Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) 4/10

So with this update I've decided to dig up some real nasties to see what they're really made of. What I've found is that mostly they're made of crap.

Murder-Set-Pieces is about a German man living in America that makes his money by photographing pornography by day, and by night picking up strippers and hookers only to savagely rape and murder them and sometimes...eat them. Not exactly the type of film that's going to get much exposure outside extreme horror circles, and for good reason. It ain't too good.

First of all there's quite a few scenes of the 9/11 attacks and I don't really see the connection between them and the film. In fact the killer even makes a mention about the attacks but still the connection is unclear. If a film is going to use such powerful and polarizing footage there really needs to be a strongly motivated reason for it. Otherwise, as here, it comes off as confusing and offensive. That being said the film is fairly well acted and shot and has buckets and buckets of gore. Along with that there is also a heap of nudity but its usually used during graphic and stomach churning rape scenes. Ok, so I've seen plenty of extreme films use rape and murder as an extreme way of conveying some sort of message but here I couldn't really find any. So it comes off as exploitative and honestly revolting. I almost turned the film off several times because of just how extreme and disturbing it really is. More then that the plot is riddled with holes and seems to go nowhere for quite a while. I was left wondering where the hell the film was going and if I even wanted to bother going along with it. The killer's own actions throughout the film make no sense. After having killed several women he goes into a porn shop looking for a snuff film. Why bother if you've already done it in real life? Why bother having a girlfriend when he obviously hates women? I mean one could reason it out but really it seems to be placed in the film to try to detract from the savagery found throughout, as well as to give us some characters we care about. They don't motivate much of the plot and they're poorly drawn out at best. The only motivation for the killer's actions that i could find stems from his Nazi grandfather and the killers own beliefs in eugenics.

Murder-Set-Pieces is a repugnant film with a clumsy script that does nothing to deepen or broaden the horror genre. It's more of a poster child for everything that's wrong with horror these days. This one's for those viewers out there looking to test their mettle only.

Gore - High

Nudity - High

Overall - 4/10