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Stars: Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Frank Brana, Edmund Purdom, Ian Sera, Paul L. Smith, Jack Taylor, Gerard Tichy, May Heatherly | Written by Dick Randall, Roberto Loyola | Directed by Juan Piquer Simón

Pieces is one of those movies that horror fans instantly fall in love with. While some would write it off as just another bad movie, others will love those moments of unintentional humour, especially from the dubbed version. This is what makes the Arrow Video Pieces: Limited Edition release on Blu-ray so much fun.

When a murderer stars killing off female students on a Boston college campus, the bodies soon start piling up. With body parts missing it seems that the killer is putting forming an interesting puzzle, but can they be stopped before they complete their work?

With a killer that is straight out of the Giallo genre, but a chainsaw that brings even more gore,...

“It’s exactly what you think it is!”

“You don’t have to go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre!”

Indeed. It’s not often that a film will tell you exactly their intention, their mission statement, right up front. With a film like Pieces (1982), it’s a badge of honor, worn proudly, a tattered and bloodied flag waving proudly from its mast on the seas of horror. Not only is Pieces exactly what we think it is, it’s so much more – one of the most cheerfully odd, sleazy slashers to come out of the VHS era. Pull out your slickers folks, things are about to get messy.

Filmed in Spain (subbing for Boston, Mass.), Pieces was released there in August of ’82, with a North American run distributed by Film Ventures International in September of ’83. Surprisingly, it did quite well, bringing in over 2 million Us after playing only 104 theatres.

By Erin Lashley, MoreHorror.com

It takes a lot to shock the average horror junkie, because our favorite films are by definition shocking. Because of the nature of these films, often the most jaw-dropping moments aren't necessarily the goriest ones, but rather the surreal non sequitur scenes that virtually come out of nowhere and just as quickly return there. Sometimes we realize upon repeat viewings that such moments do actually move the plot along. However, sometimes they just can't be explained away.

Bad chop suey, Pieces

In the middle of the film, an undercover cop played by Lynda Day George is walking across the dark college campus following a figure (Bruce Le) who she thinks might be the killer. Suddenly, he turns on her and begins attacking her with kung fu moves.

A student who is helping the cops, Kendall (Ian Sera), appears just as suddenly and stops the attacker,...

Pieces was the first “No One Under 17 Admitted” movie I ever saw back in my burgeoning horror-lovin’ youth without an older friend to help me through the doors. The additional sign over the box office reading “If You’re Not 17, You’re Not Getting In!” seemed to pose an additional challenge to my friend and I—neither one of us close to that magic age—but we paid our admissions and made it inside easily.

Then the box-office guy called out, “Hold on, you two!” and we were sure we were busted. It turned out, though, that he just wanted to be sure we had our tickets; we acknowledged that we did, he told us thanks and we scurried up the escalator before he could think again about it. So happy were we to have broached the domain of the age-forbidden that we each bought a huge tub of popcorn...