Scream Bloody Murder

I am always on the hunt for slasher films. I like the genre, and think the films can be fun if also cheesy, silly, gory, and over-the-top – I consider those features, not bugs. There are a ton of slashers that range far outside the expected franchises, and every couple of decades there’s another boom of interest, another wave of coeds getting mowed down by a creepy killer. Hell, we’re living in a time where revivals of HalloweenThe franchise that both set the standard for Slasher horror and, at the same time, defied every convention it created, Halloween has seen multiple time lines and reboots in its history, but one thing has remained: Michael Myers, the Shape that stalks Haddonfield., ScreamWhat started as a meta-commentary on slasher media became just another slasher series in its own right, the Scream series then reinvented itself as a meta-commentary on meta-commentary., Final DestinationA series of films predicated on Rube Goldberg-levels of slasher murder, the Final Destination series has gone five films (and counting) to become one of modern horror's more successful franchises., I Know What You Did…, and Friday the 13thOne of the most famous Slasher film franchises, the Friday the 13th series saw multiple twists and turn before finally settling on the formula everyone knows and loves: Jason Voorhees killing campers 'round Camp Crystal Lake. are all either out or actively in development, and if those are successful, you can expect another wave of hangers on to follow. It’s a good time to be a slasher fan.

Each wave has its distinct rules and formulae, and the 1980s boom (which set the standard for years to come) certainly fossilized itself into a very set, rigid structure. As such, when I’m searching for slashers to watch, I’m not just following the trends of holiday-themed kill fests (like Halloween, Black Christmas, New Year’s Evil, and more) but films that break outside that mold to give us something different. We didn’t have much luck with last week’s pick, the supposed slasher Lady, Stay Dead, which has a great title but is not only a bad movie but barely a slasher at all. We try again this week with Pieces from 1982, which at least avoids being all about a holiday and, in the process, actually adds some other influences as well.

Pieces, where audiences were pitched on the poster that they didn’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre, was a co-production between companies in Spain, Italy, and the U.S., and weirdly it shows all of those influences together. We’re not just talking characters that were clearly overdubbed in post, although we certainly have plenty of that (making for an odd watching experience) but we also have some of that Giallo Italian horror vibe, with gore and blood that standard farther past what producers were willing to have in their U.S. slasher flicks. This is a movie that pushes the boundaries when it comes to gore. If only it could do the same when it came to story.

We open with a young boy putting together a puzzle in his room. His mother comes in, thinking he’s doing something nice and cute, only to realize the puzzle he’s putting together is pornographic, something he must have found in his father’s bedroom. She freaks out, yelling at him and calling him all kinds of insulting names. She sends him off to get trash bags, planning to throw out not just the puzzle but anything else he has in his room she finds objectionable. But the kid comes back with an axe and cuts her up into pieces (title drop) before hiding in his closet. The cops, when they arrive, think someone else murdered the woman, so they take the boy away to live with his aunt, and the “killer” is never found.

Forty years later, a chainsaw killer arrives on a Boston college campus. He immediately sets about killing coeds, chopping them into pieces with his power tool, liberating pieces for his collection. The dean of students (Edmund Purdom), wants to keep things on the down-low, fearing reactions from students, faculty, and parents if it’s known that a killer is on the loose. But the cops, led by Lt. Frank Bracken (Christopher George), refuse to investigate quietly. The guy has killed and killed again and until he’s stopped he’ll cut a bloody swath across campus. It’s catch or be killed with this murderer.

The core of Pieces isn’t bad. It sets up an effective killer with a decently defined modus operandi. He wasn’t able to finish his puzzle as a kid, so now he’s doing it as an adult… with body parts. It’s weird, and really doesn’t make that much sense if you stop to think about it, but at the same time at least the film puts in the basic work to give you a reason why he’s killing. It’s more than some films give you, and it makes him more than just a random guy that likes killing, which I appreciate.

The kills are also solid and well done. There’s plenty of gore, with body parts flying and blood spurting. There’s even a couple of times where the chainsaw digs into the prop bodies and you get a bit more cutting and tearing than you might expect. That’s the Giallo style coming through from the Italian production, and while shocking it is also effective. The movie doesn’t skimp when it comes to blood and gore and it manages to go just far enough that it goes from scary to funny and then back to scary again. I appreciated that.

With that said, the film isn’t always effective with its killer or his operations. While he starts off killing with his chainsaw (sometimes hilariously so, like when he sneaks onto an elevator with a girl, hissing his massive power tool behind his back as if she won’t notice), he switches for a time to a punching knife for no clear reason. He does a couple of kills with this weapon, despite the fact it’s not effective at hacking someone to pieces so he can steal their parts, before going back to the chainsaw without any explanation. It didn’t fit right with the character as we knew him, and that actually drew me out of the film a bit.

Meanwhile, outside the kill scenes the movie is a complete snore. The opening scene of the film sets the stage for the story, but after that there’s really no more story to speak of. Killer is on campus, cops run around for a bit trying to find him, and eventually it’s (spoilers for a forty-plus year old movie) revealed to be the dean for… reasons. There’s no development or mystery to it, not even the bare minimum other slashers of the era would put in. We just go for an hour or so of killing to suddenly, “oh, it must be the dean! Let’s get him!” The film is functionally just a linear path of killings before it resolves itself simply because it has to.

And don’t get me started on the stupidity of the jump scare ending. This film has one because other films of the era often ended with a jump scare (see also: Friday the 13th) but the way it plays out here (with the dead amalgamated body of all the women pieces suddenly waking up and killing someone) is so stupid and sit so far outside the actual nature of the story that I assumed it had to be a dream sequence or something. But it’s not, it’s just stupid, included for no good reason, ruining an already bad movie even more.

I don’t want to be too harsh on this film because at least it does provide good gore and kills. It’s a scary enough film if all you want is blood and limbs flying everywhere. That’s fine on its own, and I can certainly see why people like this movie. I just expect more from my films, with something approaching a real story and characters that show any kind of arc or development. Pieces doesn’t have any of that. What it has is pieces, chopping off by a dude with a chainsaw, and I suppose if that’s all you want well then this is the film for you. It just didn’t quite land for me.