Pieces... It's exactly what you think it is!
— One of the two Taglines
A Slasher Movie from the year 1982, directed by Juan Piquer Simón (aka J.P. Simon), who also did Slugs and Pod People
The film opens up at a house in Boston in 1942, where a little boy is shown completing his favourite jigsaw puzzle, which depicts a nude woman. His mother freaks out upon finding the thing, and her son proceeds to answer her reaction by hacking her up with an axe, and cuts the body to pieces. Feigning innocence, the boy manages to trick the police who barge in on the scene.
Forty years later, a college campus is shaken by a string of chainsaw murders as the boy now wants to put his puzzle back together once more, this time with human body parts.
Examples:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: The groundskeeper and initial prime suspect Willard is always called Will-Ard.
- An Arm and a Leg: Mary finds herself stuck in an elevator with the killer, and gets her arms are chopped off (as the killer needs them for his project) and she eventually bleeds to death.
- Axe Before Entering: Suzy tries to hide in a locked bathroom, but the killer saws his way through its door.
- Big Bad: The Dean turns out to be the killer.
- Big Word Shout: After finding Suzy's corpse, horrified Mary goes outside, and after exchanging few words with equally horrified Kendall, starts screaming "BASTAAARD! BASTAAARD! BASTAAARD!!!" in frustration. It simply must be seen to be believed
. - Blood Is Squicker in Water: One victim is stabbed to death on a waterbed, and the thing inevitably breaks and bloodstained water gets splashed everywhere.
- Bookcase Passage: The killer's secret jigsaw corpse is stored behind a spinning bookcase. A Jump Scare is provided when the characters find it.
- Boring, but Practical: When he isn't using the chainsaw, the killer resorts to a knife for less noisy kills.
- Bring My Brown Pants: As the killer has Suzy cornered with his chainsaw, she wets herself in terror.
- Chainsaw Good: The killer's weapon, which he uses to cut off the parts that he wants for his puzzle.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Kendall is always being involved (or at least trying to) with ladies, but won't let it get in the way finding the killer.
- Cigar Chomper: Bracken is never seen without a cigar, even unlit.
- Curtain Camouflage: The killer hides behind the curtain when the cops find out his identity and arrive at his place.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The killer gets punished by his mother for assembling a puzzle of a nude woman. What's his response? Brutally murder her and cut her body into pieces.
- Flash Back Echo: The killer starts his rampage when he sees a skateboarding girl crashing through a mirror carried by a two guys, as it reminds him of the time when his mother smashed one before her death at his hands, and it inspires him to put together his grisly puzzle.
- Freudian Excuse: The killer's reason for going insane? His mother took away his pornographic jigsaw puzzle. The killer dresses his corpse-puzzle in the dress that his mother wore during her death, suggesting that the whole project is a twisted attempt to bring her back. The ending has the thing coming to life, so it may have succeeded.
- Gainax Ending: The killer's stitched together trophy corpse inexplicably coming to life and clawing at Kendall's crotch.
- Gorn: The killer leaves a lot of blood and bodyparts on his crime scenes. Some of the more gruesome scenes show he manages to do that.
- Groin Attack: Used at the very ending where the dean's corpse-puzzle-woman suddenly springs to life and slashes Kendall's genitals with her nails.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Suzy is sawed in half horizontally, and her lower body goes to the killer's project.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: Little boy in the opening sings "Humpty Dumpty" to himself while putting the puzzle together.
- Large Ham: Lynda Day George's astonishing turn. see Big Word Shout above.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Kendall shows some briefly after getting up from a bed that he moments earlier shared with one of his many ladies.
- Off with His Head!: First victim gets her head severed off, and so does the second one as the killer only wants her torso.
- One-Word Title: A plural one.
- Porn Stash: The little boy's mother discovers her son's porn collection after she finds him putting together the pornographic jigsaw puzzle in the opening. Matricide ensues.
- Pretty Little Headshots: After all the gory mutilations, the killer is finished off with a relatively bloodless gunshot to his forehead.
- Red Herring:
- Willard, the large, bearded handyman, as he is a strange fellow who is shown using a chainsaw in his first appearance. He loses the status after stumbling on the scene of the second murder.
- Professor Brown is also another suspect for being conveniently nearby the murder scenes twice, but also proves to be innocent.
- The Reveal: The killer is revealed to be the dean of the college, who was never suspected by the characters.
- Shower Scene: Before she is done in, Suzy takes a shower after tennis practice.
- Slipping a Mickey: The dean spikes Mary's coffee, so that he'll have easier time to chop her up and finish his project with her feet.
- Stock Footage: Some of the exteriors were unused footage from Simon's 1979 film Supersonic Man.
- Take That!: The "You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!" tagline is one at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: The killer using a pornographic jigsaw puzzle during his childhood. Oh, and the murder too.
- Vomiting Cop: One of the two cops who find the armless girl in the elevator gets sick from the sight and starts vomiting.
