Arrow offer a new audio commentary with the 4-person team of The Hysteria Continues, which I have yet to fully indulge but it sounds interesting. It's Exactly What You Think It Is! is a brand new 1/4 hour featurette offering up an appreciation of Pieces by various filmmaker fans. There is a new, 28-minute, interview with art director Gonzalo Gonzalo, Pieces of Juan runs 55-minutesd and is a career-spanning interview with director Juan Piquer Simón, himself proving plenty of detail on his vision. Falling to Pieces - Sergio Blasco discusses friendship with Piquer Simón for shy of 9-minutes. The Reddest Herring runs almost an hour and is an extensive interview with actor Paul Smith, including a discussion of Pieces. We get a short audio-only interview with producer Steve Minasian, short theatrical and re-release trailers and some image galleries (Production Stills, Publicity Material, Video Releases, 'Bits and Pieces' and Juan Piquer still show.) The package itself has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Marc Schoenbach and a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Michael Gingold. It includes a soundtrack CD featuring the entire original score.

***

ADDITION: Grindhouse Releasing (3-disc) - Region FREE - Blu-ray February 16': The new 1080P Grindhouse transfer is a significant upgrade from the SDs. Colors are richer and flesh tones warmer. The aspect ratio is 1.66:1 and seems to lose a shade of information on the left side - and gain a sliver on the right and top edges when compared to the DVDs. The included, 87-minute, Mil gritos tiene la noche Director's Cut version is exactly the same image quality as the theatrical (but not seamlessly-branched) - both 28 Mbps and they share the first Blu-ray disc (dual-layered) with a trailer - the rest of the extras are on a second, single-layered, Blu-ray disc. The HD is sharper, better contrast but I found the colors the most notable improvement. It looks excellent in-motion. These are cited as 'new 4K transfers - scanned from the original camera negative'. Impressive.

The films can be heard in either DTS-HD Master mono English at 1778 kbps (24-bit) or a similarly robust Spanish-language transfer (16-bit) plus the Theatrical version offers the options of a 5.1 audio option - the Vine Theater Experience! or a music rescore by Umberto. Another excellent score (US versions) by Stelvio Cipriani (The Night Child, Rabid Dogs, The Lickerish Quartet, tidbits on Amer) with credit for Carlo Maria Cordio Librado Pastor (as CAM). On the Director's Cut the score is by Librado Pastor. There are optional English subtitles on both versions. The Blu-ray disc is region FREE.

Extras add a new, revealing, commentary by Jack Taylor and most of the important extras from the 2008 DVD including the, almost hour long, Juan Piquer Simón and Paul L. Smith interviews, galleries etc. but many will enjoy the new 1-hour 20-minute, 2015,  42nd Street Memories: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Notorious Street documentary directed by Calum Waddell. It is the story behind the rise and fall of New York's 42nd Street. The cinemas, the films, the people, the crime and the rebirth of the block as "New 42nd Street" and its colorful history. It has Joe Dante, Buddy Giovinazzo, Veronica Hart, Lloyd Kaufman and many others.

The case includes a bonus CD of the original soundtrack - newly remastered from the original studio tapes, liner notes by legendary horror journalist Chas. Balun and Rick Sullivan and an embossed slipcover.

Quite the amazing Blu-ray package of one of the more polished and better realized exploitation gem of the early 80s - if only they were all this good! The film is enjoyable on a few levels - with the gratuitous violence reaching amusing levels but Christopher and Lynda Day George add some class. One of the purest of the genre and the Blu-ray is brilliant. A very strong recommendation! 

***

ON THE DVDs: Arrow Video's transfer of PIECES appears to be derived from the same master as the Grindhouse edition, but the compression is of the Arrow transfer is noisier (it may be acceptable to some viewers, but those who have emailed asking if the Arrow is a significant upgrade will be disappointed).

Like the Grindhouse release, Arrow includes both the English and Spanish audio tracks with optional English subtitles. Besides the scoring, the Spanish opening sequence differs from the American one in that the credits appear during the opening scene on black. The Grindhouse edition handled this by using branching to include one sequence or the other depending on which language track was chosen. Arrow, on the other hand, have retained the English version opening and have edited the Spanish track to conform to the opening. This is very well-executed. Audio tracks sound comparable to the Grindhouse disc (which also offers the Spanish opening sequence as a standalone extra). Both discs utilize the same "cannot be shown" trailer (on the Grindhouse disc, there is a second, gory 30-second trailer that I found by looking through the individual titlesets (VTS 9) on my computer's media player, but I could not find the Easter Egg link for it in the disc's menus).

The main extra on the Arrow is an audio commentary by Fangoria editor emeritus Tony Timpone. It is not scene-specific and they occasionally talk over highlights, but we learn about as much about Timpone (one of the magazine editors thrown to the wolves as a guest at various conservative talk shows looking for an easy target on the subject of violence and misogyny in horror films) as we do about PIECES and other slashers that hit 42nd street in the eighties. We also learn that the film was offered to Terry Levene of Aquarius Releasing (THE BEYOND/ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST/CANNIBAL FEROX) but he turned it down because he thought it was terrible. Although slashers were probably the only horror item Edward L. Montoro's Film Ventures International (BEYOND THE DOOR) were not distributing, Montoro picked up PIECES for its camp value. The killer's image was also more inspired by the comic book character The Shadow than any of Dario Argento's assailants. The Arrow disc also features a pleasant interview with Jack Taylor (interestingly, he says he played the role straight because he did not realize it was supposed to be spoofy or campy). "Pieces of Deconstruction" features reflections on the film from horror filmmakers and critics. The collector's booklet also includes writing by Stephen Thrower (whose book NIGHTMARE USA is highly recommended) but it was not provided for review.

Grindhouse's 2-disc set extras are a bit more focused and feature director Juan Piquer Simon (who died in January of this year) and a long interview with Paul Smith. The optional Vine Theater Experience track (in 5.1) is not a bad way to watch the movie - although it might have been better if the film's mono soundtrack had been placed in the center channel so we could hear it as clearly as the audience). Simon gives an entertaining interview (he also lets us in on how the film's goriest effect was created). Like Taylor's interview on the Arrow disc, Smith's interview is more career-centric. Simon also gets to show off some pieces props (including the puzzle). Some trailers and an audio interview with co-producer Steve Minasian are hidden in the filmographies.

 - Eric Cotenas