachronisms before the opening credits roll. It's a fun game to play with friends...What's important is that you buy this movie and begin enjoying the lifetime of pleasure it will give you.
Rating:
Summary: Brutally funny gore
Review: Yes the DVD's quality blows, but this is an excellent gore flick. The shower scene where the chick is cut in half with the chainsaw is well worth the price to any demented gore freak such as myself. A must see.
Rating:
Summary: One Skin Mag Short of a Dozen!
Review: Yes! Yes! Yes! Now here is a man that loves soft core porn! As a child he gets caught by his mother putting together a puzzle with a sassy and severely under-dressed young lady on it. Faced with the fact that his nudie pictures are going to be taken away, he has but one choice. That's right...kill his Mom. This kid likes naked pictures of girls more than his own Mom. But it doesn't stop there. He continues to kill this time focusing on sexy college girls. The body parts fly as the killer attempts to put a real life puzzle together ... this movie comes with my highest recommendations. (It could have used a Rock band though)
|
