Review of Pieces (2003) by Gordon T — 24 May 2010

PIECES is AWESOME despite what the published critics in North America say; I was "stuck" in the library yesterday and was reading Muir's "HORROR FILMS OF THE 1980s" book, and he was SCATHING PIECES and quoted another film critic who was condemning PIECES for being low-quality "junk" unworthy of Cinema.

If PIECES were so "un-worthy of cinema" then why is PIECES still talked-about a given a 2-disc DVD North American release?

"These movies (like Pieces, Hell of the Living Dead, Nightmare City)" probably weren't made to entertain "jive-ass," "high-minded," "cinematically-pedantic" film critics (All of whom appear to be European-American Males with publishing contracts and Literary Agents "granted" them by other "like-minded" European American males).

"These movies" are made to sell tickets to an international market and earn a profit. According to Wes Craven, interviewed in The Nightmare on Elm Street Encyclopedia DVD, "these movies" appeal to a lot of "blacks," "Latinos," and "marginalized and/or alienated whites.".

"Blacks," "Latinos," and "alienated whites" here in North America generally don't write about "these (foreign-slasher and zombie) movies" and how much they enjoy them and why they enjoy them, the only "published film critics" here in The United States of America appear to be (again) "'educated' mainstream 'white people who have been published and "given authority" (i.e. endorsed) by other "White People.".

Essentially, North American film criticism only "officially" chronicles and judges horror movies from a single vantage point: represented by the observations of Jonathan Muir.

I can never be a "mainstream white-American film critic," but I have just as valid observations of horror movies as anyone else.

PIECES--I saw it on Vestron Video when it was still "new" in 1984-I showed it at my 13 Birthday Party actually and scared all my friends in doing-so [especially when the police find the boy's mother's decapitated head in the closet.

PIECES was my first "unrated" film.

Pieces was released unrated here (in the USA) in 1983, but my video-store let me rent it anyway because they listed it as "R--" the amount of blood in every murder-scene was HUGE compared to the Friday the 13th movies I'd seen up until that time. I was expecting the gore and violence to be more intense than the average R-rated horror movies at the time.

When the mother catches the boy assembling the "dirty" jigsaw --puzzle in the beginning and the boy chops-up his mother with an ax: the boy steadily chops, chops, chops, cops his mother steadily with the ax and his mother writhes spasmodically with each blow more as if she's being bludgeoned than "merely" disremembered. I imagine for PIECES to be granted an R-rating from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), "they" should have only been allowed 2 chops maximum.

And when the girl is literally sawed in half and she urinates herself just before "it" happens would have been "cut" by the MPAA as well.

I love the PIECES music-soundtrack that is actually CAM-library film music made by a composer sounding-like Stevio Cipriani: a steady, Goblin-esqe "thump-thump, thump-thump.".

And come to think of it, PIECES is a little like an Italian Giallo murder-mystery that had me guessing who the murderer was right until the end when he goes after The Feet the last stage in his goal to sew-together a human jigsaw-puzzle.

It had been a long time since I'd seen Pieces when I was it at the exhumedfilms dot com show and had TOTALLY FORGOT the final scene . . .the entire audience including me were caught way off-guard!!!!!

(Surely That Final Scene would have been demanded to be cut by the MPAA as well).

Christopher George, Linda Day George, Paul Smith, and Edmund Purdom are all terrific.

Even though the "snowy" Critic-sphere here in America says Pieces "sucks," I say PIECES is WONDERFUL!!!! (totally unrated gore!).