Pieces

[domino harvey]

NEW UK ONLY TITLE: Pieces Deluxe Limited Edition (Dual Format, CD, Vinyl, Puzzle) ARROW STORE EXCLUSIVE

Pieces is the original sickening slasher classic, now restored in glorious 4K!

***Please note!*** Our store exclusive Pieces release won’t be up for pre-order until early 2017. We'll of course keep you posted on developments
Release Date: 27th March 2017

IT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT IS!

From Juan Piquer Simón, director of the equally unhinged Slugs, Pieces is the original sickening slasher classic, now restored in glorious 4K!

A Boston college campus is being terrorised by a black-clad maniac who collects body parts from his unfortunate co-ed victims. As the corpses (and red herrings) begin to pile up, can Professor Brown (genre veteran Jack Taylor) unmask the murderer before his morbid puzzle is complete?

Boasting some of the most outrageous gore set-pieces ever to splash their way across the screen (including a particularly memorable slow-motion evisceration atop a waterbed), Pieces is an essential slice of Spanish splatter and more gruesome than ever on Blu-ray.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
•Limited to 500 - 1,000 pieces
•Brand new 4K transfer from the original camera negative
•Two versions of the feature: Pieces, the US theatrical version, and Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche, the original uncensored director's cut, presented in Spanish with original score by Librado Pastor [Blu-ray exclusive]
•High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
•Original English and Spanish Mono Audio
•Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
•5.1 Vine Theater Experience
•Alternate Re-score by composer Umberto
•Brand new audio commentary with The Hysteria Continues
•It’s Exactly What You Think It Is! – brand new featurette offering up an appreciation of Pieces by various filmmaker fans
•Brand new interview with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo
•Pieces of Juan – a career-spanning interview with director Juan Piquer Simón
•The Reddest Herring – extensive interview with actor Paul Smith, including a discussion of Pieces
•Audio Interview with producer Steve Minasian
•Image Galleries
•Theatrical Trailer
•Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Marc Schoenbach
•Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Michael Gingold
•Soundtrack CD featuring the entire original score
•Limited Edition 180 gram 12” Vinyl of the original score, featuring expanded artwork by Marc Schoenbach
•100-piece jigsaw puzzle replica

[Cronenfly]

Just bought the Grindhouse, so I'm good, but the puzzle edition will please all the mouthbreathers who missed out with the US release. New extras look solid, but not enough for me to buy again.

[domino harvey]

The slasher movie that proposes one can conceal a full-size chainsaw behind their back while in an elevator. The movie is as awful as its tagline is great (It really is exactly what you think it is!)

[Banasa]

The other tag line is also good, but not quite as stron: "You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre"

[Cronenfly]

Too bad the Waddell 42nd Street doc is not included in this package (though I know very well why it isn't), as it is easily far more entertaining than the film itself. A good number of genre fans obviously disagree, but this feels like a definite perfume/lipstick on a pig situation to me. It cuisinarts elements of Argento (opening flashback highly reminiscent of Deep Red, alongside Argento's general fondness for psychologically perverse villains), Carpenter (ditto Halloween's opening flashback and the overall stalk and slash atmosphere), and Hooper (obviously Texas Chain Saw), while presaging Frankenhooker in its finale (in a movie that is already really dumb, that last shot is one step beyond). I guess the gore might be worth it for some, as well as the weirdness of the cast (gotta love the incongruity of the American locales with the spoken dialogue in the Spanish-language version) and the moody score, but I don't get the love for this (are a nifty title/tagline really enough for some people?). The extras are quite good though; Paul Smith is a great interview, and what I've watched of the Simon sit-down has proven worthwhile, along with the fun Waddell doc.

I really wish domino could be in the booth on that Hysteria Continues track, he certainly has the bona fides. I'm hoping there will be some dissent on there as to this film's supposed quality/lack thereof.

