Set against Sin City, Las Vegas, MURDER-SET-PIECES tells the story of a fashion photographer whose vocation is murder.
I would like to start this review off by saying thank you to Nick Palumbo for making a movie that is not just semi-gory trash nonsense, but a movie that takes gore and gruesomeness to the top... but more importantly, not over the top. A lot of films claim to be the bloodiest thing around, utterly disturbing and what not but for most of the time it's just empty words and when you sit down to watch those films, you often come out disappointed in the end. MURDER-SET-PIECES pretty much has everything you want when it comes to gore, twisted and sick stuff but if it would be shallow and only feature those things the outcome wouldn't be that great. Luckily this film has a good story attached to it with a lead who manages to carry the weight of the film all the way through. Think AMERICAN PSYCHO x 100 and that would equal MURDER-SET-PIECES... in gruesomeness on film that is.
Set in Las Vegas, we get to follow a German photographer, (Sven Garrett), who basically shoots chicks for a living and pretty much end up killing everyone around him that is of female nature... even kids. It doesn't sound like much but trust me, it is. The pacing is absolutely awesome and the film moves at a rapid rate, harvesting victims that at the end make for a pretty darn sweet body count. As the film begins, we see this German guy sitting in a car with his girlfriend's little sister; he's way too serious around a young kid and the dialogue felt somewhat forced and out of place at first. A couple of scenes later you come to realize that this is the guy in a nutshell, something that made his character extremely interesting. The film features some very black humour which was just totally brilliant; For example, the guy's having dinner with his girlfriend and her kid sister and the kid ask him why his steak is so bloody, if he likes blood. The guy responds something like; "Women should eat more blood, it contains iron. Every day woman suck the blood out of men but in the end of the month they leak it out." Ok, sorry if that wasn't absolutely correct but it was a little while ago since I saw the film but basically the movie's filled with all these little quotes and things that makes it both hilarious and scary, depending on how you look at it.
 
There's also this great scene where the kid finds a framed photograph of Hitler and some other German men on in the guy's house and ask the guy why he has that photo. He picks up the photo, looks at it and says something like; "That was my grandfather. He was a hero, he fought a war against the bad guys." And the kid says; "But wasn't he German," and the guy just looks at her like she was retarded. As for T&A and blood, you get a helluva lot more than you could've possibly been bargaining for. As for nudity and sex, the movie's pretty much packed with naked chicks and plenty of sex scenes that are not just fillers but that works in the movie's advantage. As for blood and gore, all I can say is watch it since there's no way it could possibly disappoint when it comes to stuff like that.
Edwin Neal (TCM) has cameo in the film, Gunnar (Leatherface) Hansen plays a Nazi Mechanic, Tony Todd makes an appearance as a clerk at an adult book store, and beautiful Cerina Vincent shows up on a bus at the end of the film and just looks amazing as usual. Now how can you go wrong with that? I'd say that MURDER-SET-PIECES is the total opposite to what is referred to as a chick flick as this movie pretty much thrives on the hatred of women. That doesn't mean that girls should stay away from it, just saying that you have to be extremely open-minded in order to enjoy it. But that goes for guys too, not just girls. Only thing I'd wanna complain on is that the music felt a little out of place at times and I would've preferred instrumental music at all times instead of throwing in rock and metal songs every here and there. It's not a big deal though and doesn't make the movie less worth watching.
Frankly, I don't understand some of the negative reviews since what pisses me of most of the time when watching some "utterly disturbing" movie is that most of those films aren't, for most of the time, not the least bit disturbing. Palumbo dares to go all the way without going totally overboard, and he should be given cred for that. If you're a sicko, you need to watch this. Highly recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Nick Palumbo
WRITING CREDITS: Nick Palumbo
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Sven Garrett, Gunnar Hansen, Valerie Baber
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 91 min
RATING: 9/10
Murder-Set-Pieces Website/IMDB Click here
Murder-Set-Pieces Trailer
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