Pieces (film)

Pieces
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Juan Piquer Simón
Produced by	Stephen Minasian Dick Randall Edward L. Montoro
Written by	Joe D'Amato Dick Randall
Starring	Christopher George Linda Day Frank Braña Edmund Purdom Paul L. Smith Ian Sera Jack Taylor
Music by	Librado Pastor / CAM
Cinematography	Juan Mariné
Editing by	Antonio Gimeno
Distributed by	Grindhouse Releasing
Release date(s)	August 23, 1982 (1982-08-23) (Spain) September 23, 1983 (1983-09-23) (US) December 7, 1983 (1983-12-07) (France)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States Spain Puerto Rico
Language	Spanish English
Box office	$2,032,311

Pieces (also known as 'Mil gritos tiene la noche', 'Rompecabezas') is a 1983 cult classic slasher horror film and "drive-in favorite".^[1]

Plot

In 1942, a 10 year old boy named Jimmy plays with a jigsaw puzzle of a nude woman when his mother walks in. She chastises him for it. The mother orders Jimmy to get a plastic bag because "I'm gonna burn everything." Jimmy gruesomely murders her with an axe instead of getting the plastic bag. The police later arrive at the house and Jimmy is finishing the puzzle. The police break into the house and Jimmy hides in a closet. The police break into the room, they find a bloody mess and the mother's beheaded head inside one of the closets. The police hear Jimmy weeping in the another closet, so they open the door and find him covered in blood. The police question the whereabouts of the father; the nanny replies hesitantly and lying obviously that he is in Europe with the Air Force, but Jimmy has an aunt, who lives an hour away and she will take the boy there.

Forty years later, in 1982, the Dean opens a drawer, removes a box and opens it. He takes out his mother's shoes, her dress which is covered in blood, and a photo of her, crossed out. The next scene is a girl skateboarding through town. She crashes into a giant mirror frame, which shatters to pieces. Back at the Dean's house, he removes another box, containing pieces of the puzzle of the nude woman, which he starts putting together. Then, the chainsaw-wielding psychopathic killer is on the loose on a college campus in Boston.^[2] Tormented by childhood memories, the killer tries to create his own jigsaw puzzle made from real human body parts. Along with police lieutenant Bracken (Christopher George) and college student Kendall (Ian Sera), Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George) poses as a tennis instructor in order to try to uncover the identity of the maniac.^[3]

Many girls fall victim to the psychotic killer: the first girl is decapitated with a chainsaw while sunbathing; the second is drowned and then pulled out of the water, only to be sawn in pieces with a chainsaw; the third has one of her arms sawn off by the killer while in an elevator and she bleeds to death; the fourth is stabbed to death on a waterbed with a knife; the last girl to be killed becomes trapped in the girls' locker room, when the girl sees the chainsaw, she hides in a bathroom stall, wets her pants, and becomes sawn in half, leaving behind her upper body.

In the end, it turns out the college Dean is the killer. He tries to kill Mary but Lt. Bracken, Sgt. Holden and Kendall are able to save her by shooting him in the head. The corpse, consisting of body parts from multiple victims, falls out of the Dean's cabinet and terrifies Kendall. The film ends with Kendall preparing to leave when the corpse inexplicably comes back to life and rips off his testicles while he screams.

Cast

• Christopher George as Lt. Bracken
• Linda Day as Mary Riggs
• Frank Braña as Sgt. Holden
• Paul L. Smith as Willard
• Edmund Purdom as The Dean
• Ian Sera as Kendall James
• Jack Taylor as Prof. Arthur Brown
• Isabelle Luque as Sylvia
• Gerard Tichy as Doctor Jennings
• Hilda Fuchs as The Secretary

Production

The short script for Pieces was written by Joe D'Amato and co-written by Dick Randall. It was given to director Juan Piquer Simón by producers Dick Randall and Steve Minasian, with whom he had worked on previous films.^[2] Although the film was set in the United States, specifically in Boston, it was actually shot in and around Valencia, Spain, home of film director Juan Piquer Simón (who is now the city's film festival director).

According to the interview with Simón in Pieces of Juan (on the Grindhouse DVD version of the film), the director says that none of the female stars of the film knew how to play tennis, even though they were supposed to be portraying "professional" players. A tennis coach had to be hired so that they could learn to lob the ball in a convincing enough manner to make the film believable. Simón also reveals in the interview that he is proud of the visual effects in the film, especially that a pig carcass was used for the effect of the chain saw cutting through a young woman's stomach.^[4]

The film starred real life husband and wife team Christopher George (of TV's The Rat Patrol) and Lynda Day George (of TV's Mission: Impossible), Edmund Purdom, spaghetti-western star Frank Braña, and Paul L. Smith ("Bluto" of Robert Altman's Popeye).^[5]

Release

The original film was first released in Spain on August 23, 1982, followed on September 23, 1983, by a North American theatrical run. The film opened on December 7, 1983, in France.

The uncut, uncensored director's cut of Pieces appeared for the first time in North America on DVD in October 2008, courtesy of Grindhouse Releasing / Box Office Spectaculars on Ryko / Warner Bros. label. The release includes never-previously-seen interviews with director Juan Piquer Simón (Pieces of Juan, directed by Nacho Cerda) and Paul Smith: The Reddest Herring (directed by Alma Har'el) with an extended interview with star Paul L. Smith.

Film Ventures International released Pieces in the United States. Edward L. Montoro, the controversial owner of Film Ventures, working with Film Ventures' long-time advertising agency Design Projects, was responsible for the pithy copylines. The one sheet poster, title treatment and key art were art directed by Design Projects' Rick Albert, who was responsible for most of Film Ventures' advertising and posters. Mike Hashimoto photographed the model and chainsaw, which did not actually appear in the film.^[6]

The two-disc deluxe edition by Grindhouse also includes, for the first time, an (optional) restored original soundtrack by Spanish composer Librado Pastor, as well as many other extras and bonus material.^[1] Liner notes have been contributed by the renowned horror writer Chas Balun ("Deep Red"), as well as bonus "Easter egg" video interviews with "Wes Craven's Last House on the Left book author David A. Szulkin and American horror director Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) as he presents a theatrical screening of Pieces to a Los Angeles cult audience.^[2] Grindhouse Releasing / Box Office Spectaculars released the first North American deluxe uncut, uncensored director's cut edition of the previously out-of-print movie on DVD on October 28, 2008, on Ryko Distribution/Warner Brothers label.^[5]

Critical response

Pieces fan and horror film director Eli Roth calls the film, "a masterpiece of early '80s sleaze."^[7] The notorious film carried the memorable and highly successful marketing taglines, "Pieces... It's exactly what you think it is!" and "You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!"^[1][5]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Mondo-Digital.com "The Squishy Cinema of Juan Piquer Simon"
2. ^ ^{a b c} BD Horror News: DVD Review "Pieces" by David Harley
3. ^ Motion Picture Purgatory: Pieces (Mil gritos tiene la noche)
4. ^ IMDB production info
5. ^ ^{a b c} PopMatters Short Ends and Leader "Pieces (1982)" October 14, 2008, by Bill Gibron
6. ^ Interview with exploitation film distributor Bob Murawski of Grindhouse Releasing
7. ^ Fear.net "Pieces" DVD Review

External links

• Pieces at the Internet Movie Database