The music in the film is credited as having been done by “CAM.” With a little digging, fans can find that CAM is actually a name for a collection of stock music that was used to score the film. The music can actually be credited to come of Italy’s best known genre film composers, like Fabio Frizzi and Stelvio Cipriani. There’s a lot to love about the music in Pieces, not the least of which is the sultry sax-driven tune that accompanies the pool skinny dipping scene, known as “Cocktail Molotov,” composed by Fabio Frizzi. In the US, a copy of the soundtrack is included on CD with the Grindhouse Releasing Blu-Ray release of the film, but the soundtrack can also be purchased on a limited vinyl release from WRWTFWW Records (which stands for We Release Whatever The F*ck We Want Records. No, I’m not making this up).
The kill scenes in this film are visceral and certainly a reason the film has such a cult following. There’s a bloody scene involving a water bed, a finale that will have every man in the audience crossing their legs, and perhaps, most notably, a scene in which a girl is cut in half at the waist with a chainsaw while taking a shower. The effect was achieved using a pig’s carcass and the result will have even the biggest gore lovers watching through the cracks in their fingers.
In the US, there have been a handful of different releases of the film. Vestron Video released a mostly uncut VHS release in the mid-80’s, Edde/T-Z Entertainment also released the film on tape with two different covers, but unfortunately Edde’s cut of the film omits the violent prologue. In the late 90’s/early 2000’s, Diamond Entertainment released the film on DVD, which was a bargain bin disc widely available at big box stores and beyond, but the transfer of the film was unfortunately pretty poor. Along comes Grindhouse Releasing, who released the fully uncensored director’s cut of the film, gorgeously remastered and packed with features on DVD in 2008, they later would completely one-up themselves in 2016 with a Blu-ray release that included even more bonus content and transfer that is bound to bring a tear to the eye of fans of this trashterpiece. As mentioned before, the Blu-Ray release from Grindhouse Releasing includes a copy of the soundtrack on CD, which is a wonderful bonus. If you own one copy of this film (you should own several) it should be Grindhouse Releasing’s Blu-ray set because the amount of respect and care that went into the release is quite evident.
Few slasher films have as many fun and memorable characters as Pieces. We have Jack Taylor as Professor Brown, the smarmy biology professor who is inexplicably lusted after by his female students. The Dean, played by Edmund Purdom, who would go on to star in and direct the slasher film Don’t Open til Christmas the following year. And fan favorite, Willard the burly extremely suspicious groundskeeper, played by Paul L. Smith who famously portrayed Bluto in the Robin Williams Popeye film and would go on to denounce Pieces, and other films of its kind, for their use of violence. Oh, and who could forget Bruce Le (not to be confused with Bruce Lee) as the karate professor who had some bad chop suey? Watch out for that guy!
