What better marriage is there for a 1980s horror movie than a slasher flick and college coeds? Add to this mix another marriage, that of Christopher George and Linda Day George (as Linda Day) with early 80s horror movies. Now for good measure throw in a chainsaw, lots of blood, and of course those college girls have to get naked. This is not an instant recipe for success, misogyny yes, but the movie still needs to be entertaining to some degree.
Pieces begins with the all too common flashback sequence which pretty much defines where this movie is going. A young boy is harshly scolded by his mother after being caught putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a naked woman, and in return harshly hacks his momma to death with an axe. Some 40 years later (patient SOB he sure is) girls on a college campus are being dismembered with parts of their bodies gone missing. The police, an undercover female cop and a college student join forces to smoke out the madman, if they themselves don't get killed in the process.
Pieces is also the all too common 80s misogynistic trash. Being an 80s slasher flick alone is odds enough that it would be that, but then throw in girls getting naked then being cut up by a chainsaw wielding killer and it screams misogynistic trash. Interestingly it is also pretty well paced and does not bore, if you are the right audience for this movie.
From the very start of Pieces there is slicing and dicing. Unlike the tried and boring formula of many slasher flicks of the 80s, this does not waste time with stalking and superficial character development. There is no character development in this story, they are just characters on screen. The movie starts with a bloody killing and continues this spree. The pacing moves the movie along well while an underlying soundtrack that sounds more like it belongs in a zombie movie keeps the tempo.
As with this type of 80s trash you really don't have to worry with bad acting. Aside from Linda Day George's character and a secretary there are no female characters in this movie given any more importance than being chainsaw meat and there's not enough time for them to get in any bad acting. I stand corrected; there is Linda Day George's infamous "BASTAAARD!" scene which has gone down in movie history as an achievement of over-acting. Intelligent dialogue and a sensible plot are also something very much missing from this movie.
I give it 3 Daggers. For the right audience it offers plenty of blood, action and a decent amount of nudity from start to finish.
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