Cult Classic: Pieces (1982)

“I guess I’m so used to the bodies….dead ones.”

A villain modeled after the classic pulp hero called The Shadow, the guy who played Bluto in the live action Popeye (1980) movie, tons of blood and almost as much nudity, and a really messed up, puzzle-loving kid come together in 1982’s Pieces. The film, directed by Juan Piquer Simon, is a Spanish-American slasher film that borrows elements from giallo cinema to give viewers an exploitation film that has turned many stomachs over the years.

The film begins with a mother discovering her son putting together a puzzle of a nude woman. Disgusted and enraged, she makes the boy go get a bag for her to collect the puzzle and any other pornography that he might be hiding in his room. Ranting and raving, the mother tears through the boy’s toy box, uncovering nudie magazines and other items. When the little boy returns, however, he has an axe with him. He proceeds to hack his mother to death and then continues piecing together his puzzle. When police arrive on the scene, the boy hides in the closet and then rushes out to the safe arms of the police and his aunt, claiming that someone murdered his mother. His mom’s head is discovered in a closet.

Many years later, young women are savagely murdered by an unknown assailant at a Boston university. The killer cuts the women into pieces with a chainsaw. Specific body parts are missing at each crime scene. Arms are removed from one woman, another girl’s torso is gone, a head is missing from one young lady’s body, etc. A detective attempts to build up a case and uncover the murderer with the help of the lover of one of the victims, Kendall. Kendall tags along with an undercover agent, Mary, a former pro tennis player acting as the new tennis coach. Suspects begin to pop up all over the place include the local groundskeeper and a popular professor. Can Kendall, Mary, and the detectives uncover the real killer? Why is the killer collecting body parts? Watch Pieces to find out!

The film stars Christopher George as Lt. Bracken, his wife, Lynda Day George, as Mary Riggs, Ian Sera as Kendall, Paul L. Smith as Willard the groundskeeper, Edmund Purdom as the Dean, Jack Taylor as Professor Brown, and numerous young women in various states of undress as the victims of the killer. The acting is…..okay. The film dubbing is worse.

The kills in this film are brutal and surprisingly realistic at times. A few of them are obviously fake, but the aftermath may be hard to stomach for some viewers. From being stabbed to death in a water bed to being sawed into multiple pieces via chainsaw, this movie leaves little to the imagination. The gore is excessive. There’s also a ton of nudity in this film. There would have been more nudity, but one of the actresses in the film, Carmen Aguado, a real-life aerobics instructor who appears in the movie, refused to have her aerobics class perform in the nude. She said that classes aren’t held in the nude. Director Simon was upset with this, but when almost all of the women that were in the scene refused to appear in the nude, he relented. Leticia Marfil was given a role in the film when her mother, a member of the film’s makeup department, told Simon that she wanted to be an actress. Simon took one look at the young, beautiful woman and immediately increased the amount of nudity in her scenes. Marfil was upset by the situation but wanted the job, so she agreed to appear fully nude in the film. Her career would be cut short when she walked away from acting after only receiving roles that required nudity. Oh, and ladies, Simon didn’t leave you out of the equation, as Ian Sera has a full frontal male nude scene in the film.

After reading about how Simon insisted on nudity in the film, he comes off as a pervy old creep in my opinion. While some nudity is no surprise in slasher films, the excessive amount of it in this film, both female and male, is almost more upsetting than the excessive gore. The film is very twisted, from plot to direction, and I’m really not a fan of it as a whole because of what I’ve learned about Simon and how he intentionally added nudity to parts of the film. What a creep.

If you’re a fan of slasher films or of giallo, it’s worth watching Pieces one time. Despite the creep vibes from Simon, the film is a decently executed slasher flick. Will I watch it again? Probably not, but it’s mainly because of how sleazy Simon came off in my research for my review.

As always, thanks for checking out this cult classic with me. See you soon!