Tag Archives: Pieces

20 Horror Films For The Weekend (10/3/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Horrorthon!  Here’s 20 films to help get you into that October mood!

The Dreams of Jean Rollin

I have been a fan of the French director Jean Rollin ever since I first watched Night of the Hunted on one rainy night.  His dream-like film were often both frightening and, in their way, rather touching.  At heart, Rollin was a poet and a romantic, along with being a cinematic rebel.  This October is the perfect time to get caught up on Rollin.

The Nude Vampire (1970) opens at night, with a woman wearing an orange nightgown being chased down a street by three men wearing bird-like masks.  The woman runs into a man named Pierre.  Pierre watches as the woman is shot in the back and then carried into what appears to be a secret club.  Pierre follows and soon finds himself in the middle of a surreal world featuring cults, vampires, and one of Rollin’s trademark trips to the beach.  This was Rollin’s second film.  It’s surreal trip into an undergouns world and it owes more than a little to the serials that Rollin enjoyed as a young man.  The Nude Vampire can be viewed on Shudder.

The Shiver of the Vampires (1971) is Rollin’s tribute to the old Universal haunted house films.  A newlywed couple visits a castle that was owned by the wife’s cousins.  Upon arriving, they are told that the cousins are dead and the house is now occupied by two mysterious young women.  Over the course of the night, the couple discovers that the castle is also home to vampire named Isolde.  This atmospheric film is best-remembered the scene with Isolde emerges from a grandfather clock.  It was an image that Rollin liked so much that he reused it in several later films.  Shiver of the Vampires can be viewed on Tubi.

Requiem for a Vampire (1971) tells the story of two young girls who, having committed some sort of crime while wearing clown makeup, wander through the French countryside until they come across a castle that is occupied by a sickly vampire and his servants.  Atmospheric, dream-like, and sexually-charged, Requiem for a Vampire is a mix of horror, crime, and melodrama.  “Let’s go to the cemetery!”  Requiem for a Vampire is available on Shudder.

Lips of Blood (1975) mixes two of Rollin’s favorite themes: vampires and memory.  A man sees a picture of a ruined seaside castle and becomes convinced that he’s visited it in the past.  His search for castle leads not just to vampires but also a meditation on the act of remembering and how people are always trying to recapture an idealized moment of time.  A truly beautiful film, Lips of Blood can be found on Shudder.

The Living Dead Girl (1981) is one of Rollin’s best films.  A toxic spill brings a young woman back to life.  She has only vague memories of her past life but she also has an insatiable need for blood.  When her childhood friend discovers that the woman has come back to life, she tries to keep her fed.  It soon becomes clear that, even though the title character would rather be allowed to return to the peace of death, her friend is determined to keep her alive.  This film is a bloody, gory, and ultimately very moving examination of love and friendship.  How far would you go?  The Living Dead Girl can be found on Tubi.

Hacking Away At October

Graduation Day (1981) is one of my favorite of the early 80s slasher, an entertainingly lowbrow film about a killer who is seeking revenge on the high school track and field team.  Christopher George is the hard-pushing coach.  Michael Pataki is the ineffective principal.  Linnea Quigley, who was reportedly cast as the last minute after one of the actresses walked off the set, is the closest thing the film has to a likable character.  Vanna White is a high school student.  The music is incredible!  Felony performs a 10-minute version of Gangsters of Rock.  Graduation Day can be viewed on Tubi.

If you enjoyed Christopher George in Graduation Day, you’ll definitely want to follow up with Mortuary (1983), in which he plays the creepy owner of a funeral home.  When he’s not embalming, he’s yelling at his socially awkward son (Bill Paxton).  Someone is committing murder in the suburbs.  Could it have something to do with the weird cult that occasionally meets in the mortuary’s back room?  Christopher’s wife, Lynda Day George, plays the widow with a secret.  Be sure to yell, “We can see you breathing!” during the later embalming scenes.  Mortuary can be viewed on Tubi.

