As I’ve recounted in several past reviews, the early nineties were a glorious time for me and my little band of horror movie-loving knuckleheads.
Being in our early teens at the time, we were out to devour every bit of R Rated mayhem we could get our grubby mitts on, and into the mix of tape rentals was thrown this nifty little title. Although I remember thinking it was pretty cool back in the day, I only ever saw it one time, on VHS, at a rowdy sleep-over in my buddy’s darkened basement, never having the opportunity or, truthfully, the inclination, to revisit it.
Until now.
Since I’m a fan of writer / director Eric Red (Near Dark) and recently caught a Youtube interview in which he was speaking about another film bearing his distinct ‘fingerprint’, The Hitcher (1986), one of my absolute favorites (though he only wrote it, to be fair), I thought it’d be cool to go back to this, his second time in the Director’s Chair (after his hitman / road-trip thriller debut, 1989’s decent Coen and Tate), after having not seen it in roughly 34 years.
To be honest, there was only one key sequence that always stuck with me, while the rest of the overall narrative was murky to the point of being opaque, where my recollection was concerned.
So, as I’m embracing the Revisit kick that I currently find myself on, and my current living situation offers up only the very shittiest of Wifi connections…I cast my net far and wide (Amazon) and scored the recent Blu ray release from boutique studio Scream Factory.
Body Parts centres on a criminal psychologist named ‘Bill Crushank’ (Jeff Fahey), who is nearly killed in a horrific car crash on a busy highway. He survives…but one of his arms does not. His beleaguered wife ‘Karen’ (Kim Delaney) finds herself pushed into signing ‘Bill’ into an experimental surgery, which results in a donor arm being quickly, and successfully, surgically attached. After a stretch of rehab, ‘Bill’ returns home to his family, hoping to get back on with life. However, life does not return to normal, as strange and increasingly worrisome things start happening, all seeming to stem from the new, heavily scarred limb.
And it all goes to hell from there.
My next awaited piece of physical media promptly arrived and after several nights of obstacles and interruptions, I finally was able to sit down with it on a cold, still Sunday morning, 6 am and dark out, stars glittering. I brewed up my usual stomach-peeler strength coffee, got my two furry co-pilots situated, grabbed my pad and pen…and hit PLAY, prepared for the worst.
Scribbles were birthed…
-Fun family dynamic to start. And you just know…the saccharine shit is not going to last. Luckily our lead character, ‘Bill’ (Jeff Fahey) and his wife ‘Karen’ (Kim Delaney) are a charismatic couple who initially genuinely seem to enjoy each others company. And there’s two cute kids. They’re all charming enough that you really don’t want their lives destroyed by what’s coming.
-There it is! Car crash. Good stunt. Harsh. The one scene that I alluded to earlier, the only one I clearly remembered from Way Back When, happens early on in the form of the rear-ender from hell, violently sending ‘Bill’ on his horrific narrative path. The actual stunt is impressive, made all the more so by the fact that the stuntman was literally sent flying an unexpected 50 feet, amazingly not totally fucking himself up in the process.
-Ugh! Gross amputation effect. Iconic Canadian director / body horror pioneer David Cronenberg (The Fly) must’ve nodded in satisfaction when he saw what transpires in the wake of the Final Destination-like car wreck.
-Holy shit! That saw is loud. I would’ve thought an electric surgical saw would be quiet and precise. Not this one, this was like something you’d use to cut girders with, and it screamed and sprayed when put into action in the Operating Room.
-Jeff Fahey does ‘tortured’ well. I’ve always appreciated long-time actor and no stranger to genre flicks Jeff Fahey (The Lawnmower Man), making his unconventional but effective appearance work in his favor, giving intense life to sequences of mental anguish, of which there are plenty here.
-Good-looking restoration. This was just a note on the actual picture and sound quality of the restored Blu ray version and as you can see…it’s apparently a good-looking restoration. Pops and scratches onscreen are virtually non-existent and it retains a nice, filmic grain structure, without being intrusive. Colours like blue and red looked especially good, which helped some of the more…meaty…scenes.
-Oh, it’s all fun and games now. Just you wait, Perfect Family! They have no idea what’s coming! Bwahahaaa!! Those fools!!
-Good slow burn lead-up. Eric Red keeps things slowly but steadily ramping up, leaning into the mystery and growing horror of what transpires with ‘Bill’ as he looks deeper and deeper into what’s threatening to destroy his life and those of his loved ones.
-The doc is shady. ‘Doctor Webb’. She’s too eager, too helpful, with eyes that hint at nefarious energies at work inside.
-Very Hitchcockian score. Heavy strings. If you know…you know.
