By Kryten Syxx
It has been one hell of a ride over the last thirty years in the horror business. Fans have witnessed ups, downs, and near stops on the roller coaster ride of slasher pictures. Now, with the new era of faux-grittiness increasing and consuming much of the genre, it is time to take a step back and look at what really made scary movies work so well. There is only so much that extreme violence and blood splatter can make up for, and quality is not one of those things.
Enter Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, a documentary based on Adam Rockoff's book of the same name that looks back at all the years of blood, mayhem, and madmen that managed to do so much with so little. Not only is there nostalgia to be had but also a spark of what is to come and what filmmakers can do to ensure quality over quantity.
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film launches with a look at why we are so infatuated with the macabre. More than just a few people went to see Christians eaten by lions, and though that kind of blood lust has tamed, there is still that side of humanity that wants a taste of death.
As the documentary continues along its chronological path, the audience is treated to the first great slasher, Psycho, all the way up to the genre's rebirth with Scream. There is no lack of interviews and clips from all the greats here to help paint a picture of how things started off so strong in the sixties and managed to get pulled down to hell in the late eighties.
Going to Pieces does a great job of never becoming a contest of who made the best slasher film. Each filmmaker has his own strengths, and the debate on remakes weakening the horror pool is not brought up in even the slightest aspect. Though some of the remakes in question are shown, little to nothing is said about them other than displaying how the films must keep growing and progressing to meet the needs of modern moviegoers.
Even if the technical aspects or cultural relevance is not to your liking, this DVD could be viewed as a "best of the best" clips fest. All the goriest uncensored clips are arranged around well-edited interviews that never drone on and on. If nothing else it is a great teaching tool to inform the younger audiences of today that a good horror movie does not have to be loaded with big names and CGI to provide entertainment value. Hell, in some cases blood isn't even needed to make a classic.
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