Occasionally, *slightly* amusing (only because it is so bloody awful) anthology, probably assembled in a matter of days, and on a budget of about $500.
The video box is a marginally cool looking sight, two red palm prints and a pair of fear-filled eyes, all against a plain black background, which gives the box, anyway, a slightly 1970s Euro feel. That is all completely irrelevant to the film, mind you, but at least the box looks cool. Curiously, the video box claims the film's run time is 90 minutes, when it really runs more like 73 minutes long. Even more curious is that the box also states that the film is "A macabre medley of sci fi terror", despite the fact that there is nothing even remotely sci fi involved with any of the proceedings.
All three stories deal with betrayal in some fashion.
An already-dead combat soldier introduces a story of nightmarish trauma from a slaughter in Vietnam in the overlong first story, "The Bootmaker", as fog machines work double-time. The second story, "Choice Cuts", was unwatchably boring. Only some decent looking female nudity kept me awake during this segment. Pieces of Darkness benefits by putting its least awful segment at the very end: "That's Showbiz" has an awful actor playing an awful actor blowing an audition, yet somehow getting a callback, from Satan, played by a fairly creepy looking black guy, none other than producer/ editor/ co-director J. J. Johnson Jr. III.
Ever so slightly amusing, in an awful, late-night cable television sort of way, it might be worth a look for fans of zero-budget, Z-grade fare. That is, if you can locate it, and can tolerate its grainy picture quality, occasionally so washed-out that it is difficult to figure out what is going on. Sometimes, the actors' clothes match the background, and coupled with the poor video quality, that makes them look like translucent spectres hovering before the camera.
I give this a 2 out of 10, just for a couple of unintended laughs. Congratulations are also in order to anyone who can figure out what the hell the title has to do with the stories presented in the film.