Christopher George and Lynda Day George also appear in Pieces (1982), one of the goriest slasher films ever made.  The film’s tag line was “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre” and this film proves it by setting the action in Boston.  This film divides it’s time between genuinely disturbing gore and scenes that are so bizarre and misconceived that you can’t help but wonder if the director was trying to satirize the slasher genre.  The random kung fu fight is an obvious example, as is the scene where the killer casually steps into an elevator while carrying his chainsaw.  The film’s goriest scene is disturbing up until the moment that Lynda Day George starts screaming, “BASTARD!” at the sky.  Pieces can be viewed on Tubi.

Hell Night (1981) may not feature Christopher and Lynda Day George but it does feature Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, and the absolutely dreamy Peter Barton as part of a group of fraternity and sorority pledges who spend the night in a supposedly haunted house.  Uh-oh — it turns out the house really is haunted!  Though the plot features the usual slasher hijinks, Hell Night is a well-acted movie that makes good use of its location and which features a few moments of wit to go along with all the death and horror.  It can be viewed on Prime.

Even by the standards of director Jim Wynorski, Sorority House Massacre 2 (1990) is a trashy film.  Four sorority girls try to clean up their new house, which basically translates to taking showers, wearing lingerie, and playing with a Ouija board.  Their creepy neighbor, Orville, tries to warn them that they’ve moved into the old Hockstader Place but he just keeps getting stabbed for his trouble.  The film is pure exploitation but it’s also cheerfully self-aware.  It’s so shameless and the story plays out with so much energy that it becomes entertaining in its own very stupid way.  Gail Harris and Melissa Moore give surprisingly committed performances.  Peter Spellos is the neighbor who wants to help but keeps freaking everyone out.  The film’s ending is oddly effective.  It can be viewed on YouTube.  

Supernatural Creeps

Ulli Lommel’s The Boogeyman (1980) has an intriguing premise.  What if a mirror stored the evil that it once reflected?  It also has a lot of ominous country atmosphere and a good performance from Lommel’s then partner, Suzanna Love.  There’s a disturbing dream sequence that still freaks me out whenever I see it.  It’s also an often ludicrous film that doesn’t always make a lot of sense but it’s still the best of Lommel’s American films.  John Carradine shows up as a psychiatrist.  It can be viewed on Tubi.

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror (1981) is an Italian film about what happens when a bunch of decadent, sex-crazed rich people find themselves trapped in a villa by a bunch of zombie.  The zombie effects are surprisingly effective.  There’s a lot of gore and also a political subtext of sorts.  (The dead peasants rise from the dead and use the tools of their life — like scythes — to attack the rich.)  That said, most people remember this film for Peter Bark’s bizarre performance of Michael, who is supposed to be a young teenager and who has a taboo scene with his mother (played by Mariangela Giordano) that seems to come out of nowhere.  There’s some debate over whether or not Bark was an actual teenager or an elderly little person.  I still have to cover my eyes during the finale.  It can be viewed on Tubi.

Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1988) is another Italian zombie film.  Ignore the “Five” in the title, this film isn’t an actual sequel to anything.  A group of college students head to down to steamy bayous and find themselves besieged by the living dread.  Birds may or may not be involved.  Robert Vaughn hams it up as a blind man.  There’s a genuinely frightening nightmare sequence.  It can be viewed on Tubi.

Shock Waves (1977) also features zombies.  In this case, they’re living underwater, off the coast of Florida for some reason.  Shock Waves is a truly scary film.  The zombies are relentless and brutal and the scene where they emerge from the water is a 100 times more frightening than it has any right to be.  Brooke Adams plays the tourist who screams a lot.  Peter Cushing is a mad scientist.  John Carradine is a crusty old boat captain.  Shock Waves can be viewed on Tubi.

Count Dracula (1970) stars Christopher Lee in a version of the Dracula story that sticks closer to the original Bram Stoker novel than any of the Hammer films.  This version was directed by Jess Franco and features none other than Klaus Kinski as Renfield.  Lee’s refined, aristocratic Dracula is quite a contrast to the feral version of the character that he often played for Hammer.  Lee always cited this as the only Dracula film that he took pride in.  It can be viewed on Tubi.

