Body Parts * (1991, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Duncan, Kim Delaney, Brad Dourif, Zakes Mokae) – Classic Movie Review 9413

Director Eric Red’s 1991 Body Parts is a lolloping horror-movie mongrel, stitching a timeworn chiller premise into a slick MTV-style package that immerses itself in the horrors of modern technology after micro-surgeon Dr Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan) grafts an executed death row serial killer’s severed arm onto unfortunate Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey), who has lost an arm in a car accident.

The appendage’s sudden unwelcome animation triggers off the expected welter of gore and gaping plot implausibilities, with the killer’s remaining limbs popping up all over town, most notably on Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif, miserably going through the motions as a third-rate painter turned Picasso-style genius).

Body Parts is too ludicrous to take seriously as body horror and too distasteful to work as splatter black comedy, so it may well have viewers’ own arms jumping convulsively for the ‘off’ switch.

The screenplay by Eric Red and Norman Sandler is based on the novel Choice Cuts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac and the screen story by Joyce Taylor and Patricia Herskovic.

Also in the cast are Kim Delaney as Karen Chrushank, Zakes Mokae as Detective Sawchuck, Peter Murnik, Paul Ben-Victor, Nathaniel Moreau, Andy Humphrey, Sarah Campbell, Lindsay Merrithew, James Kidnie, Arlene Duncan, Allan Price and John Walsh.

Body Parts is directed by Eric Red, runs 88 minutes, is made by Vista Street and Paramount Pictures, is distributed by Paramount Pictures (1991) (US) and United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (UK), is written by Eric Red (screenplay) and Norman Snider (screenplay), based on the novel Choice Cuts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac and the screen story by Joyce Taylor and Patricia Herskovic, is shot in Technicolor by Theo van de Sande, is produced by Frank Mancuso Jr, is scored by Loek Dikker and is designed by Bill Brodie.

Despite its evident lack of quality, it was shown by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on UK TV on BBC1 in 1994.

The special makeup effects are by FXSmith.

It was shot in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

It was recorded at Bavaria Musik-Studios with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

It was released on VHS and laserdisc by Paramount Home Video in 1992 in the US.

It was released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory in 2020 in the US.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9413

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