In 1980, Minasian offered Piquer a thirty-page treatment called ‘Jigsaw’. He also distributed ultra-violent Euro-horror in the States, such as Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (catchily retitled Twitch of the Death Nerve). One of the influential back-room boys of American exploitation, Minasian made his mark with Hallmark Releasing, who bankrolled the shocking and influential The Last House on the Left (1972). Piquer met American producer Steve Minasian at Cannes in 1977. The film sold well in foreign territories and Piquer was soon back behind the camera for Monster Island (1981) starring Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp, and Los diablos del mar (1982), an adaptation of Jules Verne’s Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (previously filmed in 1973 by Jess Franco). Adding ‘Simon’ to his surname for commercial reasons, he turned to directing in 1977 with Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth, an adaptation of the classic Jules Verne story, followed in 1980 by Supersonic Man, a comedic take on the Superman franchise starring Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunt double José Luis Ayestarán). In 1972 he became a film producer, founding Almena Films.
After studying art and design he enrolled at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas in Madrid and from there went into Spanish television. Consequently, it took British fans a while longer to catch up with a film that had American audiences rolling in the aisles…ĭirector Juan Piquer was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1935. Piquer would surely have followed fellow Spaniards Jess Franco, Eloy de la Iglesia and Miguel Bonns onto the roll-call, had Pieces not been heavily cut by Avatar (a subsidiary of CBS/Fox) to a mere 71 minutes, saving it from controversy but depriving British audiences of its bloody raison d’être. The cast-list is packed with familiar faces: Christopher George, fresh from Graduation Day his wife Linda Day George from Day of the Animals and Mortuary exploitation stalwart Edmund Purdom May Heatherly, the female cannibal in Antonio Margheriti’s Cannibal Apocalypse, playing a repressive mother Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor ( Succubus Female Vampire) as the college’s sinister Professor of Anatomy and Paul Smith (Bluto in Robert Altman’s disastrous Popeye) playing the de rigueur dodgy gardener.Īlthough nominally set in Boston, Massachusetts, Pieces was shot on location in Madrid. It was released theatrically in Great Britain in the summer of 1983, at a time when the “video nasty” controversy was at its height and the infamous list of banned titles was growing by the month. The music in the international version – credited to film library CAM – is a Frankenstein patchwork too, using Stelvio Cipriani‘s excellent score for the Italian Exorcist rip-off Ring of Darkness and adding prog-rock cues by Carlo Maria Cordio from Joe D’Amato’s ultra-grisly Absurd. Perfectly in keeping with its title, Pieces is a jigsaw of elements from other films: the ‘x-years earlier’ prologue was of course a mainstay of slasher films after Halloween a knife-stabbing through the back of a head and emerging via the mouth is lifted from Lucio Fulci’s gorefest The House by the Cemetery the school setting and absurdly suspicious gardener are ripped off from Jess Franco’s Bloody Moon a pop-up shock is drafted in from Carrievia Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness a brutal murder in a lift recalls Brian de Palma’s Dressed to Kill and of course the inspiration for the chainsaw murders is obvious. Like one of the hilarious mock-trailers from Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse magically transformed into a real movie, it’s a riot from start to finish. So what if some of the fun is unintentional? It’s a combination of supercharged gore, hilarious goofs and gaffes (a push-button phone in 1942?) and deliciously silly performances (Linda Day George’s maniacal outburst of “Bastard! Bastard!!!” is a highlight). The film’s absurd dialogue, terrible acting and illogical plotting may induce feelings of contempt in some viewers but ultimately Pieces is exactly what it wants to be – great, great fun.
With murder by axe, knife and chainsaw, severed limbs and hacked torsos, decapitations and litres of blood, it’s an energetic explosion of gory nonsense: a horror fan would need a heart of stone not to enjoy it. Pieces is impossible to take seriously but very easy to love, providing you get a kick out of grisly dismemberment, ridiculous plotting and crazy dialogue.
Later, the police arrive and find Timmy finishing the puzzle… However, instead of bringing the bag, the boy gruesomely murders his mother with a handy axe.
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