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Murder-Set-Pieces

post #1 of 25
1/10/05 at 7:21pm
Thread Starter 
"Depraved, disgusting, misogynistic, ugly, and interminable, Murder-Set-Pieces is the lowest form of cinematic life, a movie so utterly degenerate it makes you wish that indie filmmakers had to prove a basic standard of decency in order to buy a camera."

-Village Voice

MURDER-SET-PIECES is currently open in NYC at the Village East Cinemas. Many of you will never get to see this horror flick. However, I dared experience the film, only showing at this one theater, on my birthday yesterday.

There is something truly beautiful about venturing out on a Sunday afternoon to see a grotesque, blood as all hell horror film only playing in the Village. Man, oh, man, this sort of thing used to be commo- to me, that's an amazing thought. While the DVD and video revolution has all but eliminated this practice, MURDER-SET-PIECES keeps it alive.

It's a movie will terrible writing, atrocious acting and no story other than the journeys of a modern Neo-Nazi photographer and his Oedipal eccentricities, which he excises by murdering women in Las Vegas. It's morally reprehensible, featuring very realistic and disgusting murder scenes and the debasement and abuse of real-life prostitutes and even children. It even features such iconography as Adolph Hitler and 9/11, plot strands that go nowhere.

And yet, it's a one of a kind. Genuinely sickening and scary, MURDER-SET-PIECES is soaked in blood and berefit of a concience, the type of film that makes even the hardest of movie watchers turn away.

And for that, I recommend it highly. If you are a big horror fan anywhere in NYC, it's your duty to support the grotesque, grimy, disgusting filmmaking of Nick Palumbo, who spent $2.2 million to bring this sickening tome to life.

Cameos include Tony Todd, Cerina Vincent and Gunnar Hansen.

Here's some pub from writer-director Nick Palumbo... I think he's full of shit, but whatever...


