Rest in Pieces (1987)

 So you have that title: how would Spanish director José Ramón Larraz be able to capitalize on it? As a horror film, that title cripples you if you direct it as something seriously. Your film would be disappointing if the direction and tone weren't tongue-in-cheek, at the very least. There is just no way a viewer selecting Rest in Pieces (1987) on Tubi (or rented from shelves in the late 80s and early 90s) could anticipate a property that was anything but bonkers. And this most certainly lives up to the bonkers part. If you have watched Edge of the Axe (1988), members of the cast like Jack Taylor and Patty Shepard returned for Larraz, showing up in Rest in Pieces as peculiar "residents" given charity by the deceased Dorothy Malone, looking to add to their "undead ranks" Malone's niece, played by Lorin Jean Vail (almost always partially naked under a robe or putting it on so Larraz could get her bare breasts). Scott Thompson Baker is Vail's husband, looking to locate $8 million supposedly hidden somewhere on Malone's estate. Carole James was memorable to me as an alluring maid who doesn't hide her interest in Baker, even flirting with him in front of oblivious Vail. 

So are there "pieces" in the film? Yes. A doctor (Segal), among others (including a preening priest, a butler who dresses as a Nazi at some point, a novelist, and a blind man with a cane, groundskeepers, etc.), massacre a musical troupe playing a classic piece for them, expecting a good sum, not anticipating knives stabbed into them repeatedly. Segal seems to be the ringleader, making sure his clan (who were his patients when working on a scientific solution to bring them back from the dead; eventually, he joined them, resurrecting himself somehow...how he did that isn't exactly elaborated in great detail) clean up the bloody mess, chop up the remains, and burns off everything. There is one particularly ghoulish moment involving a severed head in the furnace! Seeing Taylor handing guts and organs while another is using a hatchet to chop up human body meat has to be seen to be believed. The cast, with their various blades (including a cane with a injected knife, switchblades, butcher knives, etc.), seems to relish surrounding that troupe and stabbing each member fiendishly or cold-bloodedly. 

Malone's "undead clan" were lunatics in an asylum who committed suicide so they could be resurrected and free to live at her estate. Vail's mother "took" Malone's husband, leaving a lasting disdain. Vail inherited Malone's estate upon her own suicide (by strychnine), filmed on video (!), not having a clue what was awaiting her and husband, Baker. Malone, despite her corpse being cremated, continues to haunt Vail, as the residents (who pay no rent and act oddly) set in motion plans to have the niece commit suicide, too, so she could join their number. Baker's greed gets the better of him; however, he tries to make amends for that by hoping to interfere with the undead clan's near success in Vail cutting her own throat with a straight-razor.

Heads do come off in this film. Yes, they are "prop heads". It is very obvious now. At the time, the reaction towards that was different. The "magic tricks" of makeup artists weren't so out in the open, but Fangoria and the like started to feature how the gore was done. That curtain was starting to pull back, allowing us to see how the masters were delivering all that yucky stuff. Not too long ago, I revisited Return to Horror High (1987), and a good portion of that satire on the slasher genre pulls back the curtain, a very meta horror-comedy letting us see behind the scenes, looking at "the works".

Vail in the lead seemed strictly cast because of her willingness to be naked a lot. I credit her for tolerating so much nudity because Larraz just doesn't seem interested in her being dressed much at all. I think she got up from a bed to put on her robe with nude breasts four times at least. When tasked to show distress or concern, adding punch to the dialogue for any effect, Vail shows her weaknesses as an actress. Is she attractive and pleasing to the eye? Yes. Is Vail a desirous woman who, on top of Baker in slow motion riding him during the musical troupe piece played to the undead clan, could leave an impression from an aesthetically pleasing standpoint? Sure. Unfortunately, Vail seemed cast by Larraz for those very reasons and just dealt with what doesn't work: her emoting with dialogue. 2/5

The clan pushes Vail into the pool