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Cinematrocities -- For Fans of Bad Cinema! By D.S. Ullery
Welcome to the first edition of what I hope will be a weekly column examining some of the more notable contributions to one of the most enduring genres of film: Bad cinema. Love 'em or hate 'em, there's something about the worst of the worst which appeals to the curious side of every film fan. Whether it's someone checking a movie out because it "can't be that bad" or they want to enjoy a night of popcorn and laughs with their closest compadres' mocking a particular picture ala MST3K, bad movies have become a staple of the everyman's cinematic diet.
I have seen and loved many films over the years, but the truly awful ones have provided me with some of the happiest moments I've ever experienced via the DVD/VHS player. In this column, I hope to either remind fans of B and Z movie classics they haven't seen in years or create a new generation of devotees to continue the appreciation of these gems of cult cinema.
With the introductions out of the way, let's dive right in and take a look at the first Cinematrocity on file: the 1982 Italian/Spanish slasher flick Pieces.
PIECES
1982
Directed by Juan Piquer Simon
Written by Joe D'Amato and Dick Randall
Starring Christopher George and Lynda Day George
Pieces (aka Mil greitos tien la noche,Rompecabezas and One Thousand Cries has the Night ) is an Italian produced, Spanish directed horror film from the early 1980's which chronicles a series of brutal chainsaw murders which occur on a university campus presumably located in Boston. The film opens with a preface set in Beantown circa 1942 wherein a young boy lasciviously puts together a pornographic jigsaw puzzle (which I guess were all the rage in 1942 Boston), much to the ire of his mother. Mom tells junior to gather all of his pornographic material so she can burn it, but only after the spouting the requisite monologue reminding the boy of what a louse his absentee father is. Personally, if I were the kid, I'd have hoped my parents would sit me down and talk about my developing sexual curiousity in a rational matter, but there you are.
The tyke is clearly disturbed by this turn of events because about 4.4 seconds later he returns and whacks mom's skull apart with an axe. This is one of the funniest onscreen axe murders ever committed to celluloid, not because of the blood or prosthetics (which were adequate) but because of the completely weak manner in which this kid goes after mom. The blade doesn't cut into her head so much as it sort of taps her on the noggin several times and bounces back.
Mom croaks and a family friend (accompanied by the police) finds the kid in a closet where he has hidden. It is assumed the boy - who is awash in mom's blood- was hiding from the killer (his cries of "big man" apparently veto any need for a criminal investigation) and he is sent to live with relatives. Some opening credits appear which are so cheaply produced that they are all drawn and we find our story picking up on a Boston Universty campus forty years later .
Okay, the basic lowdown here is that a psycho wearing black gloves, a trenchoat and a bowler hat stalks pretty coeds and carves them up by way of a chainsaw and/or large, shiny butcher knife. Every murder is proceeded by a close up of the killer's gloved hands as he puts together the same porno jigsaw puzzle the mother-murdering tyke from the pre-credit sequence had been working on. Obviously, junior had some continuing issues and (like so many screen maniacs before him) opted for the psychological therapy of a power tool massacre. A detective played by Christopher George (Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead) shows up to investigate and soon - with the cooperation of the dean - has a female undercover officer on campus (Lynda Day George of Mission :Impossible tv fame) to try to lure the killer out and catch him. There's some nonsense about a student helping out and the killer's motives at the end , but that's pretty much it for plot. The reason this is a cult item is the murders are extremely gory. As a result (and as was often the case with Italian horror flicks released stateside in the 80's) this one was issued a strict "No one Under 17 admitted, parents or no parents. Period. The End" rating.
The acting is uniformly terrible and the effects are gory but about as fake as you're gonns get. The dubbing is crap as well.
So, with all of that going for it, why do I love this film? Why is it one of my favorite Cinematrocities? Because of the education I received watching this flick. There were some bits of information I discovered during Pieces which I would not have learned in a million years if I hadn't chosen to expand my cinematic horizons..
- A psycho can lop a girls head off with a chainsaw in the middle of a fully populated campus quad on a bright sunny day and no one will see it. Furthermore, the gardener with the chainsaw standing four feet away who was last seen speaking with the victim two minutes before her demise will not immediately be a suspect.
- Detectives in Boston can take one look at a college student who is repeatedly seen near or around homicide crime scenes and deduce that he is not only not a psychopath, but should be enlisted to assist in the investigation.