Hello. My name is Nick Palumbo. I am the producer/writer/director of the new
horror film “Murder-Set-Pieces”. It opens January 7th at NYC's City Cinemas
Village East. If you are taking the time to read this, I thank you. You’re
either a fan of horror, indie, controversy, or bored out of your mind. I’ll take
any reason and thank you again. “Murder-Set-Pieces” has sort of taken on a life
of its own. I’m sure by now you have heard the rumors: “director arrested by
police”, “Vegas police shut down film supposed ‘snuff’ film,”, “Technicolor and
Deluxe in Hollywood throw out and ban ‘Murder-Set-Pieces’”, “local children
‘kidnapped’ for underground horror flick-police make several arrests”, “the
slasher film that is too real”-(ad nauseum). Unfortunately for me, this is all
true. It sounds like a new version of “Blair Witch” to hype the film, but I’ll
repeat: it’s true. What was it about this film that affected so many people
during the production and post-production process? Why was Hollywood (I’ll be bold and say the most liberal city I have ever been to) so horrified by dailies without sound? Well, we may never know for sure,
but I have a pretty good idea. Bear with me for a moment. Living in America in
2004 is the best place to be in the world. We all know that. We also know that
indie horror films have been at the forefront of American Cinema since Tobe
Hooper unleashed his “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in 1974. Every few years a
low-budget horror film seems to “break thru” to mainstream movie- goers. And we
read about these films making the festival circuit, getting a few good reviews,
a Lion’s Gate or Miramax picks it up and: you show up (yes, you, my fellow
filmmakers) and pay your ten bucks and you leave pissed off. “That was it?”,
you say to your girlfriend (who talked you into going in the first place) “Shit,
I could have made a better film in my sleep” Then, a year later you’ll read how
the director signed a three-picture deal, and he’s dating Paris Hilton, and: (shocker!) he really doesn’t like horror films! “I just wanted to break into the business, and I figured horror was a
cheap way to go, and I did it and now I want to move on!” I have seen this
scenario play out so many times that, well, I’m finally writing about it. The
people at the labs in L.A, the cops who broke down the doors to our set (guns
drawn-especially after what they saw), the crew members who walked off the set,
etc..etc…these people had never seen a REAL horror movie. Oh, it’s all fantasy,
it’s all made up, and (I wrote it on Final Draft-version 6) but…to them it’s
REAL. This serial killer I created is REAL. Why this reaction? Why this
disbelief? Why this hatred? Because I am REAL. Not a phony motherfucker, but a
lucky one, and true to myself. And I created my own reality. Being a cinephile
and a horror nut I needed to make a film that I would pay to see. So I got
lucky, I raised a ton of cash, (enough to shoot on 35mm) and made the film I wanted to pay to see. To say I was shocked by everyone’s reaction to the film is an understatement. Why can’t these people
feel what I feel? See what I see? Appreciate what I consider art? Why did
Lions Gate walk out of my film? Why? Why? Why? After a while and a near
nervous breakdown….why not??? They’re not me, and I’m not them. After a bit of
time, I realized something: the fans, the horror nuts, the indie lovers, the
art-house crowd, (the guy that got turned down in high school by the hot
blonde) they…haven’t seen it! There is hope, yet. Yes! Let’s take it to the
people! Let them decide. I’ve been called evil, misogynistic, a woman-hater,
child-abuser, been ostracized by my family and still: I am here. I made the
film I wanted and had final cut. It’s getting released in theatres without one
frame cut. (There is a Santa Clause, after all!) Did I set out to make the most
violent horror film ever made, to shock people and disgust people and have people hate me? Well, no. I set out to make what I (no one else) thought would be an entertaining, frightening thrill-ride that I would pay to see. End of story. Have I succeeded? Time will tell, but…we are here: you
and me. My fellow filmmakers and my art-house crowd. You may hate it, too. You
may hate me. You might find yourself getting angry or sick. You might walk out
of the theatre….or you might love it and want your picture taken with me. Either
way, I’ll be happy. Because you people are the REAL DEAL, and you are, well,
REAL. That’s all that matters. And I couldn’t be happier.
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post #2 of 25
1/10/05 at 7:23pm
Didn't that Nick guy shill on CHUD for this movie?
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post #3 of 25
1/10/05 at 7:25pm
This films sounds like it will piss off critics on both the left and the right and offend everybody.
I'm there, dude......
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post #4 of 25
1/11/05 at 7:35am
Count me in ....

I wonder if Lions Gate really walked out ..... cool PR pitch either way ........ Granted, I haven't seen it, but I read a similar review in the NY Post ................ Nice contrast to the posing of guys like Eli Roth and Rob Zombie ...
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post #5 of 25
1/11/05 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Palumbo
(There is a Santa Clause, after all!)
Yes, Virginia, there is a Tim Allen.
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post #6 of 25
1/12/05 at 5:29pm
Thread Starter 
There's a nice little review on the main page of www.creature-corner.com that is fairly apt, in my opinion.
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post #7 of 25
1/12/05 at 6:34pm
Ok-- my curiosity is officially peaked. Is this going to get a wide release? I live in Tucson and it seems like we are the last to get anything. As bloody as they are making this out to be, I'd hate to be relegated to seeing it on DVD as opposed to the cinema.
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post #8 of 25
1/13/05 at 3:03am
Well, now I have to see it.
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post #9 of 25
1/13/05 at 1:45pm
Another scathing review from FANGORIA.COM:

MURDER-SET-PIECES


Reviewed by MICHAEL GINGOLD

Mike sez…

MURDER-SET-PIECES is a sick, repellent and ultimately offensive movie—and no, I don’t mean that as a compliment in a backhanded way, though writer/director/producer Nick Palumbo and his distributor would no doubt take it as one. This is the kind of production that works so hard to be a film which can be advertised as "Shocking! Controversial!" that it forgets—or doesn’t bother—to include anything else of interest.