They’re Coming To Get You

Chopping Mall (1986) features the latest in mall security.  Instead of security guards, the mall will now be patrolled by security robots.  It’s all good and well until the robots malfunction and start chasing down the hot young employees who foolishly decided to spend the night in their store.  Directed by Jim Wynorski and featuring Kelli Maroney, Russell Todd, Gerrit Graham, Barbara Crampton, and Dick Miller, Chopping Mall is a lot of fun.  I don’t know if Wynorski has ever topped the exploding head scene.  The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Hellmaster (1992) features John Saxon as a crazed and apparently immortal professor-turned-cult-leader who injects his followers with drugs that turn them into mindless zombies.  David Emge, who was in Dawn of the Dead, plays the reporter who is haunted by Saxon’s crimes.  Saxon is certainly intent on turning people into zombies but the film never really explains why.  Still, the film has an intensity to it that I appreciate.  John Saxon makes for a strong villain.  The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Something Weird (1967) tells the story of Mitch.  He gets electrocuted, which leaves him both psychic and disfigured.  While his best friend wants to Mitch’s psychic abilities to defeat the communists, Mitch instead accepts a deal with a witch.  She takes away his disfigurement and soon, Mitch is a celebrity.  However, the witch doesn’t do anything for free.  Eventually, Mitch takes LSD to try to strengthen his powers.  Director Herschell Gordon Lewis was better-known for his gore films but Something Weird lives up to its title.  With its mix of witches, ESP, and LSD, it’s a true horror time capsule.  The film can be viewed on Tubi.

Terror At London Bridge (1985) features Jack The Ripper time traveling to Arizona.  Can David Hasselhoff stop him!?  Watch the film on Tubi to find out.  The film will probably be best appreciated by David Hasselhoff fans but hey, who isn’t a fan of the Hoff?

Track of the Moon Beast (1976) is a film that is so much a product of the 70s that it deserves to be put in a museum.  Come for the story of an innocent man transformed into a monster by a moon rock and stay for the lengthy performance of California Lady.  Watch the film on YouTube!

Check out my previous week’s movies by clicking here!

International Horror Film Review: Pieces (dir by J. Piquer Simon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s a strange world out there.

This 1982 Spanish-produced slasher film was advertised, at least in the United States, with the brilliant tag line: “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre.”  And indeed, Pieces takes place in Boston, Massachusetts.  And yet, it’s a Boston that has little relation to the Boston of the real world.  (Some of that may be because, while a few scenes were filmed in Boston, the majority of the film was shot in Spain.)  Indeed, one can argue that Pieces takes place in an alternate reality, one that was created with bits of giallo suspense, slasher gore, and scenes randomly borrowed from every other exploitation film ever made.

In the 1950s, a little boy wears a bowtie and plays with a pornographic jigsaw puzzle.  His mother takes the puzzle away from him, which he doesn’t appreciate at all.  It leads, as things usually do, to an axe murder.

In the 1980s, a college student tries to roller skate down a sidewalk, just to suddenly lose control.  As she helplessly rolls down the street, two workman carrying a sheet of glass just happen to step out in front of her.  Pieces of blood-stained glass fly everywhere.  As is typical of Pieces, this actually has nothing to do with the larger plot of the film.  We never learn the girl’s name.  We never hear learn if she survived nor do we hear much else about the accident.  Instead, it’s just a random incident, tossed in to illustrate that the world is going mad.

On campus, a chainsaw killer is killing students and teachers.  He’s the boy with the bowtie, all grown up.  He takes body parts home with him so that he can stitch them together, recreating the jigsaw puzzle that was stolen from him years before.  Oddly enough, he never makes much of an effort to hide his chainsaw.  He casually gets on an elevator with one of his victims.  She notices that he’s carrying a chainsaw but she doesn’t say anything about it until he actually turns it on.

