Going To Pieces

Hudweiser

at 4:43 pm

The slasher movie has always been looked upon with much disdain by critics, fans of ‘real’ film and even some horror fans for many years, which is strange considering its endurance; there are well over 500 in existence from the roots of ‘Psycho’ all the way up to forthcoming features like ‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’ and a remake of ‘April Fool’s Day’. As an advocate of the genre with an academic background in film, I was glad that somebody finally took the time to make a serious documentary that didn’t spend all its time telling us things we already knew.

‘Going to Pieces’ is based on Adam Rockoff’s book (which restricted itself to covering the years 1974-1986) and goes through the central elements of the genre with interjections from individuals who have contributed landmark productions to it (Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Sean Cunningham, even Amy Holden Jones!) and clips from a large cross-section of films. The only possible flaw is that it focuses much of its time on the well-known franchises. Even through tribute is paid to the likes of ‘Happy Birthday to Me’, ‘Graduation Day’, ‘The Burning’ and the ultra-trashy ‘Pieces’, where is ‘Hell Night’? More importantly, where is the original ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’? While this is a minor point, it’s more than compensated for with some previously banned footage, most notably the pitchfork-shower scene from ‘The Prowler’, which was heavily scissored by the BBFC.

Time is taken to attempt to defend the genre somewhat, by drawing analogies between ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and Buddhist properties and making a case for (most of) these films really being more than simplistic body count gorefests; slasher movies CAN be cathartic. Genre-haters Ebert and Siskel appear in their famous rant about sleazy horror, which centered around misogyny and the lack of art – I wonder what they’d make of this?

Definitely worth a look for those curious about the genre; even my anti-horror friend was slightly humbled that there could be intellectual thought surrounding these films!
Rating: 4 / 5

Kat

at 6:19 pm

being a huge fan of horror films, I’ve always been on the look out for a feature length docu-DVD because it’s been so long since a horror 101 type tv show had lived up to expectations. But this dvd you get to hear sean.s cunningham talk about the making and the first screening of friday the 13th. John Carpenter talks about the process and first screening of Halloween. you hear from big horror producers too, and this release also contains previously banned footage that has just seen the light of day.

In the extras there are movie quizes to test your slasher movie knowledge too.

plus wes craven tells you the story behind the classic nightmere on elm street and it’s pretty spooky.

so take a look for yourself you won’t be disappointed.
Rating: 5 / 5

KM

at 9:04 pm

`Going to Pieces’ is a documentary celebrating the slasher film. On here are interviews with all the masters of the genre like Wes Craven, Rob Zombie and Sean S Cunningham and clips from over 30 years of scares and gore.

The problem with this documentary is that after the big sections on Halloween and Friday the 13th, it tends to focus on the lesser-known flops from the late-70’s and early-80’s rather than some of the better known classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream or the dozens of others that have splatted the screen over the past 30 years. Personally I found this really dull and was constantly fast-forwarding through a lot of the sections. Also, if you haven’t seen some of these movies the twists and identities of the killers are given away for every film talked about. There is literally 5 minutes at the end talking about films like Final Destination and more recent movies, so if you’re not into very poor B movies, then this probably won’t appeal to you.

Overall this is a real waste of time and comes across as an over-long special feature on a DVD. Actually – the documentary on the Jason X special features is miles better than this.

Rating: 1 / 5