Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

This is pretty much what you'd expect from the title: a group of actors, directors and special effects people talk about the slasher genre of the early 1980s. They cover all the big ones, some of the lesser ones, and go over the backgrounds.

How did the Italian films of Mario Bava influence the slashers? Are they anti-woman? Do they make kids do bad things? Is it a dead genre? All of this is covered and more... such as the concept of the "final girl" and other tropes so often found in horror.

I would have liked a bit more history, and maybe more credit given to Bob Clark and "Black Christmas" (which, to me, deserves more recognition than John Carpenter's "Halloween"). But I can't really complain with all these people they found to interview -- getting Carpenter, Craven, Rob Zombie and more to appear on film? Well done.

I have met the man who wrote the book this film is based on, the charming Adam Rockoff. If this film was your idea of education, get his book! Much more than you can cram into a 90-minute film.

This is a pretty good treatment of the thinking that went on behind the scenes of movies like "Prom Night", "Friday the 13th", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and others. The great thing is that the cool stories and insights are told by the key players involved (directors, producers, special effects artists). You get to hear not only their thoughts on the psychology involved, but also about the marketing struggles they had to deal with.

Essentially, this is a documentary which interweaves present-day interviews with film clips from classic 80's horror flicks to give you a behind the scenes look at a genre during its peak period of interest. If you're a horror fan, you'll probably like watching this.

I was raised on Dracula and Frankenstein, and was living in Europe during the rise and fall of the slasher film. I have not seen most of the films mentioned in this film.

However, I was pleased at the presentation and now have a sense of history as to how the slashers came into being, the influences of Italian directors like Bava and Argento, the importance of the makeup and special effects guys, and the guttural significance of slasher films.

It was extremely interesting to see the directors and producers and actors and how they felt about the work they had done and were doing. I was also excited to see people like George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cary Elwes, Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Heather Langenkamp, Dina Meyer, Bill Moseley, and many more in clips from their performances.

Of course, I am always happy to see Christa Campbell.

GOING TO PIECES is a fun reflection on the slasher genre, primarily exploring the wave of American slasher flicks that came out since the success of Carpenter's HALLOWEEN in 1978. Other influences such as Argento and Bava are only mentioned in passing, and there are some notable omissions (what about BLACK Christmas?) but for the most part this is a fun and in-depth look at a much-maligned sub-genre of film.

Obviously, the documentary is awash with clips that take up about two-thirds of the running time. Most of these focus on the goriest of the kill scenes in each film, so if that's your bag then you'll enjoy yourself. However, in addition, we get interviews with tons of guys involved with the production of these movies; writers, producers, directors, occasionally stars. You'd expect to see Carpenter and Savini here, but I appreciated the less well-known faces too. GOING TO PIECES is a great watch for anyone with even a minor interest in the slasher genre.

The positive things about "Going To Pieces" are that it tries hard to include as many Slasher flicks as possible and deliver pieces of trivia for each of them. There are interviews with some influential directors of the genre (John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham,...), actors, make-up guru Tom Savini and some "horror-experts".

For starters, this movie is a good introduction to the genre. Real fans will not find a lot of new information here. We all know about the influence of "Halloween", we've heard the story of how Freddy Krueger has been created, we know how Wes Craven revived the genre with "Scream". Sure, it's unfair to criticize that all this is being told again in a documentary like this. After all the story wouldn't be complete without this information, but in the end one can't learn too much from "Going To Pieces".

It would have been a real treat to learn the history of gore in movies, to learn about the influences for American slasher in detail. Instead we are only told about Italian horror in what seems like 2 minutes and then there's no further mention of it. "Halloween" is made out to be the first slasher movie, when even "Black Christmas" came before it in America. "Friday The 13th" is given more credit than it really deserves as an original movie. Make no mistake, I'm not trying to imply that those movies aren't very important to the genre, but it would have been a fresh approach to take a closer look at their origins.

Another thing to consider is that before "Going To Pieces" you should either make sure that you know all of the movies mentioned in the documentary or accept the fact that some great twist endings will be spoiled for you, some of which are the only reason to watch these flicks in the first place ("Sleepaway Camp", "Happy Birthday To Me").

In the end "Going To Pieces" will get you excited about watching old slasher flicks again (probably until you rent something like "Pieces" and realize the film is not half as exciting as it's made out to be in hindsight), but there are books out there that are a lot more informative than this documentary.