MARCH 26 » 9:45p »
GRINDHOUSE REVIVAL
1982, Spain/USA, 89 min.
Director: Juan Piquer Simón
Screenwriters: Dick Randall, Joe D’Amato, Juan Piquer Simón
Cast: Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Frank Braña, Paul L. Smith
Sometimes the only way to find the perfect woman is to assemble her yourself, one piece at a time. It’s this kind of old fashioned American ingenuity that drives a mysterious, chainsaw-wielding maniac to lay waste to the voluptuous student body at an unnamed (Harvard?) Boston-area college. And it’s beyond this point that the film makes no sense, but then, who goes to a movie called Pieces expecting an exploration of the human condition?
OK, you want some semblance of a summary? Try this: In his youth, the murderer in question assembles a naked woman puzzle to the great chagrin of his mother, who proceeds to punish him. For some reason, the boy’s retaliatory anger manifests itself in her brutal murder. Fast-forward forty years,and this boy, somewhere between Norman Bates and Leatherface, begins to hack away pretty young things on a college campus, in an effort to piece together his own woman, who he keeps tucked away in a secret freezer.
Enter the bumbling Boston PD, with Christopher George (City of the Living Dead) and Frank Braña (the Spaghetti Western icon) at the helm, five or six possible suspects including Paul L. Smith (Bluto from Popeye), a useless undercover female cop (i.e. bait), dialogue rife with quotable gems, the weirdest use of a kung-fu scene possibly ever, an ending you (really) won’t see coming, and a whole lot of gratuitous violence.The film achieves a uniquely mad-cap entertainment factor that goes well beyond the sum of its parts (er, pieces). Plus, the film takes place here in Boston and the male lead is a dimwit named Kendall (tee hee).
Reaching a deafening crescendo of camp, you’ll have trouble hearing the victims’ screams over your own raucous laughter. This is a film intended to be watched with an audience and BUFF is happy to deliver.
— Nicole McConvery
PLAYING WITH
Fireman
Adam Brooks
2 min.
Hero, fireman, and father, Red Coleman had it all until a gang of ruthless pyromaniacs killed him and his family. Now he’s back with a hephaestian vengeance that knows no extinguishing bounds.