BODY PUZZLE (1992) - Kino Lorber

Body Puzzle
Kino Lorber / Kino Raro

Original Release Date: March 20th, 1992 (Italy)
Written by Lamberto Bava, Teodoro Corrà, Bruce Martin, Domenico Paolella
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Starring Joanna Pacula, Tomas Arana, François Montagut
Language English (English and Italian subtitles available)

Get your copy HERE from Kino Lorber, or HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, MovieJawn Podcast Director and Staff Writer 

The Movie: Average

I enjoy the Giallo genre quite a bit. I'm no expert, just a fan, but the emphasis on style always appealed to me. The clothes, the kills, the locations, the direction, and the motivations were all usually equally unique and stylish; at least in the best examples. But Giallo peaked around the late '60s / early '70s and though there are viable examples across the 1980s, perhaps by 1992, it would be unfair to look at Body Puzzle through that lens. But it feels right, so I'm gonna.

Body Puzzle is, super appropriately, a puzzle of a film. It begins with a scene of a man (François Montagut) playing the piano before flashing back to a motorcycle accident. Through the language of film, we believe we are being told who this person is and why they do what they do: murders. But are we? As the film rolls on and we see the man committing numerous murders, taking grisly trophies with which to taunt a beautiful young woman (Joanna Pacula), we believe we understand why. Even if we don't have all the details, we seem to understand the shape of events. The film is then playing catch-up to what we have seen, as Det. Mike (Tomas Arana) comes to Tracy Grant (Pacula)'s aid and begins trying to put together the pieces of this particular puzzle.

As a film, Body Puzzle feels caught between two genres. It loses many of the Giallo trademarks I listed above, but doesn't replace them with anything. The only truly interesting location is Tracy's apartment which has huge blue glass pyramids on the walls composed of smaller, triangular panels, and a swimming pool flanked by black and white pinstriped pillars. The one moment that feels like the kind of cheap, nasty thrills you'd expect from a Giallo film is one kill in a public bathroom stall where the camera is briefly looking up, out of the toilet as the killer descends upon his victim. For a film where a guy is going around collecting disparate body parts, there's hardly even much blood.

I didn't have a bad time with Body Puzzle necessarily, in fact the ending pretty much saves the whole experience with just how bonkers it is, but the journey to get there is at times tedious. It also has a lot of fun small moments like a mortician (Sebastiano Lo Monaco) eating sliced apples immediately after performing an autopsy, a w-i-l-d scene in a classroom for blind children, and the revelation that the killer has been eating an un-sliced personal pizza from the edges inward, the way a rat would. Whether these sound like enough to tip this into Must Watch territory is entirely up to you.

The Packaging: Average

This is a pretty barebones release, all things considered. You've got your standard Blu-ray case, nothing wrong with that, and a pretty cool cover featuring Joanna Pacula's face divided into several slices in the process of being either disassembled or reassembled, depending on your point of view (maybe it's a glass half full or glass empty thing?) So, overall, nothing fancy, but still a handsome addition to your collection that would look very nice lined up with some of Kino Lorber's other Raro releases.

The Audio + Video: Good

I'm not in love with the look of Body Puzzle as a whole, which surprised me since cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller has lensed films like Lucio Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), Paul Morrisey's Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), and Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975); all films with much stronger imagery. Overall, a lot of the film is a little desaturated and washed out. BUT, from a technical standpoint, the transfer is very clear and when things do occasionally pick up visually, they look very nice. There's a little light haloing in exterior shots, and a little extra visual noise in the darker interiors, but nothing unusual. 

What I did really enjoy was the sound in Body Puzzle. Composer Carlo Maria Cordio plays with a lot of tinkly synths and deep drum sounds that all slowly build at just the right moments. There's also repeated use of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, which you may know from the scariest part of Disney's Fantasia (1940), which essentially functions as the killer's psych-up music and is actually a pretty fun bit. An interesting fact I learned from the commentary track is that director Lamberto Bava initially used Carl Orff's O Fortuna, which you may know from such films as John Boorman's Excalibur (1981), Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), or Steve Carr's Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009). Unfortunately, he wasn't able to actually use it for these sequences and chose the Mussorgsky piece as a fall-back.

Special Features: Average

There's not a lot of meat on the bone here, if I'm being honest. Aside from the commentary track (the release's saving grace for me), the only special features are trailers for The .44 Specialist (1976), and Body Puzzle itself. The commentary track, from film historians and hosts of Wild, Wild Podcast Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett, is very informative and the two have a fun, easygoing rapport that makes it actively fun to listen to.

• Commentary track from Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett
• Trailers
• Body Puzzle (1992) (1:12)
• The .44 Specialist (1976) (3:22)

In Summary: Borrow from the library

Obviously, if you're deep in the paint for Giallo films and looking to snatch up the last few stragglers to cap off your collection, absolutely scoop this one at your earliest convenience. But for the general public (like me) who are just interested in a fun trip to Giallo country, this doesn't fully satisfy. Without the expected stylish, memorable visuals, all you are left holding on to is a plot that's designed to make you believe you're well ahead of what's going on.

You aren't. Or at least not as much as you think you are, which is ultimately really pretty fun and crazy when all's said and done, but it's not a great time all the way through. So maybe check this one out first and decide if it's worth the space on your shelf.