Body Parts

Today, I’m going to take a look at a bizarre body horror film from 1991: Body Parts.

The plot of Body Parts is summarized on IMDb as follows:

After losing his arm in a car accident, a criminal psychologist has it replaced with a limb that belonged to a serial killer.

The story for Body Parts is based on a French crime fiction novel from 1965 called Et mon tout est un homme, written by the duo of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud. The pair published numerous works between the 1950s and 1990s, and have had a handful of film adaptations made from their stories. The most famous of these is certainly Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, based on D’entre les morts.

Body Parts was directed and co-written by  Eric Red, whose previous writing credits included Near Dark and The Hitcher. His co-writers for the film were Norman Snider (Casino Jack, Partners), producer Patricia Herskovic, and Joyce Taylor, who has no other recorded writing credits.

The central cast of Body Parts includes Jeff Fahey (The Lawnmower Man, Planet Terror, Machete), Lindsay Duncan (Birdman, Gifted), Kim Delaney (Army Wives, NYPD Blue, Mission to Mars), Zakes Mokae (Waterworld, Vampire in Brooklyn), and Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dune).

The editor for the film was Anthony Redman, whose other cutting credits include Street Fighter, Highlander II: The Quickening, King of New York, Red Heat, and Bad Lieutenant, among others.

The cinematographer for Body Parts was Theo Van de Sande, who has also shot a handful of high-profile films, such as Blade, Volcano, Bad Santa 2, and Grown Ups.

The score for the film was written by composer Loek Dikker, a classical and jazz pianist from the Netherlands. It is one of only a handful of films scores he’s done over his career, and one that ultimately won him a Saturn Award for best music.

The special effects and makeup effects crew for Body Parts included common elements with films such as The Shape of Water, Resurrection, Jason X, Mimic, Near Dark, Jacob’s Ladder, Total Recall, Judge Dredd, Daredevil, Congo, and Cube.

In 1967, there was an attempt to adapt the source material for Body Parts (the novel Et mon tout est un homme) to the screen by Arthur P. Jacobs (Planet of the Apes) and James Bridges, but it never came to fruition.

Body Parts was nominated for four Fangoria Chainsaw Awards: Brad Dourif for Best Supporting Actor, Lindsay Duncan for Best Supporting Actress, Loek Dikker for Best Soundtrack, and Gordon J. Smith for Best Makeup FX. Of the nomnations, only Dourif took home the prize.

According to a Los Angeles Times article from 1991, television advertisements for the movie were pulled in Wisconsin due to the discovery of Jeffrey Dahmer’s collection of numerous dismembered bodies. A Paramount spokesman is recorded as saying:

We pulled our TV ads out of sensitivity to the tragedy in Milwaukee, even though the storyline is not related at all to what happened.

Body Parts was made on a budget of $10 million, on which it managed to only bring in a total of $9.2 million. On top of that lackluster financial performances, critics and audiences were hardly enthusiastic for it. Body Parts currently holds an IMDb user rating of 5.5/10, alongside Rotten Tomatoes scores of 40% from critics and 34% from audiences.

In a piece from Reel Film Reviews, Body Parts was referred to as:

An unapologetically ludicrous horror effort that often skirts the very edges of camp without going entirely over.

Personally, I find that to be a pretty apt description of Body Parts. The movie is centered around a weird original concept that could easily cross over into being goofy, but the film keeps its bearings. and is a lot of fun as a result. Jeff Fahey and Brad Dourif are pretty much perfect in their roles, as they are both sort of eerie character actors capable of chewing scenery. Without their presence, Body Parts could easily have been a real mess.

Appropriately, Body Parts is filled with fun (mostly eponymous) practical effects. However, what really steals the show is a car chase sequence, in which the driver of one car is handcuffed to the passenger in another. To say the lease, the sequence is an absolute blast, and was probably as fun to film as it is to watch.

Overall, Body Parts is a fun, mostly-forgotten horror movie with one of the more outlandish, bizarre plots I’ve come across. If you happen to stumble upon it, I’d recommend just about anyone give it a shot. Additionally, I would be remiss not to recommend the We Hate Movies podcast episode on the film, which is what initially brought my attention to it.