- Heavyset, unattractive college students randomly jump out of dark corridors on college campuses in Boston wearing zombie masks and shouting "Casanova!" at their friends. Addendum to this: If said friend is startled and screams in fear, the undercover police officer whose door he is standing outside of will not emerge from inside of her apartment to see what is the matter, even if her purpose in being there in the first place is to apprehend a psychopath running around dismembering students.
- Female undercover cops respond to the sight of a disemboweled female body by standing in one spot and screaming the word "Bastard!!" four or five times in a row.
Favorite Moments:
- The aforementioned "Bastard!" scene. You... just..have to see it.
- Early shot of a woman on roller skates who plows headlong into a large mirror being carried out of a van by two workmen. We see the mirror, see her heading for it, she screams, we hear the glass shatter and she is never seen or referenced in the film again.
- Christopher George asks one of the professors if a chainsaw could have been used to hack up a dismembered body they have found by the university pool. The professor and the detective approach the crime scene where a blood splattered chainsaw has been bagged as evidence, apparently found at the scene. The professor leans down, examines the gore-soaked power tool and- I kid you not- actually bothers to point out that the chainsaw in question was clearly used in the crime.
- Another detective on the case is researching the background of all the school faculty members. He's been doing this for roughly half the film. Now the bright young student has been enlisted to assist. Four minutes later, the kid points out that the file he is reading reveals that one of the staff changed their name when he was younger. The detective reads this info, calls his office and - less than a minute later - tells whoever is on the other end of the line to send the info out over the wire. Then supercop hangs up , turns to the kid and intones matter-of-factly "Looks like the dean's the one" (not a spoiler..you'll figure that out less than five minutes into the movie) . So, in essence, the case could have been solved in the time it takes to get a cup of coffee and all those lives could have been spared if only someone had opened a file and bothered to-y'know- read it.
- While walking back to her temporary campus apartment, the undercover officer is attacked by an Asian man sporting a bad Jackie Chan hairdo. This character -whom we have never seen and who has never been spoken of until this moment in the film - is explained as being the martial arts instructor. No mention of the character or his abrupt and meaningless attack on the officer is ever made again.
Yeah, Pieces is a bad flick. Very bad. But it splatters the walls red with blood and it's painfully funny. If you know what you're getting into, this film offers loads of good, gruesome unintentional laughs and is a must own for those who appreciate good cheese.
The film is available through Grindhouse Video. It has also been broken down in it's entirety for viewing on Youtube.
That does it for the initital installment of Cinematrocities. Hope you enjoyed.
Catch you on the flip side.
I have seen and loved many films over the years, but the truly awful ones have provided me with some of the happiest moments I've ever experienced via the DVD/VHS player. In this column, I hope to either remind fans of B and Z movie classics they haven't seen in years or create a new generation of devotees to continue the appreciation of these gems of cult cinema.
With the introductions out of the way, let's dive right in and take a look at the first Cinematrocity on file: the 1982 Italian/Spanish slasher flick Pieces.
PIECES
1982
Directed by Juan Piquer Simon
Written by Joe D'Amato and Dick Randall
Starring Christopher George and Lynda Day George
Pieces (aka Mil greitos tien la noche,Rompecabezas and One Thousand Cries has the Night ) is an Italian produced, Spanish directed horror film from the early 1980's which chronicles a series of brutal chainsaw murders which occur on a university campus presumably located in Boston. The film opens with a preface set in Beantown circa 1942 wherein a young boy lasciviously puts together a pornographic jigsaw puzzle (which I guess were all the rage in 1942 Boston), much to the ire of his mother. Mom tells junior to gather all of his pornographic material so she can burn it, but only after the spouting the requisite monologue reminding the boy of what a louse his absentee father is. Personally, if I were the kid, I'd have hoped my parents would sit me down and talk about my developing sexual curiousity in a rational matter, but there you are.
The tyke is clearly disturbed by this turn of events because about 4.4 seconds later he returns and whacks mom's skull apart with an axe. This is one of the funniest onscreen axe murders ever committed to celluloid, not because of the blood or prosthetics (which were adequate) but because of the completely weak manner in which this kid goes after mom. The blade doesn't cut into her head so much as it sort of taps her on the noggin several times and bounces back.
Mom croaks and a family friend (accompanied by the police) finds the kid in a closet where he has hidden. It is assumed the boy - who is awash in mom's blood- was hiding from the killer (his cries of "big man" apparently veto any need for a criminal investigation) and he is sent to live with relatives. Some opening credits appear which are so cheaply produced that they are all drawn and we find our story picking up on a Boston Universty campus forty years later .
