Celluloid Psychosis

<><><>PIECES (1982)
(a.k.a. ONE THOUSAND CRIES HAS THE NIGHT a.k.a. MIL GRITOS TIENE LA NOCHE)

<>Dir.: Juan Piquer Simón

Cast: Christopher George, Lynda Day George (as Linda Day), Frank Braña, Edmund Purdom

Plot: Two detectives, an undercover woman, and a student try to solve a series of gruesome murders on a university campus, where a mysterious killer is carving up women with a chainsaw and stealing their body parts for a human jigsaw puzzle.

Thoughts: An American-Spanish co-production that really has all the makings of an Italian splatterfest (in fact, for years I thought it was Italian-made until now).  This is a pretty gun-ho exploitation classic that wears its sleaziness brazenly on its sleeve, with ample amounts of sex and nudity (both female and male) and graphic carnage with plenty of plasma flying, including a memorable bisection sequence.  The script was even co-written by Italian sleaze meister Joe D’Amato (under a pseudonym), director of ANTHROPOPHAGUS, BEYOND THE DARKNESS, and several of the BLACK EMANUELLE movies.  The movie kicks off in the paradigm of the slasher flick, with a flashback to establish the psychosis of the killer, but this one’s an exceptionally lurid scene - a young boy is in his room assembling a jigsaw puzzle of a nude woman.  His mother catches him and flips her lid, beating and berating him and telling him to go get a bag to burn it.  He leaves and returns with an ax and commences hacking her to bits, covering the room in blood.  From there the gory plot keeps moving right along, but for all the nastiness the movie also has plenty of unitentional (or possibly intentional comedy?) comedy going on.  The script is filled with all kinds of cheesy dialogue, such as when after finding another dismembered corpse Linda Day screams at the top of her lungs, “Bastard!  Bastard!  BASTARD!”  Or there’s the red-herring gardener, played by Paul Smith (Bluto from the POPEYE movie), who has a perpetual case of stink-eye.  Or the random kung fu scene with the line, “Must’ve been bad chop suey.”  Then there’s the topper - the absurd ending which comes out of nowhere.  I swear it has to be one of the greatest climaxes in B-horror history, and it’s guaranteed to make you laugh your ass off in awe.  PIECES was just recently put out in a 2-disc DVD set by Grindhouse Releasing.  Like their other quality (but sporadic) releases of THE BEYOND, CANNIBAL FEROX, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, it’s a nice hefty package (although not as much as HOLOCAUST’s) that any collector of cult cinema should pick up.

Rating: ***1/2

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