'Going to Pieces' is a good and quite complete review of the history of the slasher movie genre. It succeeds to show quite well the origins of the genre in the American horror movies, and then provides quite an extensive review of the development and pick of popularity it reached in the 80s, its decline and its renaissance in the late 90s. Bringing to screen interviews with many of the major creators of some of the more popular films, fans, as well as critics of the genre makes the viewing interesting.
Yet I could not escape the feeling that the authors focused to much on making an entertaining film rather than making a more serious analysis and examining more extensively the context of the slasher movies in the evolution of cinema. The almost exclusive American focus is one flaw, only the influence of the Italian movies of the 70s is mentioned, but what about the classical German films, or what about the contemporary Far East movies? Today the genre is more popular in Japan and Korea than any other place on the planet and some major movies came out from there in the last few years. Connections with related genres like zombies movies and even horror science fiction could have been more explored as well. As it stands 'Going to Pieces' risks to become one of the objects of interest in the genre it deals with, a film targeting mainly the same captive audience who watches these movies anyway.
Yet I could not escape the feeling that the authors focused to much on making an entertaining film rather than making a more serious analysis and examining more extensively the context of the slasher movies in the evolution of cinema. The almost exclusive American focus is one flaw, only the influence of the Italian movies of the 70s is mentioned, but what about the classical German films, or what about the contemporary Far East movies? Today the genre is more popular in Japan and Korea than any other place on the planet and some major movies came out from there in the last few years. Connections with related genres like zombies movies and even horror science fiction could have been more explored as well. As it stands 'Going to Pieces' risks to become one of the objects of interest in the genre it deals with, a film targeting mainly the same captive audience who watches these movies anyway.