Writer(s): Dick Randall and Joe D'Amato
Starring: Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Frank Braña, and Edmund Purdom
Usually, critiquing a movie is a pretty straightforward process: you watch it, you formulate a solid opinion one way or another, and then you sit down to try to put those thoughts into review form. After all, there are really only three possibilities: it's either good, it's bad, or it's neutral. That's what I always believed, anyway, until I stumbled on the insane mess that is Pieces, which feels like it was directed by three different people, all with varying levels of competence ranging from “mild”, to “none.”
There have, and always will be, movies that are “so bad they're good”, but Pieces exists on an entirely different plane from most of the others. This is because it alternates rapidly and wildly between disparate emotions with freewheeling, reckless abandon. Take the intro, for instance. A young boy is putting together a puzzle of a nude woman when his mother, who is clearly the controlling type, busts in and catches him. She is livid, and takes things a little too far by swearing she will kill him if she ever sees him doing something like this again. She orders him to grab a plastic bag, which she is planning on using to burn the puzzle, but he has other ideas and instead returns with an axe, which he uses to kill her. But it's obvious this isn't just an innocent, ordinary kid...he is clearly a sociopath in the making; next thing you know, he's using a saw to hack her body into little pieces.
The next shot is the child calmly putting the puzzle back together again, which is now soaked in blood. So, too, is the rest of the room. He hears sirens, sees the police entering the building, and then hides in the closet, pretending to act scared when the cops find him there. We can surmise from the ensuing discussion that he is regarded only as a witness to a horrifying slaying, and that he is never considered a suspect. The opening is a little cheesy, but it's still pretty powerful stuff that shows what director Juan Piquer Simon is capable of, although the rest of his filmography seems to disagree.
Now we flash-forward forty years later, to an unidentified college campus, where young female students are being picked off one-by-one by a masked man wielding a chainsaw. Lt. Bracken (Christopher George) and Sgt. Holden (Frank Brana) are quick to arrive on campus to start their investigation, but their department seems to be rather underfunded, and unable to spare anyone else to help them out. Showing off its giallo inspirations, the two officers randomly enlist the help of a student at the school, Kendall, who is cleared as a suspect early on and all-too-eager to lend a hand.
It also shows off its crazy side, by having a famous tennis star, who happens to be a cop to earn money when she is not playing in tournaments, go undercover at the school to try to bait the killer. Just try to ignore the fact that she's about twenty years past the killer's target age, making her a lousy decoy; thankfully, only about five people seem to go to this school, so the plan actually makes better sense than it normally would. Oh yeah, and despite her being a professional tennis player, the actress that played her clearly had no idea how to actually play, yet that didn't stop the filmmakers from including scenes from a match against one of her students (according to the director, they had to hire a tennis coach to teach them how to at least lob the ball to give the appearance that they know what they're doing; between their sloppiness and the lousy editing, it's still all too evident). What is the meaning of any of this?
But that's part of its charm, because unlike a lot of “so bad they're good” movies, Pieces never takes itself too seriously, which leads to some earnestly funny scenes. The problem is, there are so many plot holes and poorly-written moments that it occasionally feels like we're laughing at things we shouldn't be laughing at. And that's a good chunk of what makes this mess work as well as it does: I can't recall another film that somehow manages to blur the line between “good” or “bad” so effectively. In many “bad” movies, the filmmakers involved are usually earnest in their intentions, and just have the misfortune of not having the talent (or the time, or the budget, etc.) to live up to their ambition. With Pieces, it's nearly impossible to tell what scenes were actually played for laughs, and which ones get them accidentally, but none of it seems to matter because you get the feeling that the filmmakers didn't seem to care. Again, whether they didn't care about the film, or merely what the audience thought about it is yet another point that gets blurred. Case-in-point: It contains a sequence that has immediately shot near the top of my list of “Most Pointless Scenes in Cinema History”; but unlike the “pancake” scene in Cabin Fever (which occupies the #1 slot), which is an idiotically “comical” scene in a film that was otherwise serious, this one actually manages to be hilarious, in an odd, off-the-wall kind of way. I won't reveal what it is, but even in a film this bizarre, you probably won't have a problem picking it out.
Technically, Pieces is adept at what it does, though it is never astonishing. The soundtrack (who is credited only to “Cam”, though it is the work of no less than three separate artists) is mostly repetitive and average, at least during the kill scenes, which don't add much in the tension department. The gore mostly comes in the form of aftermath shots, that are admittedly pretty grisly and disturbing given the film's obscure, but probably minimal, budget. However, those expecting some “live” blood, or graphic kill scenes will be largely disappointed. It's photographed competently enough, though not as interestingly as one would expect having been clearly inspired by earlier Italian slashers (known as giallo films).
I have to confess that I liked Pieces, but I am also aware that many people will not. I have always had a soft spot for films that don't cater to audience expectations, and this is certainly one that marches to the beat of its own drum, no matter how idiotic or ill-advised it may be. But in this world of watered-down, mass-produced bullshit being paraded around as “entertainment”, it is sadly refreshing to find a film that only plays to its own interests, rather than the wants of its audience.
RATING: 6/10
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