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DVD Review: ‘Pieces’ Two-Disc Deluxe Edition
Inside you’ll find David Harley’s review of Grindhouse Releasing’s two-disc Deluxe Edition of PIECES. In the film a psychopathic killer stalks a Boston campus, brutally slaughtering nubile young college co-eds, collecting body parts from each victim to create the likeness of his mother who he savagely murdered with an axe when he was ten years old! PIECES is a wild, unrated gorefest, with enough splatter and sleaze to shock the most jaded horror fan.
PIECES is a film that I’ve wanted to see for a really long time. “You’ve got to see it to believe it” is what I kept hearing from fellow genre fans over and over again. On my initial quest for a copy, I found out that the only way I could see it would be by choosing between two really awful DVD versions. I heard that Grindhouse Releasing was going to put out a special edition and considering that the better of the two releases was OOP (and a little pricey at the time), I decided to hold out. I saw what an incredible job Grindhouse did with putting together the 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and I knew that if anyone was willing to do something really special for PIECES, it would be those guys.
Time went by and I completely forgot about PIECES until Eli Roth showed it at The New Beverly earlier this year on a double bill with TORSO. Then it all came flooding back to me: what ever happened to that Grindhouse edition? After a few emails, I was assured it would be coming later in the year, along with THE BEYOND. Long story short(er), a little over 10 minutes into my virginal viewing of PIECES, I decided that if I ever wrote a book about it, it would be called “Horror Junk Food for the Gorehound Soul.” The film is completely incomprehensible, filled to the brim with terrible dialogue, continuity errors, bad dubbing and random, over-the-top scenes of violence. But that’s the charm of PIECES: its a horribly made film that manages to offer first-class entertainment.
PIECES was a script given to director Juan Piquer Simon by producers Dick Randall and Steve Minasian after he turned down LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT 2. Originally titled Jigsaw and conceived as a two-part TV miniseries, Piquer was given the task of “mak[ing] it even moderately believable.” Well, he completely failed on his end of the bargain!
The film opens in Boston, 1942, with little Timmy putting together a puzzle of a naked woman on his bedroom floor. His mother walks in and goes berserk, slapping him around, breaking a mirror and threatening to kill him. If threatening her son’s life for porn doesn’t strike you as odd, her asking for a plastic trash bag should, since they weren’t invented until 1950. Timmy comes back in the room with an axe, gives his mother less than 40 whacks and then pulls a hacksaw out of thin air, dismembering her corpse. He finishes putting together his puzzle, amidst the distraction of a ringing touch-tone phone (which wasn’t introduced to the public until 1963), before a random woman and two police officers break in, finding him in a closet telling tall tales about a brutish man murdering his mother. But what’s that in the background? Is that a New England Patriots pennant flag? They weren’t even founded until 1959!
And that’s just the first 4
Scream Factory brought Frank LaLoggia’s 1988 Halloween movie Lady in White to Blu-ray several years back, and now Vinegar Syndrome gives the film a 4K Ultra HD upgrade.
Vinegar Syndrome’s Lady in White 4K release is available now and shipping now!
Watch the trailer below and grab your copy from Vinegar Syndrome today.
This limited edition 4-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray x 3 set comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Dylan Haley), includes a 40-page perfect bound book and is limited to 8,000 units. It is only available on their website and at select indie retailers.
The full Special Features package includes…
- 4-disc Set: 1x 4K Ultra HD (High Bitrate BD100) / 3x Region A Blu-ray
- 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
- Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
- Presented in three versions: 126-min Pre-Release Director’s Cut (UHD+BD), the 118-min Extended Home Video Cut (BD), and the 113-min Theatrical Cut (BD)
- New group commentary track with writer/director Frank LaLoggia, alongside actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut
- New commentary track with Frank LaLoggia, moderated by Scott Neumyer for the Extended Home Video Cut
- New commentary track with authors Emma Westwood and Stephen A. Russell for the Extended Home Video Cut
- Archival commentary track with Frank LaLoggia for the Extended Home Video Cut
- “Learning How to Fly” (10 min) – an interview with actress Karen Powell
- “A Snapshot in Time” (9 min) – an interview with actress Lisa Taylor
- “Human Touches” (6 min) – an interview with actress Lucy Lee Flippin
- “Still Relevant” (16 min) – an interview with actress Rose Weaver
- “75% Listening, 25% Editing” (9 min) – an interview with editor Steve Mann
- “Welcome to Willowpoint Falls” (6 min) – a location featurette hosted by Benjamin Scrivens, founder of Fright-Rags
- “Dream Talking: Looking Back” – a visual group commentary for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut with Frank LaLoggia, and actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou (103 min)
- Deleted Scenes with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (36 min)
- Behind-the-scenes footage with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (16 min)
- Extended behind-the-scenes footage (73 min)
- Introduction from the 20th anniversary dvd release
- Promotional ‘industry sales’ trailer (7 min)
- 40-page perfect bound book with essays by film historians Molly Henery, Mark H. Harris, and Heidi Honeycutt (limited edition only)
- Multiple radio spots
- Theatrical trailer
- Multiple TV spots
- Workprint trailers (7 min)
- Still gallery
- Reversible sleeve artwork
- English SDH subtitles
1962. Nine-year-old Frankie Scarlatti enjoys a homespun childhood in a rustic Western New York town. The entire community gets into the spirit of Halloween, but then two bullies prank Frankie by locking him in his school cloakroom, leaving him trapped for the night. Alone and afraid, his slumber is interrupted when the ghost of a little girl appears, and Frankie witnesses the specter of her murder by an unseen assailant. Later, while recovering at home, the girl’s ghost appears to him again. With help from his older brother, Frankie begins investigating the circumstances of her death. He soon discovers that her murder was one of several unsolved crimes connected to a local child-killer. As the town’s bucolic veneer fades and long-buried secrets and tensions bubble to the surface, all of the clues to the mystery seem to point towards a huge mansion inhabited by a reclusive woman known as “The Lady in White.”
A nostalgia-driven ghost story wrapped within an intricate murder mystery and coming-of-age drama, writer-director-composer Frank LaLoggia’s passion project Lady in White remains one of the most beautiful and original American horror films of the 1980s. Featuring acclaimed actors Alex Rocco (The Godfather), Len Cariou (Executive Decision), and Sydney Lassick (Carrie, The Unseen), it boasts the first starring role by Lukas Haas (Mars Attacks, Inception) as well as breathtaking photography by Academy Award® winner Russell Carpenter (True Lies, The Lawnmower Man). Vinegar Syndrome is honored to bring this genre masterpiece to 4K UHD, newly restored from its original 35mm camera negative and presented in three versions: its pre-release director’s cut, its extended home-video version, and its original theatrical version, along with an abundance of both new and archival extras.
Paul Lê wrote here on Bloody Disgusting back in 2023, “Over the years, fans have described this film as gateway horror, but they liken it more to The Watcher in the Woods than, say, Hocus Pocus or Casper. There are chilling moments that warrant its PG-13 rating.”
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