[domino harvey]

That's a flattering thing to say! In fairness, the one-star review on Hysteria Lives' webpage gives one hope for a more critical discussion of the film's flaws, though it will be interesting to see how much they skirt the line knowing the film's rabid (and somewhat inexplicable) fanbase. As an example, I know MisterLime has said Kino won't license Trailers From Hell bonuses anymore after customers complained that the intros weren't fawning enough

[Mr Sausage]

Unlike most giallos, a lot of the fondness for this one comes from its badness, I think. It's hard to imagine it being taken with the same seriousness as similarly bad movies like A House By the Cemetery that nevertheless get a lot of positive attention. Fulci is appreciated at face value; Pieces enjoyed the way you enjoy camp. People love the howlers peppering the dialogue, the non-sequiturs (the kung fu college professor anyone?), the absurd exaggeration of many basic genre tropes (calling that one dude the reddest herring is right--doesn't he pet a chainsaw and laugh into the camera at one point?), and the silly gore.

So, yeah, I don't think this release is trying to rehabilitate the film's reputation or anything. I think even admirers will half agree the thing's garbage.

[colinr0380]

The other important thing about Pieces is that it is the middle film of Edmund Purdom's foray into gory horror. He'd just played the (ineffectual and slightly shifty) priest on the trail of an experimental mutant killer in Joe D'Amato's ultra-nasty Absurd (another of those characters modelled after Donald Pleasance's turn in Halloween. Really the entire film is a Halloween-riff with added gore), then turned up as the (completely ineffectual and a bit shiftier) Dean of the college in Pieces. Then his last horror was the British film Don't Open 'Till Christmas (NSFW) as an (entirely ineffectual and incredibly shifty) Police Inspector.

He's probably more present in Pieces than either of the other two films, as Absurd is more interested in the gory set pieces than the investigation and whilst Purdom actually directed as well as starred in Don't Open 'Till Christmas, he quit the film part-way through production with a new director being brought in, the character Purdom was playing being bumpily written out of the movie at the mid-way point and the salvaged patchwork film released years later, in 1984!

[PianoMan88]

Anyone know what is happening with the Arrow Store exclusive release of Pieces? I remember checking around the holidays and it had its own entry with a January 13th date for pre-orders. However, at the moment it seems to have been removed entirely from the store directory.

[domino harvey]

They do that once a title goes OOP. Kind of an obnoxious policy, really

[David M.]

Then his last horror was the British film Don't Open 'Till Christmas (NSFW) as an (entirely ineffectual and incredibly shifty) Police Inspector.

One of the funniest films (for what reasons, judge yourself) I've ever encoded for disc

[lefeufollet]

Anyone know what is happening with the Arrow Store exclusive release of Pieces? I remember checking around the holidays and it had its own entry with a January 13th date for pre-orders. However, at the moment it seems to have been removed entirely from the store directory.

Looks like they decided to sell this through a custom site, ala the HGL set, rather than the Arrow store proper. They're withholding the URL until the sale begins tomorrow at 4:30p GMT.

[PianoMan88]

They do that once a title goes OOP. Kind of an obnoxious policy, really

What is the line of thinking there? Trying to get people to double dip? I mean I would never double dip for the same exact package and edition from the same studio, just for an extra jigsaw puzzle. I don't get it. Have they ever explained why they do it this way?

[PianoMan88]

I did a bit of searching for info and it seems they have already set the price of the Exclusive Limited Edition, £59.99 . That gets you the Limited Edition Boxset, Vinyl Soundtrack and Jigsaw.

Lefeufollet, you are correct they are dealing with this in the same way as the Shock and Gore set, via external website, so no Arrow points either.

I'm personally going to stick with the normal Limited Edition. This is a bit too rich, as was the Shock and Gore set.

[tenia]

IIRC, it has never been available on their webstore, only the normal LE was available.

[tenia]

The dedicated micro website is now online : http://www.piecesdeluxe.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT : wow, it's getting trampled by people trying to access it, it's currently a slog. 896 copies remaining already. No wonder they prefered to redirect the traffic outside of their usual website.
Interestingly, the FAQ states the package will be shipped in 2 parts : the "regular LE" first, then the vinyl. No precision about the puzzle, nor if it's basically 3 perfectly independant objects or if there is some kind of over-seeing packaging that would be exclusive to this version.

[PianoMan88]

The normal Limited Edition is down to £19.99 on Amazon UK for anyone who missed ordering it during the Arrow sale period (like myself).