-Dourif specializes in weird. Also, if you know of oddball actor Brad Dourif (Child’s Play)…you know. He turns up here as the painter-wannabe recipient of the mysterious donor’s other arm, mesmerized by the horrid images he finds himself splashing across his canvases, while not knowing why.
-So many mullets! Oh, those late 80’s / early 90’s hair styles! SO silly! Business up front…party in the back! This hilarious hairstyle also sullied the crown of Yours Truly for a spell, years before an extended and ongoing period of being follicley – challenged took over.
-Him leaving, smart decision. Often in movies like this, if the husband starts losing his shit somehow, the spouse and offspring always seem be the ones to head for the hills. Here, ‘Bill’ realizes he has to take steps after the arm almost kills ‘Karen’ one night, and voluntarily GTFO, making for a seedy hotel to protect those he loves while he tries to unravel the bizarre supernatural mystery threatening his life, and those around him.
-Fucking bitch, Webb. And I knew I recognized! Rome’s ‘Servilla’ aka Lindsay Duncan. I just recently finished rewatching the superb HBO series Rome (2005 -2007) after many years and something about ‘Dr. Webb’ was SO familiar yet eluded me, until I realized that she played one of the most conniving antagonists in those dramatic intrigues of ancient Italy. Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan seems to have a knack for playing underhanded and treacherous types of characters, and she does it annoyingly well.
–Boozy group therapy reminds me of Jacob’s Ladder. I love Adrian Lyne’s spooky 1990 psychological thriller Jacob’s Ladder and the scenes in which ‘Bill’ meets up with the other donor recipients to try to figure out what’s happening had me thinking of ‘Jacob’ (Tim Robbins) and his smoke-n-booze meetings with the surviving veteran members of his old beleaguered squad from Vietnam.
-No one heard a locked door being knocked clean off it’s hinges?! One of the recipients is viciously set upon by an unknown attacker, an assault that ‘Bill’ hears as a partial phone message. When he races to the location, which is an apartment building, he finds that not only is the lock busted, but the entire door has been smashed off the hinges…and yet there is no evidence that anyone from any of the other apartments we can clearly see heard or responded to what would’ve been a loud and calamitous incident occurring literally outside their door. It was a little silly.
-Good car gag. ‘Bill’ and the investigating ‘Det. Sawchuck’ (Zakes Mokae) are suddenly attacked by a freakish assailant in another car, who pulls up on theirs and slaps a handcuff on ‘Bills’ exposed wrist, planning to wrench the new arm from ‘Bills’s shoulder by hitting the gas. Luckily, ‘Sawchuck’ also hits the gas and the two cars race through the city, with ‘Bill’ struggling to get his hand free, as he’s pulled back and forth between the two racing cars. Think ‘Short Round’ during the mine car chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It’s an inventive harrowing sequence and a well-done stunt.
-Loaded gun with a firework? This was actually pretty funny. As the crazy car chase comes to a violent stop, the now-revealed attacker flees, with ‘Det. Sawchuck’ capping off a shot at the escaping car. The thing is, is that in the long shot we get of ‘Sawchuck’ running and shooting, at us, the gunshot bursts like a weak Roman candle, lots of slow sparks, not a quick and sharp muzzle flash. For a movie with a lot of surprisingly sweet SFX, this came across as lazy and cheap.
-Headache? I recommend 12 gauge. Ka-Blammo! There are a couple good shotgun kills but the best was saved for last.
-Ok, that was good. Kinda sums it up right there.
-The two deleted scenes should’ve been left in. One more than the other. Out of curiosity and because I’ve had a life-long obsession with excised movie footage, I checked out the Special Features menu on the disc and discovered two key deleted scenes, both involving the initial accident and amputation of ‘Bill’s arm. Both could’ve been added back, although I will admit that the second, involving the actual attachment of the donor arm in the Operating Room, in which we can see the disembodied limb still moving under its own power as it’s brought to ‘Bill’ on his gurney, does give the twist away too early. The effects are appropriately meaty and disgusting, especially in the first scene they removed and if they couldn’t be worked back in, then at least it’s cool that we get the chance to see them on their own.
All in all, Body Parts was a fun one from Back in the Day to revisit, as I remembered so little going in for a second rewatch, 3+ decades later. The concept is not new, but it is done well, with Eric Red keeping the pace moving steadily forward, first as a slow burner, but ramping up in tension and suspense as the user-friendly 1 hour and 29 minute run-time plays out. The cast, led capably by Jeff Fahey, commits to the material, giving some semblance of humanity in among the increasing instances of gore and body horror, the effects of which still work well today, in a most disgusting fashion.
If you’re a fan of body horror-style genre flicks from the 80’s and 90’s, you could do a helluva lot worse than Body Parts and on that level, I can easily recommend this woefully underseen title.
Just don’t lose your head over it.
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