Customer Reviews

Body Parts

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

I have watched this movie about 50 times and it never loses its impact. The recent movie "The Eye" was a poor wanna be of "Body Parts" and had not nearly as much suspense or fear of having someone else body part attached to you. Love "Body Parts" and would recommend it to any horror fan out there!

This is a very interesting film that is as clever as it is scary. A real horror film that will, by the time its narrative will have completely unfolded, have you so very much involved that you'd presume you were on the opposite side of that screen of yours. And I'll go as far as saying that it'll virtually expunge the thought of you exhaling throughout the last half-hour of it, when great havoc arose among our three afflicted leading men whose lives were completely turned upside-down...or shall I say-targets.

Written and directed by Eric Red, and based upon the novel Choice Cuts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, Body Parts is an exhilarating and tightly-paced film that gets under your skin and lingers long after you've seen it. This well-written work-of-art does more than provide great direction, stunning visuals, grotesque and harrowing scenes that are beyond suitable for the lily-livered, and startling action sequences; in addition, it provides superb performances from the entire cast. What can I say? Once the cast is in character and the cameras are rolling, brace yourself for some realistic work. Here you have the underrated Brad Dourif, who perfectly-to no surprise-depicts the eccentric, chilling and edgy roll of Remo Lacey, a mad artist whose isolation from the rest of the world allows him to pursue with his work, which is influenced by the same disturbing nightmares Jeff Fahey's character undergoes, who'll really just keep you breathless as the affects of his transplant gradually began to show and he, to his horror, altered into this completely new, fanatical man without a wife to wake up with or children to kiss goodnight. Many horror films lack in great performances, as you would surely know by now, but this film possibly has the finest I've ever seen!

A well-made horror thriller that is surprisingly good but at the same time seams to have something wrong with it. Jeff Fahey plays a criminal psychologist who loses his arm in a car accident but gets it replaced with another by emergency surgical replacement. The good thing is it works. The bad thing is he has little control over it. Yes indeed you may have seen many other horror films like this but director/co-writer Eric Red knows how to make a old story line seem new, but the film's screenplay seems to have some plot implausibilities, the film wath's to have two story lines going and the ending is too happy. A lot of theaters pulled the film after the Jeffrey Dahmer story hit the news. Red's next was BED MOON (1996).

1991. Paramount. 88 MINS.

Rated R (Violence and Language).

Of my five favorite motion pictures of all time, Body Parts is one of them. Many people find this movie to be silly and unrealistic, but that's all part of the fun. It's filled with thought provoking questions, edge-of-your seat suspense, and dark, dark humor. Check it out! END

I hadn't seen this movie for quite some time, maybe not since it first came out. That in itself is kind of an interesting sidenote. You see, I live in Wisconsin(for all those legions out there who want to know all about me they can), and when this movie first hit theaters, it was almost immediately pulled. This movie had come out at almost the same time as the whole Jeffrey Dahmer story broke, and I suppose the powers that be thought it would be in bad taste to have a movie called Body Parts in the theater even though the film had zip to do with the Dahmer case.
Anyhow, the movie didn't live up to that kind of notoriety, but was a fun little piece of nonsense regardless. The central question asked throughout the movie is, "Where does evil live, in the flesh or the soul?" Sounds quite introspective, but it's rather silly to think that having an arm from a serial killer transplanted onto your body would make you dream and start to act violently. But that's the premise. Jeff Fahey is the recipient of the evil arm and he starts to look further into things when the goofy side effects begin. He finds a guy who also got the legs, and a painter who has the other arm, and tries to convince them that something weird is going on. The painter's new and celebrated paintings are images of the killer's victims, but he's selling more now than he ever did, so why should he care? Fahey's family starts to fall apart, and his doctor isn't the slightest bit helpful coz she's more interested in what she's accomplished with the operation. If that weren't enough, somebody is now stalking the trio and taking back their recently transplanted body parts. Who could it be??
Body Parts is about as good as I remember it being. It'll never be known as a horror classic, but the rather ludicrous idea is handled decently enough, and it does avoid being laughably bad. Fahey does a good job in a rare hero role, and Brad Dourif seems kinda underused as the painter with arm #2. It's worth your time, and decently priced so you won't have to pay an arm and a leg to see it(sorry about that, but I had to find a way to work that joke in there).

While watching Eric Red's 1991 film "Body Parts," I was reminded of a certain myth from the days of old. About a hundred years ago, people believed that you could look into a dead person's eyes and see the last image they saw before heading off to heaven imprinted on the retina. Cops loved this idea because they thought they could use the eyeballs to identify murderers. I'm not sure if anyone ever got a conviction using this technique. I hope not since the whole idea turned out to be total nonsense. What does this have to do with "Body Parts"? Nothing, really, except that the central idea in this film revolves around the concept of taking body parts--arms, legs, pretty much anything--off of dead people and transplanting them onto living flesh. Since eyeballs definitely fall into the body parts category, I just thought about that old myth. I don't remember if this idea shows up in the film. What I do remember, and what I do know, is that "Body Parts" doesn't need images imprinted on eyeballs to succeed. This film is a slam-bang good time that every horror fan ought to see once before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

