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Pieces (1981)

Dir: Juan Piquer Simon.

This classic example of Euro tinted trash (co-scripted by sleaze master Joe D'Amato) starts with a young lad putting together a jigsaw of a naked Women...oh dear!
In comes Mum, sees nekkid chick...flips...lad replies by sticking an axe in her head!
Skip a few years;

Typical US Jock/Bimbo high school. Someone's taking a chainsaw to the curvy co-eds, taking certain pieces and leaving the rest for the Police to trip over.
The 'pieces' match a certain...jigsaw!

Christopher 'I used to work with John Wayne, honest' George stars as the grumpy cop on the case and his wife, Linda Day George (who, as always, is wonderfully bad) plays the lady cop who goes undercover as a tennis coach, because it just happens she's an ex tennis champ!
But can they stop the killing?...

A real gore fest this one! Heads, arms, legs and sundry other body parts are chainsawed off in graphic detail. The best sequnce being a superb sawed in half death in a shower room (complete with an unusually sleazy detail where the victim wets herself), which also has a great 'finding the body' pay-off.

Sure the acting varies from ham to major ham, sure the characters are for the most part made of cardboard. But hey, that's what good, trashy, exploitation horror flicks are all about. And it's always a pleasure to see Paul ('Crimewave') Smith play crazy, unhinged characters and he does all you could hope for, in his usual 'Bluto' acting style, as a mysterious handyman.
Top class cheese is also served up by old ham Edmund Purdom as the school's Headmaster and good old Euro fave Jack Taylor (still with that great porn moustache) makes an appearence as a randy teacher. All in all it's a fine line-up of trashy overacting!

This gem also has the most gratuitous use of Kung-Fu in any movie!
Linda Day George is suddenly jumped by a crazy oriental who proceeds to pull off a few Bruce Lee moves. Even going so far as to kick her gun from her hand and knock her to the ground.
But it's okay, as it turns out he's just the school's Martial Arts teacher playing around!
He says "Oh so solly" (no, he does, he really does) and prances off into the night....and our horror movie continues!
And be warned, this movie also has the most deranged use of the word 'Bastard' in film history, as Linda Day pulls out ALL her acting skills and screams the word about 4 times in an amazing display of pissed-off frustration at her own useless efforts to catch the nut-bag, because she was too busy turning off loud music to notice the killer chainsawing up another bimbette one room across from her!!

Director Juan Piquer Simon does a much better job here than he did in the lamentable "Slugs" and the film moves at a fast pace as one mad event follows another in rapid succession.
Great gore, hammy acting, lot's of nudity (including a very nice full frontal for the guys and even a brief shot of wobbly, teenage male meat for the ladies), and a total head-fuck of a finale. What more do you need?
Art? NO!
Fun? Oh yes!

This movie has at last been given a worthy German DVD release, and a belated UK one.
The German release though is the way to go, with a nice widescreen print, with an unusual extra. It's a behind the scenes feature that shows Edmund Purdom Directing "Don't Open Till Christmas" (a film he was later fired from) and it's a joy.
Purdom is a highly eccentric character, and although not directly related to "Pieces", it's high camp content makes this footage a perfect addition to the main feature.
The DVD is a Limited Edition though, so what are you waiting for...go pick up them "Pieces".