Dean Foley (played by Eurohorror veteran Edmund Purdom) is upset that students keep getting dismembered on campus, as well he should be.  Lt. Bracken (Christopher George, barking out his lines with the same annoyed energy that he brought to Graduation Day) is also upset because he’s supposed to arrest criminals and stuff.  Unfortunately, all of Bracken’s cops are incredibly incompetent.  Bracken is forced to rely on the help of Kendall James (Ian Sera).  Despite being kind of scrawny and unappealing, Kendall is the most popular student on campus.  Kendall also knows every victim and discovers the majority of them.  You would think that Kendall would be the obvious suspect but instead, Kendall somehow ends up directing the entire investigation.  Kendall’s not a cop but he’s soon ordering around the veteran detectives and everyone’s okay with that.  (One detective even mentions that Kendall might as well be a part of the force.)

Lt. Backen decides that the best way to solve the case is to send in Mary Riggs (Linda Day George), who is not only an undercover cop but also a top-ranked tennis player!  There’s a lot of tennis in Pieces, as Mary works on her game in between working with Kendall to solve the murders.  Kendall and Mary aren’t very effective though.  After discovering that one victim was chopped in half in the showers while Kendall and Mary were trying to find the source of some loud marching band music, Mary lets the killer know exactly what she thinks of him.

But who is the killer?  Because Pieces was as inspired by the giallo genre as the slasher genre, there are several suspects.  Kendall seems like the obvious one but, for whatever reason, no one makes that connection.  Instead, we’re left to wonder if maybe it could be the Dean.  Or how about Prof. Brown (Jack Taylor), the somewhat odd professor who seems to be a bit repressed?  Or maybe it’s the handyman, Willard (Paul L. Smith)?  Willard is creepy and he works with a chainsaw!  There are a lot of suspects and helpfully, after a murder at the pool, every single one of them shows up at the scene of the crime.  At one point, they all even gather in the same corner and look straight at the camera.  You half expect Kendall to announce, “Well, I can’t possibly solve this one!  Can you?”

But that’s not all!  When Kendall and Mary aren’t solving murders, they’re having to deal with all of the other weird things that happen on campus.  At one point, Mary is randomly attacked by the school’s karate instructor.  After Kendall shows up and explains who the man in, they all laugh it off as being the result of “bad chop suey.”  Later, Kendall walks Mary back to her place and, after she rejects his attempts at romance, Kendall turns around to be confronted by another student who taunts him by yelling, “Casanova!”  Meanwhile, other students are still walking around campus in the middle of the night and making plans to meet up in a room that contain the height of campus luxury, a waterbed!

(Yes, a murder does occur on the waterbed.  Yes, water goes everywhere.  It’s Chekhov’s waterbed. You can’t introduce it without including a scene where it gets punctured.)

Many things happen, none of which make sense.  The entire film is so over-the-top in its combination of gore, overacting, and general absurdity that it becomes strangely fascinating.  From today’s perspective, it’s easy to imagine that the film was actually meant to be a parody but director J. Piquer Simon has said that it was meant to be viewed as a serious thriller, regardless of how the film was subsequently advertised in the United States.  Even the film’s ending, in which someone who is not the killer is randomly castrated just because, was meant to be taken seriously.  Every weird moment was included to give the audience what they wanted.  Audiences loved Bruce Lee so, of course, a random karate fight was tossed in.  People love chainsaws so, of course …. well, you get the idea.

On the one hand, Pieces is a really heavy-handed and mean-spirited film, one in which the victims are almost exclusively women and where sex and violence are too often connected.  Mary may be an absurd character but you’re happy when she shows up because she’s the one woman in the film not presented as being a passive victim.  On the other hand, Pieces is just so over-the-top and absurd that it’s hard not to watch the film all the way through.  Perhaps the only thing that keeps the film from being incredibly offensive is that, regardless of what the director has claimed, it is so obviously not meant to be taking place in the real world.  When that plate glass was shattered, it obviously opened a vortex that sucked the campus into a world where every slasher and giallo trope has been adapted to the point of absurdity.  This is one of those films that just gets more and more strange with each passing minute.  You watch it and you find yourself continually thinking, “This movie can’t get any weirder” and then it manages to do just that.  Watching the movie is like stepping through a portal into some sort of strange alternate reality.  Just try to look away.

