movieman_kev Police officer Michael (Tomas Arana, "The Church") has his hands full while investigating a serial killer who's been leaving parts of the bodies of the people that he's been murdering at the house of one recently widowed, Tracy (Joanna Pacula). Mike has to find a way to stop the bodies from piling up, while perhaps finding love in the process.A feeling of the 'giallo' films of yore pervades this film, even though we know who the killer is from the get-go, and the film contains a few good set-pieces (a scene later in the film set in a school for the blind being particularly memorable), but it doesn't make all that much sense when all is said and done either. All in all, not nearly as good as Bava's earlier "Macabre" nor his first two "Demons" films, but enjoyable enough if you can forgive the rather outrageous plot twists towards the end of the film. A pity the Image Entertainment DVD lacked extras of any kind, as I would have been interested in some.My Grade: C-

Coventry There once was an era, approximately from the late 60's up until the early 80's, during which nearly every Italian director delivered his own personal giallo-movie and they featured the craziest plots and the most far-fetched red herrings. What great times they were! After this, however, the magnificent sub genre almost got extinct and there were only TWO directors that regularly attempted to breathe new life into the formula of mad black-gloved killers and sleaze-laden twists. Dario Argento is the king even to this day and the other one is Lamberto Bava, who was responsible for some truly underrated giallo-efforts like "Delirium: Photos of Gioia" and "You'll Die at Midnight". "Body Puzzle" is yet another criminally neglected film that features all the giallo's extraordinary trademarks, although that sadly also includes the major holes in the plot. "Body Puzzle" serves the absolute most implausible story I've ever beheld, but there are plenty of sadistic & gore-soaked murders on display and the absurd screenplay hints at some controversial topics like hidden homosexuality and schizophrenia. Lamberto Bava doesn't really bother to keep the killer's identity secret, as we immediately witness how a handsome young man brutally stabs an anonymous candy store owner to death. Several more grisly murders are committed before police inspector Michael discovers that the victims have one thing in common. They all received donor organs from a pianist who died in a motorcycle accident and the mysterious killer tries to puzzle him back together. The inspect is much quicker when it comes to falling in love with the deceased pianist's wife, played by Joanna Pacula. "Body Puzzle" completely stops to make sense halfway, but you've got to love Bava's enthusiast direction and his desperate efforts to maintain the suspense. The music and camera-work are more than adequate while the cast features some familiar faces. Giovanni Lombardo Radice briefly appears as the exaggeratedly gay acquaintance of both the killer and the dead pianist. Italian horror fans will certainly recognize him as the poor sucker who always dies sensationally ("Cannibal Ferox", "City of the Living Dead", "Cannibal Apocalypse"…).

HumanoidOfFlesh "Body Puzzle" is a typical Italian thriller,not exactly a masterpiece,but it delivers some surprising twists.The death scenes are pretty vicious and graphic,especially when the woman has her hand chopped off.Director Lamberto Bava creates a reasonable amount of suspense and Luigi Kuvellier("Deep Red","Blood for Dracula")does the slick photography.Polish horror queen Joanna Pacula("Warlock 2","The Kiss" and awful "Haunted Sea")is pretty good as a widow in peril.It's also very nice to see Giovanni Lombardo Radice("House on the Edge of the Park","Gates of Hell","Cannibal Ferox")as the epicene Morangi.Overall this one is worth a look,if you like Italian giallos.

nemkutya James Blish's definition of the Idiot Plot is familiar to Bad Movie fans: it's the sort of plot that would be dealt with in seconds by normal people, which only works in the movies if everybody in the cast is an idiot. Body Puzzle is a classic example of the device.None of the "professional people" in the movie behave as though they knew anything about their jobs. The policemen do things that would have them booted off the force. There's a female psychiatrist who makes snap judgments on patients she's only seen for a few minutes, and shares these judgments with the police as though there was no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality. There's a medical examiner who makes pronouncements on the times of death that don't fit even remotely with the timeline of the movie (a lot of this is Bava's and the editor's fault, though). We have a lifeguard (it seems to me he's performing his duties a very short time after a kidney replacement, but I don't know about such things) who gets killed in broad daylight in a swimming pool -- but nobody notices! And there are no traces of blood in the water, even though the victim has been dismembered.Then there's the final twist. It's a twist so jaw-droppingly stupid that I would never dream of giving it away.I will give one bit away, though, to give a further example of how awful the movie is: the hero comes across a freezer chest. Suspense builds as he opens the chest, to find... frozen pasta! Ahh, but underneath the pasta he finds the frozen corpse we've been expecting. Now, at this point, we're expecting the killer to sneak up behind him and surprise him. Everything points to this happening: the camera angles, the music, the rules of bad movie making... so what happens? The killer jumps OUT OF THE FREEZER CHEST! He was hiding UNDER THE BODY, UNDER THE PASTA!! First, how did he get there without assistance, covering himself up with frozen stuff and then closing the lid; second, why didn't he freeze to death, trapped under all that ice; and third, how did he know the hero would stop by and open the freezer?The mind boggles.