Murder Set Pieces

Murder Set Pieces (2004)
Dir:Nick Palumbo (Nutbag)
Starring: Cameo's by: Tony Todd (Candyman/Hatchet) Edwin Ness ( Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
Gunnar Hansen ( Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Hollywood Chainsaw Hooker)

Perhaps it is the fact that I have been desensitized throughout the years but after viewing A Serbian Film, Nothing seems to shock me anymore in films. Saying that I can say that I completely understand all of the hoopla surrounding this film as being disturbing and if I had never seen Serbian film I would definitely be effected by this film. Only problem is this seems like it is trying to shock just for shock's sake.
   The film centers around an unnamed German Photographer and his hairstylist Girlfriend Charlotte. Truly it is gonna be hard to explain this film because there is really not much to it. So after we see him pick up Charlotte's sister from school and they have dinner , the younger sister comes to realize she doesn't like him and finds him creepy and this is further solidified when she finds a picture of his grandfather a Nazi soldier with Hitler while snooping around his house. The photographer hits the town to find some ladies and he does and after shooting pictures of them he kills them during a threesome. Rinse and repeat a few times before he meets up with a Nazi gun dealer played by a cameo appearance by "Leather Face" Gunnar Hansen. After purchasing a gun he hits a strip club to do the old routine.

 After killing the stripper we are provided with a sort of a back story through flashbacks of the man as a child who has violent tendencies. Then we are privileged to see his softer side as he is also a Necrophiliac and he eats and fucks a rotted corpse before getting a blow job from a decapitated head.Then the  Photographer hits a porn shop where Tony Todd is playing the clerk, And he is looking for a snuff film entitled "Nutbag" which is a nod to the directors earlier work. The clerk is upset at him for asking such a thing but before the clerk gets choked out the place is held up and after a security guard and a few customers are shot The photographer puts his new gun to work and kills the two robber before offing the clerk. now we return to the same old routine of him picking up random girls and killing them.

At this point Charlotte's sister tells her that the photographer has been stalking her which Charlotte does not believe. Meanwhile The Photographer returns to business as usual as he continues to brutally kill random ladies and after that things get even darker as he turns to killing children. He kidnaps a young girl in a bathroom and kills her. Later once again Charlotte's sister continues to speak of the man stalking her while a news report comes on about children missing in the area and police finding children's bodies around town.

Charlotte returns to the photographers house willingly and is denied during sex so he can go to who appears to be his wife and child's mother's house to kill her before nearly killing the baby but let's the child live. meanwhile Charlotte's sister steals a key to the photographer's house and sneaks out. She hitches a ride from a stranger played by Edwin Ness "The Hitcher from Texas Chainsaw Massacre". When she gets to his house she does some snooping.

As Charlotte's little sister is roaming around the house, the photographer is in his hidden basement taking out a woman with a chainsaw. the young girl follows the noises and finds a hidden doorway which alerts the man and he chases after the young girl. After a small amount of hide and seek she is eventually makes her way back to his dungeon where she finds Charlotte dead before she is caught and after he carves the girl up a bit she manages to get the best of him with a pair of scissors and a 2x4 before she makes her escape to the nearby highway.Before the film comes to an end we see that the photographer has survived and is on his way to L.A. via Greyhound where he meets a young woman on the bus and snaps her photo before we see her bound and bloodied and charlottes young sister screams from her bed as the credits roll.

After watching this film after a long time of avoiding it due to hearing so much about it I have to say that there is allot going for it but, on the flip side there is allot going against it as well. The positives being that the gore effects are for the most part very well done with the exception of a over kill on the blood for gross out. The film features allot of cameos from some horror legends and the women in the film are all pretty hot. The downsides it is allot of the same thing over and over again and tries to hard to be gross and disturbing with all the necrophilia and child killing. The killer is not really convincingly creepy and just boring. trying to add strange flashback like dream sequences did not really serve the purpose they intended as we never learn really why the guy is like he is. For fans of gore this one will not let down because it is heavy on the viscera but I cannot stress enough how had this film tries to be shocking. truthfully it is a film that will make you uneasy but it is not a film that will stay with you after viewing it. A Serbian film was disturbing because of it's content and the fact that it does have a lasting power due to the fact that the film is actually well made and forces you to watch the unthinkable due to the fact the surrounding story is well written and played out, this film is not a good film and is just violence and shock for shocks sake without a good surrounding story. If you have to seen A Serbian Film this would be a good tester to see if you can stomach such a film but if you have seen that film and are expecting something equally as shocking you will be disappointed.
Gore:9 (Allot of gore and the effects by Toe-tag picture are well done for the most part,though they went a bit too heavy on the blood)
Nudity:9 ( A ton of nudity in this one but allot of it is covered in blood)
Story:5 ( No story at all really just set up's into the next series of violent events)
Characters:4 ( No one worth caring about at all with the exception of the young sister)
Overall: 5 out of 10   ( just a giant shock reel, with nothing to make it memorable other than a few gore effects.)