Long before the advent of glittery teen vampires and cgi blood,there was a time where if you were lucky enough to carouse a halfway adequate horror section in a mom n' pop video store in the mid-eighties, the possibility of stumbling across an independently produced slasher shot on video that served up half naked brawds' boobs slapped in gallons of stage blood, screaming their fool heads off as they fell prey to a sinister misogynistic sadist and precious little else, was not only a real possibility, but one looked upon favorably by fans(male AND female, in some cases) of the brutal and extreme relative of the slasher movie, the splatter movie, as pioneered by gore's godfather, Herschell Gordon Lewis, back in 1963.Forty-one years later, a director named Nick Palumbo effectively took the subgenre in as radical a direction it could possibly go, with the production of a controversial film called Murder Set Pieces.Where Lewis' inept gore effects consisting of animal entrails and mannekins draped with red paint add to the camp factor in his dated fracturepieces, Palumbo instead enlists underground gorenographers extraordinaire,Toe Tag Pictures, to fill his frames with envelope-pushing, gut-wrenching, grue-soaked brilliance, as only they can, resulting in the uncut version of the film being an endurance test for even the most jaded viewers of such unsettling subject matter.Several genre cameos are in place, with Gunnar Hansen and Edwin Neal of TCM fame, Tony "Candyman" Todd, and even Vogel himself lending their presences to the production .Women of ages ranging from pre-teen adolescents to twenty-something erotic entertainers graphically snuff it before Palumbo's lens, which unapologetically documents the heinous crimes for all to see.A zealous pro-feminist like Alan Alda probably wouldn't endorse this movie very enthusiastically at all.Lucky for you ravenous readers, that pussy doesn't work here.
Frankly,I'm all set to murder some of that with my piece, myself.
See, there's this photographer(Sven Garrett),a teutonic aryan-esque German body builder with some sideburns boisterous enough to make even this guy a little jealous,who snaps erotic photos of scantily-clad she-Vegasites by day,but due to an abusive German Hausfrau of a mother and family ties to the notorious Schutzstaffel, nighttime is another story. The line distinguishing uber und untermenschen is clearly drawn on the wrong side of women, who he sees as playthings to be used with other playthings,like knives, saws, and even custom dental implants with protruding nails and screws for serving up that unpleasant hickey that takes more than a day to fade.Where the SS of yesteryear were satisfied mostly by goose-stepping up and down the square amidst flying party and battle standards to roars of approval from the parade-going volk, this psychopath grooves on torturing and murdering chicks, sometimes several at a clip. At first, thinning the herds of half-dressed hussies n' hookers seems to satiate the sadist, who offers final blood-drenched wisdom in native Deutsch tongue to his hysterical duct taped and hog tied prey before extinguishing their life-flame in the privacy of his secret basement workshop, which is littered with body parts, entrails, human skulls,and megalomaniacal grue-drenched murder photos scrapbooked haphazardly on the walls.It's when he begins dating Charlotte (Valerie Baber), whose nosy little sister's protective creepectomy skills drive him from prostitutes, strippers, and stroke shop patrons,and into the heart of the local populace of so-called morally upright citizens for his murderous mementos.
Stalking in a stocking, a porn store robber(Fred Vogel)interrupts folks stroking, before abruptly croaking.
While Charlotte's sister, Jade(Jade Risser), begins to act on her gut feelings about her sister's aloof and uptight new beau, he's chewing limbless trunks, scoring fellatio from disembodied heads in his car, and cutting a woman's(his own mother's?) throat in front of her screaming infant, who waddles hysterically over to her lifeless body, covered in blood.The photographer even impales Jade's schoolmate in a public restroom on a lengthy butcher's blade while her unsuspecting father swings his other child feet away.He inquires about a snuff movie called "The Nutbag"(Palumbo's earlier effort)to a porn store clerk(Tony Todd) just as masked hold up men burst in and begin plugging porn-pandering patrons with hot lead before getting shot the fuck up by our Aryan antagonist,who ignores the clerk's sudden words of praise and puts rounds in him as well, before casually strolling out.When Charlotte finally inevitably goes missing herself, Jade turns into a sort of amateur teen sleuth, uncovering levels of homicidal viscera that would have Nancy Drew running screaming for the nearest needlepoint class or sock hop.She pays him a visit as he entertains female company, this time,repeatedly running a buzzing chainsaw over what used to be a chick's domepiece,and a life/death struggle between the massive sadist and the tiny detective unfolds,with a brutally slashed Jade wandering through the desert in a state of shock in the finale, and the photographer upon a bus headed towards new climates, new models, new victims...
My Little Evisceration, twelve inch butcher knife sold separately.
I've glanced over a number of so-called "horror fans" voicing their sour grapes over this movie(the R version, methinks...What kind of real horror fan would settle for the truncated version of anything if the uncut were available to them?Just saying.), most of which have entirely missed the point in my estimation.Palumbo certainly displays the skill-set necessary to be a top provider in the horror sweepstakes for years to come, and his update on hateful,misogynist stalk n' slash eighties fare like Maniac(1980), Don't Answer the Phone(1980), or Don't Go In The House(1980) was exactly what it needed to be, as your humble N sees it.Plenty of attractive nakey vics(the brunette stripper at the club was off the chain, Nicky!), plenty of impressive spurty red stuff, well-framed 35 mm shots, and engaging soundtrack provided by Notorious death metal shredlegends,Necrophagia, Zombi, and Giallos Flame as well.You'll recognize Risser all grown up in Fred Vogel's last effort,Sella Turcica,and spot Vogel,his wife Shelby,Cristy Whiles,and Jerami Cruise all in cameos within.Palumbo follows this up with the upcoming The Last Gas Station, currently in pre-production (track it here).I, for one, look forward to seeing what this transgressive and talented artist offers us next.Three Big ones upon the scale for a job well-done.
A little off the top, sides, front, and back, as performed by a graduate of Sweeney Todd's Barber Institute.
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