B-Movie Blockbusters - Pieces
BACK OF THE VHS BLURB:
In what could only be described as the Boston Chainsaw Giallo Massacre, a young boy who plays with R-rated nude jigsaw puzzles is reprimanded by his mother, and then kills her with an axe. After playing it cool when the cops came, Timmy grows up, and now, a chainsaw wielding maniac is running amok on a Boston campus, dressed like a Giallo villain, and taking pieces of girls with him at every turn. We also take a deep look into how several chainsaw murders on campus do not change day to day activities at all. Keep calm and chainsaw on.
So...WTF did I just watch?
MOVIE: Pieces
YEAR: 1982
DIRECTOR: J. Piquer Simon
CAST: Christopher George, Paul Smith, Edmund Purdom, Linda Day, Ian Sera
B-MOVIE HIGHLIGHTS:
When I started this movie, I thought I was heading into a generic and campy 1980's slasher. What I wasn't aware of was that I was heading straight into a giallo-esque splatter film with terrible dubbing and amazing kills. Oh, yeah, and nude jigsaw puzzles and a mom rebuilt with the corpses of college students. And we're off.
So, we start with young little Timmy, looking American as fuck in Boston circa 1942. High waist shorts and a sweater vest, you are a lady killer Timmy. Well, eventually, at least. We find Timmy in his favorite pastime, building a nude lady puzzle. As he is nearly done, his overbearing mother walks in and as expected, flips her shit. Berating and smacking Timmy around, this mom is just a TLC series waiting to happen.
So, after tearing Timmy's room apart, smashing a photo of his dad, Timmy is done had enough. He goes and finds a nice child size axe and lays a couple nasty chops to Mom’s head. Solid kill. Then a neighbor comes over and rings the doorbell, but Timmy has some more to do. He uses a saw to CUT HIS MOM INTO PIECES THIS IS HIS LAST RESORT...sorry. But he does reduce his mom into bloody bits, and then gets back to puzzles just soaked in blood. DON'T FUCK WITH TIMMY Y'ALL. Eventually the neighbor gets the cops to come in, and they literally barely react to a room just coated in blood.
"Well better search the place." One cop says. YOU FUCKING THINK BRO? This cop is top of his class man because he opens the door next to him to find Timmy's mom's severed head. He then just kinda closes the door, again, maintaining full composure. They find Timmy also covered in blood, and of course, #1 cop on the force figures this kid must have seen this murder, since he's covered in blood. Close enough to get waves of blood on him like he is in the gore splash zone of a murder. PROMOTE THIS MAN TO POLICE CHIEF NOW..
Then we get out title screen and fast forward to what we can only assume is grown up Timmy, but all we get are black gloves looking through his mother's bloody shoes and bloody dress. Yeah, Timmy took home crime scene evidence as mementos. Savage.
Now we shoot on over to a college campus in Boston, and students doing 1980's student stuff. Then, a girl who is studying in what looks like a backyard is annoyed by the sounds of a chainsaw that sounds like it’s about to fucking drag race. She sees a guy dressed up like he's on an Arctic expedition who apologizes for the noise, and then proceeds to chop her head off. Note this, as the mannequin’s head falls from the body, a tsunami of blood gushes out, but its just barely on screen. It literally looks like all her blood left her all at once. The killer takes her head and moves on.
Now detectives come in and talk to the secretary, and then, to oddly British sounding Dean Foley (Edmund Purdom). As they talk, students outside are talking about the new waterbed in the training room. Why is this important? I don't know or care, but you need this quote in your life.
"The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed at the same time.”
Breathe that one in deeply. Wow, right? Keep that waterbed in mind though.
So, we get some red herring characters added to "keep us guessing" with the killer's identity, but we all know it’s Timmy. Anyways, we get the chainsaw gardener who trims hedges, plants trees, and builds birdhouses with only a chainsaw. We also have the creepy professor, who looks like a bad John Waters cosplay. Don't pay no heed to these fools, we got bodies to dice up.
The second victim also introduces us to Kendall, a student who ends up being in the middle of this and getting hooked up a lot for looking like Screech from Saved By The Bell. Now this girl gives Kendall a note to meet her at the pool, Kendall takes it, but drops it when she leaves, and sure enough, the killer was also in the library.
The girl at the pool gets nearly drowned with the bug netting by our adaptive killer, then goes back to his chainsaw and cuts her to PIECES. This movie is titled appropriately. Cops find the bloody chainsaw and the brute of a gardener, and the girls body parts, but not her torso.
The cops arrest the gardener, but of course, they are wrong. So they bring in undercover specialist and tennis instructor Mary Riggs (Linda Day). They team up Mary with Kendall. Yeah, THE POLICE team up their undercover cop with a DOUCHEBAG to catch a killer. Warn students? Shut down campus? FUCK THAT.
The result is Mary and Kendall being just awful at catching anyone. We do get some great kills though. One of the best is when the killer needs to get some arms for his patchwork creation. He stalks a girl, and then as she gets in the elevator, she recognizes him, but we still don't get a shot of his face. As he walks into the elevator dressed up like a Giallo killer, he nonchalantly holds a CHAINSAW BEHIND HIS BACK. What in the actual fuck? How? HOW? I don't care, that's just some other worldly level of stealth and finesse.
The killer proceeds to get almost all the parts he needs, until Kendall, Mary and the cops figure out maybe it’s some staffer killing all these girls. Minimal research shows that Dean Foley used to be named, you won't believe this, TIMMY. IT WAS THE DEAN IN THE COLLEGE WITH THE CHAINSAW. Anyways, after he drugs Mary and takes her feet, Kendall and the cops arrive. Dean Foley gets a bullet to the head, and the day is saved.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.
Just as we think all is well, Kendall and one of the cops is joking, because this is the time for laughs, right? Kendall trips a switch, which opens up a secret door and we finally see the Timmy's patchwork mom rebuild. It's awful, you suck at this Timmy. But, the frankenmother thing on the ground suddenly reaches up, grabs Kendall by the dick, and castrates him THROUGH his jeans, while the cop just kind of looks on like, "the fuck am I gonna do about that?"
The end. That's it. What can I say? How do you follow over the pants one-handed castration? you can't. This movie...just...watch it. It's a wild ride, and a true B-MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER.
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