GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM - DVD review

Watching "Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film" is kind of like hooking up with an ugly girl after you've been alone for several years. Sure, her light facial hair tickles your nose when you're kissing her, and her fake wooden leg keeps going out on her, but she's all you've got, so she'll have to do. With only a tiny handful of feature-length horror documentaries out there, sometimes you've got to be happy with what you've got, even when they just plain get things wrong.

"Going to Pieces" takes an in-depth look at the "Slasher" craze that ripped through cineplexes throughout the early eighties. Slasher films are a subgenre of horror made famous by infamous films like "Friday the 13th," "Halloween," and "Scream." Generally written off as trash that should only be digested by stoned teenagers, slasher films don't get the respect they deserve, which is notable considering the amount of money they've generated for every major studio in existence. In fact, the earliest slasher film on record is often considered to be the Hitchcock classic, "Psycho." For some reason, whenever a horror film is of high quality like "Psycho" or the Academy Award-winning "Silence of the Lambs," it's no longer a horror film, it's a thriller. Sorry, folks, "Lambs" is a horror movie to its bloody core, and "Psycho" is the grandfather of slasher films.

A slasher film can easily be identified by its killer, generally an adult male. Masked or costumed and carrying a sharp instrument, the slasher will move slowly and methodically with little vocal interaction. Often, the viewer is given a shot from the point of view of the killer while he stalks his prey. The slasher is generally mortal in origin and works solo, thus negating the inclusion of "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" as Slasher films. The victims are almost always teenagers breaking social taboos regarding sex and drug use. Why there's never been a slasher film based on those religious pamphlets by Jack Chick, I'll never know. The sole survivor of the carnage is a lone female who kept her knees together and followed Nancy Reagan's advice once the doobie started getting passed around.

"Pieces" features fun interviews, yet ones overly dramatic in presentation interviews, with horror icons like the great John Carpenter, "Friday the 13th" director Sean Cunningham, "Prom Night's" Paul Lynch, and many more creators that most fans may not know by name but are extremely familiar with their works. The tilted angles, moving cameras, and creepy backgrounds make it hard to take subject matter seriously; well, as seriously as one could. The highlights of the entire eighty-eight-minute documentary occur whenever the charmingly energized Tom Savini appears to talk about the gore he created. One of the fathers of modern horror makeup, Savini created the effects for the slasher films "Friday the 13th," "Maniac," and "The Prowler," as well as such horror classics as the original "Dawn of the Dead" and "Creepshow." Between the interviews are clips and stills from the various films, and while the big ones like "Halloween" are a presented with great flair, many are barley mentioned or bypassed entirely. The lack of any foreign film coverage is simply unacceptable, though. If "Going to Pieces" were subtitled "The Rise and Fall of the American Slasher Film," I would be more forgiving. But it isn't, so not spending time discussing the giallo films made by Italian the directors Bava, Argento, and Fulci is simply disrespectful.

While "Psycho" and some of the early works of genius Herschell Gordon Lewis set the stage for what would become the slasher genre, it is widely noted by horror historians that the Canadian film "Black Christmas" was the first modern slasher film. "Pieces," on the other hand, incorrectly presents "Halloween" as the lone father of the genre, even though the superior "Christmas" came out a full four years before it. In fact, the concept of "Halloween" was originally thought up by "Black Christmas" director Bob Clark as a sequel to his film, featuring the killer after he's escaped from a sanitarium and starts a murder spree on Halloween night, keeping the holiday theme alive. Instead, Clark passed the idea onto a friend of his, John Carpenter. It's one thing for "Pieces" to get the facts mixed up, but the way they almost dismiss "Christmas" entirely is once again disrespectful for the people involved. I'm sure they could have cut one of the many unwarranted interviews with Rob Zombie or the check-cashing machine Wes Craven to speak to somebody that actually mattered.

Video:
With a half-assed full-frame presentation, "Pieces" looks like its creators spent as much time getting their cameras ready as they did researching their material. While most of the footage from the films represented looks fine, the interviews have an amateurish, film-school class project feel.

Audio:
The Dolby stereo 2.0 sounds fine, although after hearing that same awful silly song they chose to run through "Pieces," you'll wish it didn't.

Extras:
An entirely unnecessary commentary with the film's producers and editors points out that a lot of the films that weren't included were skipped for budgetary reasons and length. Which is a piss-poor excuse for dismissing the films and creators "Pieces" turned a blind eye to. It's like a student telling his teacher that he couldn't finish his handwritten homework because the power went out. The student should have lit a candle, and these knuckleheads should have found a way to discuss that which they chose to ignore. Also included are a forgettable trivia game and a handful of bonus interviews with a handful of creators where Clark finally gets his due.

Film Value:
As much fun as it was revisiting slightly forgotten gems like "My Bloody Valentine," "April Fools Day," and 'Happy Birthday to Me," the fact that I kept looking at the screen like a moron every time it got something wrong became tedious. "Going to Pieces" is for a casual fan of the genre who doesn't care about specifics. But if you're a fellow horror fan who knows that Freddy isn't a slasher icon and that "Scream" didn't revitalize the slasher genre but put a final nail in its coffin, stay away from this joke; you'll just yell yourself horse.