It’s also the kind of movie that some people like to call "daring," except that in a way, this is the safest type of horror filmmaking there is. No attempt need be made at creating a story, characters or a point; just string together a series of atrocities, and you’re guaranteed a certain amount of attention, praise from those for whom gore is the be-all and end-all of the horror experience and negative publicity (and you know there’s really no such thing). In this case, Palumbo has been making much of the fact that his film was rejected by three top processing labs in LA because of its extreme content. Well, fine, but he would have received the same response had he submitted child porn—and to be sure, his use of children in MURDER-SET-PIECES is nearly as pornographic as if they had been involved in sexual material (more on that later).

At least you can’t accuse the movie of having a misleading title. MURDER-SET-PIECES is just that: a series of increasingly graphic butchery tableaux (all females, of course, with one exception), perpetrated by a character known only as "The Photographer" (Sven Garrett). It’s fitting that he’s given such a generic handle, since he’s largely a collection of standard-issue serial-killer tics: He has flashbacks to a troubled childhood with a slutty mommy, works out till he’s grunting and sweaty, slaughters hookers and strippers because he wants to cleanse society of evil, yadda yadda yadda. The only attempt at a fresh wrinkle is the fact that he’s the grandson of a Nazi and thus sometimes rants in German, but that doesn’t really inform his pathology in any meaningful way (after all, some of his tall blonde victims look pretty close to the Aryan ideal to me); it’s just another signifier that he’s a Very Bad Person. Toward the end, Palumbo slips footage of the burning World Trade Center into one of his nightmares, but it’s a meaningless gesture, a hot-button image designed to get a knee-jerk reaction out of conservative viewers.

The murders themselves are equally calculated to outrage, and become more grisly and sadistic as the film goes on. Yet because there’s no attempt to develop characters for any of the young women before they’re raped, tortured and killed, and because the movie views them the same way the villain does (as objects to be leered at and then destroyed), there’s no genuine terror evoked, just the queasy sense that we’re being asked to identify with the murderer. In this context, the fact that most of the victims are prostitutes or nude dancers is both a copout and distasteful. No need to be concerned about these women, the movie seems to be saying—just enjoy their naked bodies, and check out what we can do to them with special FX makeup!

The movie really hits bottom when The Photographer begins adding little girls to his hit list. Again, this has nothing to do with the motivation for his mania; how his desire to rid the world of sin leads him to murder preteens is beyond me. It just plays as if both the maniac and Palumbo simply got bored of targeting adults, and decided to go after kids. The results—one young girl being savagely hacked with a butcher knife, and another being slashed on her face and body with a straight razor—are among the most repugnant scenes in recent memory, and raise troubling thoughts about not only Palumbo’s state of mind, but that of the parents who would allow their children to take part in a film like this.

This bloodshed, it seems needless to say, isn’t strung together with anything resembling a plot. The closest MURDER-SET-PIECES gets is sort of a subplot involving a young woman named Charlotte (Valerie Baber) who’s dating The Photographer, and whose more perceptive little sister Jade (Jade Risser) can’t convince her that the guy is bad news. None of this is remotely plausible; it goes unexplained why Charlotte would be so hung up on such an obvious creep, or why Jade, who’s terrified of him, would nonetheless go searching through his house in the middle of the night—after hitching a ride with a weird motorist played by TEXAS CHAINSAW’s Ed Neal. Other horror-celeb cameos include CHAINSAW’s Gunnar Hansen as a sleazy mechanic (who’s got a Nazi flag in his living room—hey, he’s a Very Bad Person too!), CABIN FEVER’s Cerina Vincent as one of the only girls who doesn’t take her clothes off (and is thus allowed to live) and Tony Todd as a porn shop proprietor in an over-the-top sequence that seems to have wandered in from a Troma production, and allows Palumbo to repeatedly plug his previous movie NUTBAG. (But at least it provides the aforementioned exception to the female-victims-only rule.)

