Bill Chrushank (the great Jeff Fahey) is Living the Dream: he's a rising star, an ambitious young psychologist, has a family that adores him, has great big Eighties Hair, and even does pro bono work counselling felons at the local prison.
But that wouldn't make much of a horror movie, so our own Dr. Phil, while on some nameless interstate during the morning Rush, makes the deadly mistake of taking his eyes off the road for an instant---only an instant. His late-eighties Buick Century decides it wants to see what "airborne" is like and spend quality time with a truck, and when Dr. Chrushank awakes, he's minus a right arm. Oops.
But wait---there's hope! Turns out that Chrushank landed in the right hospital, because resident mad scientist Dr. Agatha Webb (the delectably clinically detached Lindsay Webb, who gave me shivers in the massively twisted tale of freaks in the heartland "The Reflecting Skin"---another must-see) just happens to be debuting a cutting-edge medical procedure---all she needs is wife Karen (Kim Delaney)to sign off on this waiver...hey, time's a-wasting---just sign here, Ma'am.
Now, let's stop the tape a minute. I think you and I both know where this film is going---or where we *think* it's going, because it doesn't exactly go there, which is why I took back the rental and then bought the infernal thing.
Turns out Chrushank is getting his new arm courtesy of both a cutting-edge surgical procedure at the same time notorious death-row killer Charley Fletcher (whose rap sheet makes Jack the Ripper look like a piker) is being parted from his---and not only the arm, but the other arm, legs, and even the head!
I'm a horror movie junkie: I only buy the good stuff, but I'll watch pretty much anything once; when I saw "Body Parts" sitting shabbily alone on the rental shelf, I figured I'd check it out. It looked cheap, sleazy, probably forgettable. And frankly, "Body Parts" could have succumbed to a by-the-numbers anonymous production: the old possessed hand routine is a beloved staple of the horror genre, well-used by hack and genius both.
"Body Parts" distinguishes itself and proves unforgettable on its own terms: you've got Jeff Fahey letting the hair do the heavy lifting but still carrying out his tormented psychologist part like a champ. Naturally daddy comes home from the hospital, and his adoring kid (kids? I can't remember. I'm not a family guy; families in horror flicks are there for body count) want to know that "it's still Daddy". And yeah, it's still Daddy alright, although he has this big ugly pinkish bruiser of an arm grafted onto his stump (though oddly, the arm looks pretty much identical to his left arm. Oh who cares?).
You look at that thing, and you watch Chrushank tousle his kid's hair, and you get uneasy: you wonder how long it will be before the arm gets---well, you know, restless, starts getting ideas---and how long it will take before Chrushank stops tousling hair and starts slamming the tyke's head into the wall at Mach-8.
Not long, actually. Chrushank starts having dreams and getting novel ideas: like seeing what it would be like to throttle his wife in her sleep, or fondling kitchen utensils. He gains street creds and loses a prisoner patient after the guy freaks out on seeing his new arm, sporting a Death Row tattoo and matching serial number and Penal System bar code. A lesser man would give in to the Arm, deep-six the family, and wind up on Unsolved Mysteries---but not our man Chrushank. He's a psychologist! A delver! He wants to dig in and do some *research*, and get in touch with the Arm Within.
What follows is happily deranged, considerably goopy, and not only sick, but competently carried out. Eric Red serves up the gore on a hotplate, but doesn't insult our IQ overmuch in the process. Best of all, we get a screen-stealing cameo by the great Brad Dourif as artist Remo Lacey, who got the other arm and whose career has metastasized: he's tossed aside landscape art to produce canvasses of jaw-dropping sickness and brutality. Ah, for a Muse of Fire!
No, the real reason to check out "Body Parts" is the transplant/grafting scene in the hospital. For that alone, I bought this flick. Imagine the serial killer and unwitting organ donor Charley Fletcher wheeled in on the gurney, flanked by about 200 SWAT guards toting shotguns: it's like something out a one of Paul Verhoeven's nightmares. It sets the tone, and for all the subsequent silliness, "Body Parts" never quite loses that throbbing undercurrent of techno-evil.
In the end, "Body Parts" is that rarest of ghoulish, gory gems: a horror movie that can be watched again and again: see it for the gore, the goop, the splatter; see it for Jeff Fahey's hair and earnest, soulful gaze; see it for Brad Dourif---just see it. You'll never look at limb transplants the same way.
JSG