Okay, the basic lowdown here is that a psycho wearing black gloves, a trenchoat and a bowler hat stalks pretty coeds and carves them up by way of a chainsaw and/or large, shiny butcher knife. Every murder is proceeded by a close up of the killer's gloved hands as he puts together the same porno jigsaw puzzle the mother-murdering tyke from the pre-credit sequence had been working on. Obviously, junior had some continuing issues and (like so many screen maniacs before him) opted for the psychological therapy of a power tool massacre. A detective played by Christopher George (Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead) shows up to investigate and soon - with the cooperation of the dean - has a female undercover officer on campus (Lynda Day George of Mission :Impossible tv fame) to try to lure the killer out and catch him. There's some nonsense about a student helping out and the killer's motives at the end , but that's pretty much it for plot. The reason this is a cult item is the murders are extremely gory. As a result (and as was often the case with Italian horror flicks released stateside in the 80's) this one was issued a strict "No one Under 17 admitted, parents or no parents. Period. The End" rating.
The acting is uniformly terrible and the effects are gory but about as fake as you're gonns get. The dubbing is crap as well.
So, with all of that going for it, why do I love this film? Why is it one of my favorite Cinematrocities? Because of the education I received watching this flick. There were some bits of information I discovered during Pieces which I would not have learned in a million years if I hadn't chosen to expand my cinematic horizons..
- A psycho can lop a girls head off with a chainsaw in the middle of a fully populated campus quad on a bright sunny day and no one will see it. Furthermore, the gardener with the chainsaw standing four feet away who was last seen speaking with the victim two minutes before her demise will not immediately be a suspect.
- Detectives in Boston can take one look at a college student who is repeatedly seen near or around homicide crime scenes and deduce that he is not only not a psychopath, but should be enlisted to assist in the investigation.
- Heavyset, unattractive college students randomly jump out of dark corridors on college campuses in Boston wearing zombie masks and shouting "Casanova!" at their friends. Addendum to this: If said friend is startled and screams in fear, the undercover police officer whose door he is standing outside of will not emerge from inside of her apartment to see what is the matter, even if her purpose in being there in the first place is to apprehend a psychopath running around dismembering students.
- Female undercover cops respond to the sight of a disemboweled female body by standing in one spot and screaming the word "Bastard!!" four or five times in a row.
Favorite Moments:
- The aforementioned "Bastard!" scene. You... just..have to see it.
- Early shot of a woman on roller skates who plows headlong into a large mirror being carried out of a van by two workmen. We see the mirror, see her heading for it, she screams, we hear the glass shatter and she is never seen or referenced in the film again.
- Christopher George asks one of the professors if a chainsaw could have been used to hack up a dismembered body they have found by the university pool. The professor and the detective approach the crime scene where a blood splattered chainsaw has been bagged as evidence, apparently found at the scene. The professor leans down, examines the gore-soaked power tool and- I kid you not- actually bothers to point out that the chainsaw in question was clearly used in the crime.
- Another detective on the case is researching the background of all the school faculty members. He's been doing this for roughly half the film. Now the bright young student has been enlisted to assist. Four minutes later, the kid points out that the file he is reading reveals that one of the staff changed their name when he was younger. The detective reads this info, calls his office and - less than a minute later - tells whoever is on the other end of the line to send the info out over the wire. Then supercop hangs up , turns to the kid and intones matter-of-factly "Looks like the dean's the one" (not a spoiler..you'll figure that out less than five minutes into the movie) . So, in essence, the case could have been solved in the time it takes to get a cup of coffee and all those lives could have been spared if only someone had opened a file and bothered to-y'know- read it.
- While walking back to her temporary campus apartment, the undercover officer is attacked by an Asian man sporting a bad Jackie Chan hairdo. This character -whom we have never seen and who has never been spoken of until this moment in the film - is explained as being the martial arts instructor. No mention of the character or his abrupt and meaningless attack on the officer is ever made again.
Yeah, Pieces is a bad flick. Very bad. But it splatters the walls red with blood and it's painfully funny. If you know what you're getting into, this film offers loads of good, gruesome unintentional laughs and is a must own for those who appreciate good cheese.
The film is available through Grindhouse Video. It has also been broken down in it's entirety for viewing on Youtube.
That does it for the initital installment of Cinematrocities. Hope you enjoyed.
Catch you on the flip side.
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