It all adds up, sadly, to a film that seems designed precisely to elicit reviews just like this. MURDER-SET-PIECES is essentially critic-proof; call it on its repulsive qualities, and you’re playing right into its creator’s hands. It’s a shame, too, because Palumbo is clearly a moviemaker with a good deal of technical facility, and MURDER-SET-PIECES has a polish well beyond many such homegrown horror productions. But his material is hackneyed, misogynistic and, frankly, dull when it’s not indulging in savagery, and it’s motivated by the misguided idea that all that’s required to create "the ultimate horror film" is to out-grotesque anything that’s gone before. The returns are diminishing, and the results are depressing. Caveat emptor.
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post #10 of 25
1/14/05 at 5:39pm
Still like to see it, through the last review tampered my enthusiam a lot. If it is just a lot of over the top gore with out any attempt at story or halfway believable charecters, then it is junk. Not because of the gore, but because of the lack of anything else.
You know, I am a cynical bastard, but I admit that that so many people seem to be attracted to out and out nihilism scares the shit out of me.
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post #11 of 25
1/15/05 at 4:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dudalb
Still like to see it, through the last review tampered my enthusiam a lot. If it is just a lot of over the top gore with out any attempt at story or halfway believable charecters, then it is junk. Not because of the gore, but because of the lack of anything else.

A valid argument. Anyone that calls this film morally reprehensible and artistically bankrupt isn't going to get a vehement arguement from me.

But the Fangoria writer was correct in that Nick Palumbo has technical talent behind the camera. This is far more polished than similar gory, plotless films like DARKNESS or NEKROMANTIK, much more well done, and for a second feature on a shoestring budget, not absent of style. Palumbo is nothing if not a talent; it terrifies me to imagine this guy with a decent script.
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post #12 of 25
1/16/05 at 12:05pm
I'll probably try to have a look at it at some point if it screens at a festival or something, then leave after 10 minutes, both grossed out and bored out of my skull.
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post #13 of 25
1/16/05 at 12:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl is the Universe
Well, now I have to see it.
Yeah, I'm kinda thinking I do, too.
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post #14 of 25
1/16/05 at 11:38pm
I can get into all kinds of horrific scnes and I'm a total gore hound but I just can't handle rape scenes very well. I may or may not check this one out. Maybe when I'm really bored.
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post #15 of 25
1/17/05 at 2:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Floydian_Trip
I can get into all kinds of horrific scnes and I'm a total gore hound but I just can't handle rape scenes very well. I may or may not check this one out. Maybe when I'm really bored.


Actually, I think all of the sex in this film is consensual. Or at least it starts out as so.
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post #16 of 25
1/17/05 at 4:42pm
As much as I love horror movies and have no problem with gore, from what I have heard, I have no desire to see this film at all. The problem I have is with the reported abuse of the two year old child in the movie. As was mentioned in the Fangoria boards, when a child is this young, there is no acting. Supposedly the scene in question is equally sickening and reprehesible.....I can take horror and gore, just not when it involves young children.
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post #17 of 25
1/18/05 at 2:38am

not a bad film

I saw this movie in NEW YORK on Friday night and the place was packed . It was cool to see a slasher film on the big screen that is not a PG-13 NU-HORROR. It seemed that most of the people enjoyed the movie . I thought it was good. I went in thinking I WAS NOT GOING TO LIKE IT but it was well crafted. The GORE was great I wish there was more. I give the director credit , some of the stuff with the kids was sick. I think I need to see it again in a few days.... let it soak in.

I am a huge fan of the August Underground movies. The first was really freaked me out... have you guys seen these flicks? Fred Vogel the director of these films has a cameo in M-S-P. (spoiler)He is the guy who robs the store, the same scene with Tony Todd. That scene was Killer.
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post #18 of 25
1/20/05 at 2:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoggle5000
As much as I love horror movies and have no problem with gore, from what I have heard, I have no desire to see this film at all. The problem I have is with the reported abuse of the two year old child in the movie. As was mentioned in the Fangoria boards, when a child is this young, there is no acting. Supposedly the scene in question is equally sickening and reprehesible.....I can take horror and gore, just not when it involves young children.

For the sake of posterity, I think the child was younger than two years old. Quite a bit younger, in fact.
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post #19 of 25
1/20/05 at 5:50pm

In case you have yet to read it

I have posted an interview with the director of this film. Nick Palumbo.

