Body Parts (1991) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 28, 1991

Six days prior to the publication of this ad, the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested. Shocking and lurid details of his heinous crimes were splashed across newspapers, news broadcasts, and tabloids and any and all potential interest in a horror movie titled Body Parts, and the drew inspiration for a novel titled Choice Cuts, evaporated.

Very few, if any, of the general public were the slightest bit interested in the film. If they knew of its existence, that is. I think Paramount Pictures had already yanked the television and radio spots for the film, both out of respect for Dahmer's victims and the not at all unexpected, and easy to understand, complaints from upset viewers.

Body Parts both arrived and departed from the theaters and drive-ins in under a month, tops. I think it might have been available on home video by the end of September, 1991. That is where I saw it.

I remember liking Loek Dikker's odd sounding score, but also thinking the film felt a tad too lean. It felt both perfunctory in its storytelling and character development. Yet there are a few lively moments, including a truly bonkers and logic defying action sequence involving a passenger in one car that gets handcuffed to the driver of another.

It is an entertaining oddball of a movie, and something of a minor cult classic due to that fact, but it is also easy to see the missed opportunity to make something a bit, um, meatier with the concept.