Body Puzzle is generally considered Lamberto Bava’s last film in the giallo genre (at least according to the Letterboxd review section). But I’m not buying it. The film does include a serial killer who is stalking our protagonist and a police detective trying to solve the crimes (and also romancing our hero). But it contains very few of the stylistic or plot contrivances that made the genre famous. We know who the killer is from the very beginning, the violence and gore are mostly off-screen, and it is mostly shot like a standard thriller without any of the bold uses of light and color or off-kilter camera angles that most gialli employed.
Buy Body Puzzle Blu-rayThis is more of a straight-up serial killer thriller than anything resembling a giallo, and it’s not even a very good thriller. The only thing that makes it remotely interesting is the killer’s technique. After murdering his victims, he cuts off various body parts and then sneaks them into our hero’s house. That’s a relatively original idea, but unfortunately, the film doesn’t take it into any interesting directions.
I’m being a tad too harsh with it. This is a perfectly serviceable little thriller, but Bava can do better. Just watch A Blade in the Dark or Demons 1 & 2 to see what I mean. Even Delirium, which is about as sleazy as a film can get and not be considered porn, has at least got a directorial stamp and plenty of style. This feels like a made-for-TV flick helmed by a hack.
That isn’t too far off the mark, as Bava had spent the last several years making TV movies. You can see him taking what he learned from that, especially concerning tight restrictions on budget and time, and applying it to this film. That may be why the sex and gore are toned down here as well.
The kills are mostly fine, but again, they are nothing special. There is one scene that could have been an all-timer but mostly falls flat. The killer enters a room where his victim is teaching a group of blind children. He sneaks up behind her and cuts her throat. His actions are completely silent, so the kids have no idea what is happening. That’s an amazing idea for a scene, but Bava fumbles the suspense.
As noted at the beginning of this review, we know who the killer is in this film almost immediately. Or at least we know what he looks like. Unlike most giallos, our killer isn’t hidden behind a mask (there are no black leather gloves either). Who he actually is is a bit of a mystery, and the plot convolutes that matter with some mistaken-identity nonsense, twisting out who he is and why he’s killing people to an extremely ridiculous degree.
Our hero is a rich widow (Joanna Pacuła) living alone in a palatial mansion (complete with a large indoor swimming pool set between her kitchen and living room, which seems dangerous and kept making me think her meals must all smell like chlorine). The killer first puts one of his victim’s ears in her fridge, then hangs a severed hand on her front door, then puts a cock in a box and sits it outside.
That last one at least adds a little humor to the proceedings. When they pull the poor sod whose cock has been cut off out of the pool, his face has rigor mortised into that classic cross-eyed expression you see all the time in comedies when a bloke has been punched in the groin. When the detective opens the box, the widow asks if it is a finger, to which the cop has to reply in the negative. That’s not exactly world-class humor, but it does breathe a little life into the proceedings.
The lead detective (Tomas Arana) naturally has sex with the widow because these films need a romance (and sex) angle. Much like the gore in this film, the sex is extremely tame. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to thrillers or even horror films leaving sex and violence off-screen, but I’ve come to expect plenty of both from Italian horror films and Lamberto Bava. For this film to not have it just seems very out of character.
What we’re left with is not a terrible film, but not a particularly good one either. Fans of the director and Italian thrillers will find something to love, but there are so many better films from both I can only recommend it to completists.
Extras on this new Kino Lorber Blu-ray include:
- Audio Commentary by Film Historians and Hosts of Wild, Wild Podcast Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett
- Alternate Italian Audio Track with optional English subtitles
- Trailers