Who could the murderer be?

Horror Scenes That I Love: From Pieces, The Greatest Line Reading Ever

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I may have shared this scene before.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that I did because I can remember discussing this scene with Val Troutman.

Oh well, no matter!  There are some things that deserve to be shared more than once!

This scene comes from the 1982 film, Pieces.  Now, for the record, it’s not easy find an appropriate scene to share from Pieces.  Just about every scene in the movie seems to either feature gratuitous nudity or really bloody violence.  I mean, it’s probably nothing that would shock our jaded readers but it is the type of stuff that would probably get this site blocked from being accessed from a public library.

But then there’s this scene right here.  Now, in order to understand what’s happening here, you should keep in mind that Lynda Day George is playing an undercover cop who also happens to be a tennis pro.  She’s been assigned to the local college.  Her job is to figure out who is using a chainsaw to kill all of the students.  Unfortunately, she sucks at her job so she has to get this kinda nerdy college student to help her out.

Anyway, after spending the morning playing tennis, they’ve just discovered a dead body in the showers.  Yes, the killer has struck again and …. well, it was really messy.  Speaking as someone who appreciates a clean house and a carefully organized day, I can relate to the reaction below:

By the way, it’s impossible for me to watch this scene without thinking about the episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia where they’re playing Chardee McDennis and the question is, “Dennis is asshole.  Why Charlie hate?”

“Because Dennis is a bastard, man!”

Anyway, stay safe.

4 Shots From 4 Collegiate Slasher Films: Final Exam, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Pieces, The House on Sorority Row

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.

Many great horror films have taken place in a college setting.  Then again, so have many, many bad ones.  In honor of all of those films, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Collegiate Slasher Films

Final Exam (1981, dir by Jimmy Huston)

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982, dir by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow)

Pieces (1983, dir by J. Piquer Simon)

The House on Sorority Row (1983, dir by Mark Rosman)

Shut up, Billy Dee Williams — It’s Time For Six More Trailers

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.  (I know, I know — worst intro paragraph evuh!  Following the tradition of the Pieces trailer, which can be found below, I’m keeping things simple.  I’ll be back to my usual complicated self next week.)

1) Fear City

Believe it or not, this was directed by Abel Ferrara, the same man who directed Ms. 45.  Fear City is one of the few Ferrara films that I haven’t seen but the trailer just oozes sleaze doesn’t it?  And speaking of sleaze, maybe that’s what all the men in this film were putting in their hair.  Seriously, why not call it Gel City?  And how about Billy Dee Williams there, sounding like the angel of the final judgment?  Shut up, Billy Dee Williams!

2) A Cat In The Brain

This is one of Lucio Fulci’s final films and you’re either going to love it or you’re going to hate it.  The film is surprisingly meta for an Italian horror film not directed by Michele Soavi.  This is the one where Fulci plays himself and attempts to personally answer his critics.  Anyway, the reason I love this trailer is because of the cat puppet that appears at the end.  It’s so cute!  (Ignore the quote from Clive Barker — he’s almost as much of a whore as Stephen King.)

3) Pieces

“It’s exactly what you think it is!”  Anyone who wants to go into advertising should watch this and learn.

4) The Stud

I imagine this is another film that’s “exactly what you think it is.”  I love trailers that show off what was considered to be chic and decadent in the past.  This is one is from the 70s.  (Surprised?)

5) Cannibal Apocalypse

While the rich people were partying in London, cannibals were apparently ruling the streets of Atlanta.  According to actor John Saxon, starring in Cannibal Apocalypse made him suicidal.  Cannibal Apocalypse is actually a pretty good film with an anti-war subtext and it features a great supporting performance from Giovanni Lombardo Radice so seriously — shut up, John Saxon!  (Actually, Saxon gives a really great performance here — of course, his character is meant to be suicidal — and he’s the main reason that Cannibal Apocalypse works.)

6) Cannibal Man

Much like Cannibal Apocalypse, Cannibal Man is actually an allegory of alienation that’s disguised as a horror movie.  Cannibal Man is a seriously strange movie and highly recommended.