With both it's good and bad points to consider, it's difficult to either slate or hail MURDER-SET-PIECES. The lighting here is reminiscent of Agento's better films, as are some of the off-kilter camera angles, and the music - by Goths Zombi - helps with the atmosphere too. The final fifteen minutes, despite the lack of plot prior to this, are genuinely gripping. There's plenty of razor-blade, hammer and chain saw violence to savour here! However, the violence graphically conducted against children may be enough to turn some viewers off. The gore FX by Toe Tag Pictures are above average, and will please anyone who bemoans the lack of Savini/De Rossi type gore evident in horror flicks these days. It was shot on 35mm with a $2.2 million budget and benefits from gorgeous cinematography courtesy of Todd Ramsay (THE THING). TCM's hitch-hiker, Ed Neal, also turns up - winning the award for 2nd worst performance in the film. There's a few notable cameos on offer too - including Tony Todd (CANDYMAN) as a video shop clerk, in an embarrassing scene which I presume was intended to inject 'humour' into the film, and Gunnar Hansen (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) as a fellow Nazi sympathiser. Good at playing psycho - terrible at making it plausible that he could get by in the real world unnoticed. Having said that, he fills the role better when he's actually let loose on his victims, spitting out his Teutonic bile as he clenches his fists and teeth.
MURDER SET PIECES TOETAG SERIAL
Honest, he might as well be wearing a sign above his head saying "I'm a serial killer" - his performance is so obvious.
Risser stands out as a credible young actress, and most of the victims pull off their thankless roles competently.īut Garrett almost ruins the entire film, with his permanent scowl and hammy portrayal of what he believes a Nazi-loving woman hater must behave like in public. Gore films are not renowned for their talented casts, and MURDER-SET-PIECES is no different.
The running time is so padded out with scenes of attractive women shackled and screaming for their lives (without ever having been introduced into the film prior to this), that whenever Jade's story does progress we no longer really care. Writer/director Nick Palumbo has trod similar ground before, with his debut NUTBAG - so he should have been able to spin his yarn a little smoother this time (indeed, this film was originally going to be called NUTBAG 2). but the film seems to leap from one scene to the next with little continuity, and no regard for whatever just happened on screen seconds earlier. Whether it be a problem with the editing, I'm not sure. You never have to wait long for the next sadistic scene of dementia to assualt your senses - making MURDER-SET-PIECES in many ways the gorehound's wet dream.īut even the most hardened blood freak will surely want some kind of comprehensible plot to follow, and MURDER-SET-PIECES - despite the aforementioned thin premise - manages to make a mess of it's storytelling. So, in that respect, the film is very quickly paced. Whatever "story" there is merely serves as a springboard from one gore scene to the next. MURDER-SET-PIECES is just that - 90 minutes of film that exists almost entirely without a plot. When Charlotte goes missing, Jade's suspicion of the boyfriend is heightened and she decides to investigate further. He stares menacingly at her and her school friend, discusses women's periods round the dinner table and speaks proudly of his grandfather's close friendship with Hitler.
Jade is creeped out by the photographer, but cannot seem to persuade Charlotte of her ill feelings towards him. In-between all of this madness, the killer finds time to enjoy an on-off relationship with hairdresser Charlotte (Valerie Baber, EMMANUELLE VS DRACULA), much to the distaste of her younger sister, Jade (Jade Risser, SINISTER). Invariably the photographer then ends up shagging the stunning lasses, occasionally anally raping them but always ending the night by torturing and slaying the luckless femmes in brutal fashion. Once the girls have agreed to pose for the unnamed lensman, he takes them back to his plush house and down into his cellar, where he coaxes them to get naked (with alarming ease, it must be said). The man in question is "The Photographer" (Sven Garrett, NIGHT SHIFT) - an Arayan guy based in Las Vegas, posing as a fashion photographer always on the hunt for gorgeous young girls to shoot. The silhouette of a muscle-bound, naked man approaches the woman and hisses some Germanic obscenity at her. The film cuts to show us what the lens is focusing on - a naked, bloodied woman strapped to a torture chair, wimpering pathetically. A camera's flash illuminates a darkened screen.