A custom action figure based on the 1982 slasher film, ‘Pieces’ by Dan Polydoris of Death By Toys. $40 (two available).
 
Dan Polydoris, the founder of Death By Toys, has been creating small numbers of action figures based on films from the 80s since 2010, showing a particular affinity for the horror genre. Polydoris’ plastic characters quickly became super popular with collectors, especially those who, like Polydoris, dig on the “strange, offbeat, and absurd.” For his latest batch of action figures, Polydoris focused on eight different films from the decade including things like 1980’s Maniac, the 1981 Canuck cult classic, Happy Birthday to Me, and 1982’s Pieces starring the great Christopher George. If you just said “YES” to all of that, then listen up because I’m going to tell you how you *might* be able to make one of Polydoris’ newest rare figures yours.

Starting today, Thursday, July 20th at 12:30 CST, a small number of the figures will be available for purchase at the Death By Toys online store, and when I say small numbers I mean really small numbers. For example, Polydoris only made two of the hilarious killer “Kebab Playsets” from Happy Birthday to Me which will run you 40 bucks each. The packaging is also pretty fantastic as it uses images from the original back-in-the-day VHS tape cover art. Nice. All eight figures along with their various prices posted below. Happy hunting!
 

The hysterical ‘Happy Birthday to Me’ “Kebab Playset.” $40 (two available).
 

My absolute favorite of the bunch based on the 1980 film ‘Maniac,’ the “Bloody Scalp.” 30 bucks each (five available).
 
Many more after the jump…

 
“You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre,” is the infamous tagline from its iconic poster art, but I think the preferred, more succinct Pieces tagline comes below the poster’s fold: “It’s exactly what you think it is.”

There was no question in 1982 when people saw that poster hanging in a theater lobby or saw the trailer as to what they were getting. It was, as advertised, exactly what they thought it was. Citizen Kane it t’weren’t.

While I missed that original theatrical run, I did get to see Pieces in 1985 on the original Vestron Video VHS release of the film. As a young gorehound, it quickly became one of my favorite movies in the splatter genre. What it lacked in pretty much every single aspect of filmcraft, it more than made up for in buckets of blood and grue. The special effects set-pieces, the life’s blood, if you will, of any great slasher film, were so over-the-top for the time period that Pieces became a heralded masterpiece among the Fangoria-subscription crowd.
 

Original Vestron VHS box art
 
The film begins in the 1940s with a small child being scolded by his domineering mother who catches him putting together a pornographic jigsaw puzzle. The child, angry at having his puzzle taken away, returns with an axe and hacks his mother to bits. Everything then flashes forward to the 1980s where horny students on a college campus start getting butchered in various ways—mostly by chainsaw—by a mysterious killer who is saving pieces of the victims to construct a human jigsaw puzzle.The premise itself is so absolutely retarded, the movie can’t fail.
 

 
As I got older, I began to appreciate Pieces for being more than just a gore flick. It became more and more apparent to me upon subsequent viewings and shares with friends that the film, in spite of, or because of, its many flaws is highly entertaining. At times it’s riotously funny. There are certain scenes that come to mind for myself, but any fan of the film would likely name the same scenes—possibly quoting them verbatim. There are scenes in Pieces that, perhaps because of the ESL problems of a Spanish production, or because of simple low-budget ineptitude, are unintentionally hilarious. There’s of course the “smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed” scene, and Lynda Day George’s infamous “BASTARD!” scene:
 
More ‘Pieces’ after the jump…