You can view it byclicking here , if you really give a shit.

Dave
Creature Corner
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post #20 of 25
1/20/05 at 9:30pm
Good interview Dave. Now I'm interested in seeing it.
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post #21 of 25
1/20/05 at 9:37pm
Sick exaggeration of the movie Haute Tension. I hated Haute Tension, so I don't think MDP will get much love from me. Can't understand people who look at this as entertainment. Films like that make people have predjudices against horror movies, horror movie influences on people (esp teens) and people who admit to like horror movies.

The interview makes Palimbo look like such a 13 year old geek with braces, who searches the internet for extreme material of gore and disgust, just to put it in his "wohw look how extreme tihs is!" list.
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post #22 of 25
1/21/05 at 4:16pm
"The interview makes Palimbo look like such a 13 year old geek with braces, who searches the internet for extreme material of gore and disgust, just to put it in his "wohw look how extreme tihs is!" list.'
I agree. And it pretty obvious the kind of geek you describe is the target audience.
The guy who post here under the name of "Fright" is a perfect example of the kind of audeince Palimbo is after. "Fright" has become a fanatic advocate of the film, and all he talks about is how extreme and gruesome the film is,combined with praise of Palimbo as being "daring". He never talks about seeing the films because it has worth as a film.
I will give the guy a little credit as a publicist, though. He is delibertly creating a controversy about the film just to con the suckers in. Now a certain percentage of people will go see it just to see what all the shouting is about.
Palimbo has a perfect right to make his film, theaters have a perfect right to show it, but I have perfect right to say it looks like a piece of shit, and Palimbo looks like the cinematic quivilent of a circus sideshow barker,selling the public crap by creating controversy about it.
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post #23 of 25
1/24/05 at 4:58am

Classic? Yes One Day

I think this movie will one day will be a classic just for its content. I feel the same way about the August Underground movies, Scrapbook and so on. Do you think people 10 years from now talking about White Noise?..NOWAY These indies really got something, people need to get turned on to these types of movies and see what real horror is. There are so many good indie films out there that are trying really hard. I saw a film called Bone Sickness, low budget yes but pretty F**KING GOOD. BUT NOTHING ROCKED MY WORLD LIKE THE AUGUST UNDERGROUND FILMS !these movies made me want to puke. in a good way ha ha . the stuff looked too real. I can see why Palumbo used TOE TAG the FX just look so good. when is M-S-P coming to DVD?
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post #24 of 25
1/31/05 at 4:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FRIGHT
A new review from critic Rusty White at ENTERTAINMENT INSIDERS:

"...most serial killers are ugly, out-of-shape losers with low paying jobs and no social skills. They are a pathetic lot who should be wiped from the face of the earth."
I find a suggestion of mass murder coming from somebody sickened by serial killers downright hypocritical.

I'm not above dealing in some disturbing cinema as evidenced by my companies upcoming comic book adaptation of "Lucker The Necrophagous" but it's obvious this movie isn't working with much. If it was, why the hype from Palumbo? Why not sit by silently and allow the movie and the skill to speak for itself. Why all the gassing, back patting and taglines?

I'm certainly not saying the movie is good or bad, just that this kind of pimping insults my intelligence in the same way the big Hollywood, plastic fantastic directors do by blowing smoke up my butt and insisting their films are "HORROR FILMS FIRST AND FOREMOST".

I'll reserve judgement until after I see the movie. I am, afterall, a horror movie fan. I will be seeing it but perhaps I'll wait a year or two until the whiners, fanatics and Palumbo calm down a bit.
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post #25 of 25
12/8/05 at 7:07am
well, i have 'nick palumbo's' directors cut of M-S-P !! which is sadly now out of production :-( this DVD has a running time of 90 mins...whereas the imdb site gives it a 105 mins runtime :-( however, i am awaiting a '2hr 45' workprint of it on DVD R...will post my thoughts once i've seen it.....cheers zanner.
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