What's the best thing going for "Body Parts"? Jeff Fahey. He stars as Bill Crushank, a criminal psychologist with a beautiful wife named Karen (Kim Delaney). Life's going pretty good for Bill until a terrible automobile accident lands him in the hospital. He's going to lose his arm, the doctors say, but hope is right around the corner when brilliant surgeon Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan) tries out something new and highly experimental on Crushank. She grafts a brand new arm on his body, runs him through a rehabilitation program, and sends him home as good as new. Yay! Sure, the scar looks sort of nasty, but having two arms is definitely better than having only one, so Billy is happy. Until he notices increasingly bizarre behaviors associated with the new arm, that is. Crushank starts having violence filled nightmares. Then the nightmare becomes reality when he starts abusing his kids and his wife. What's going on here? It seems Bill's new arm isn't all its cracked up to be. In fact, one could say that the source of these troubles comes directly from Bill's arm. All of the violence he inflicts on others flows through his new appendage. Obviously, something fishy is happening.

Crushank starts a personal crusade to find out the origin of the arm. He discovers that Dr. Webb's program involves using tissue and limbs from convicted criminals. In his case the arm came from a murderer he actually worked with, and somehow the evil soul of that killer still lives in the arm. Bill starts to wonder if others face similar difficulties, and his various investigations uncover an artist named Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif), Mark (Peter Murnik), and a couple of other sad souls unfortunate enough to receive transplants from the same killer. In Remo's case, his new arm allows him to paint very dark pictures that turn him into success. In Mark's situation, his new leg tends to act up when he's driving. Bill tries to bring these characters together in order to form a plan of action, but it's tough. It's especially difficult when the limbs take on a life of their own. One could say that the original owner wants his body parts back. How is that possible? Better to ask how anything in this movie is possible. On second thought, don't question the storyline. Everything flows along to its gory climax if you don't think too hard.

I loved "Body Parts" for numerous reasons. The first is Jeff Fahey. He's a great B-movie actor who usually turns in entertaining performances. They might not always be GOOD performances, but entertaining nonetheless. Then there's the weirdness that is Brad Dourif, and his role in this film is yet another one of his neurotic, spaced out performances we've come to know and love. The car accident and a later scene in which Fahey races down the streets in car while handcuffed to another man in ANOTHER car just add to the enjoyment factor. That bar fight is a hoot, too. Should I go on? Well, there's the bloody carnage. "Body Parts" is one messy movie, especially the gorefest at the end when Fahey's character confronts his destiny. Finally, I chuckled numerous times over the dialogue. An example: at one point, Fahey goes on a rampage about his arm, screaming and hollering at the top of his lungs. "Can't you see this arm is killing me?" he roars, and I roared with laughter right along with him. It's how he says it. Just watch the movie and you'll see. If you can't find anything to like in "Body Parts," you're not trying hard enough.

There are a few drawbacks, like the slow pace at the beginning of the movie before the sauce starts to flow, but nothing serious enough to prevent me from giving this masterpiece five stars. It's upsetting that Paramount released "Body Parts" to DVD with no extras. We don't even get a trailer on this disc. The movie screams for a full special edition treatment. I don't much like listening to commentaries anymore, but I would definitely give a listen to one for this movie if they could get Red, Fahey, and Dourif to say a few words. I'd also like to see a behind the scene documentary dealing with the special effects. They're very well done and very disgusting--as a horror film about transplantation and its evil consequences ought to be. So there you have it; you've absolutely no excuse not to run out and rent this baby right away. If you love horror, you'll love "Body Parts".

I haven't watched a whole lot of movies lately, but
this will tear you up...or apart. It's called "Body
Parts" starring Jeff Fahey and Kim Delaney (1988
vintage).

My e-mail bud Tina keeps telling me I shouldn't waste
my time with such drudge, but how can a movie miss
when it'a all about a psycho female surgeon that
disects the body of a man sentenced to death for
brutal murders? Disecting is one
thing...transplanting those parts on needy bodies is
another.

Worth your time? You bet. It's a modern-day
Frankenstein with excellent performances by Fahey and
Delaney.

Though it may be a little corny and unbelieveable, it
is quite entertaining and mindless...which is what we
need now and then.

In the horror genre, this one gets a 3.5....definitely
worth a Friday Flick rental.

Jeff Fahey's life goes to hell when he receives an arm transplant after an auto accident. Turns out the arm came from a serial killer! Written and directed by genre favorite Eric Red, Body Parts is mostly superior entertainment from beginning to end. Fast-paced, with several exciting action sequences (The pseudo-car chase and hospital finale come to mind) and a decent mystery make certain the movie never lets up. Drags a few times in the beginning and the story gets maybe a little too silly, but this is overall a gripping horror/thriller. Fahey is superb, as is Brad Dourif as an eccentric painter.
*** 1/2 out of *****

Superb, realistic performances, great direction and writing, striking visuals, powerful and startling action and horror sequences, and overall great filmmaking, create a thriller of rare believeability and involvement. I am a great fan of director Eric Red's films, and this is the best of them.