Pieces (1982)
This exploitation "classic" knows how to kick off the proceedings: A mother is berating his son for possessing a nudie puzzle (?) and he responds by delivering a few axe whacks to her brain, sawing her head completely off, then framing it like somebody else did it! The movie follows this up with a 40-year jump in time, where an unnamed Boston university is being terrorized by a chainsaw-wielding, body-part-picking serial killer. Gee, I wonder if the prologue gives us a clue, informing us that the murderer is someone in his late-40's, early 50's and likes to be the one in power? Be warned, PIECES is an extremely sleazy slasher. Some of the kills fetishize the nude female body and there are some disgusting decisions, such as a closeup of a woman peeing her pants before being chainsawed in half. When it isn't being creepy, the film goes absolutely bonkers. A skateboarding female student crashes into a giant mirror and it's never expounded upon again, people keep tampering with evidence and nonchalantly apologize, a world-famous tennis champion is an undercover cop and at one point is attacked by a clone of Bruce Lee, and the film literally ends with a zombie viciously castrating the male Mary Sue! Who created this strange organism? Juan Piquer Simón, the same guy whose film POD PEOPLE was famously lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000 (this film also stars the "Idiot Control" guy!), and would later do the unintentionally hilarious "animals attack" movie SLUGS. Because of its sheer lunacy and memorable murders, I bumped my grade up a tiny bit for what is otherwise a sordid horror film.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
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