Body Puzzle - Raro Video (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1992
Director: Lamberto Bava
Writers: Lamberto Bava, Teodoro Corrà, Bruce Martin, Domenico Paolella
Cast: Joanna Pacula, Tomas Arana, François Montagut, Gianni Garko, Erika Blanc, Matteo Gazzolo, Susanna Javicoli, Bruno Corazzari, Ursula von Baechler, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, Giovanni Lombardo Radice

Release Date: October 14th, 2025
Approximate Running Time: 98 minutes 31 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVCC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Stereo Italian, DTS-HD Stereo English
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: $29.95

"Body Puzzle is a thrillingly macabre slasher movie from giallo master Lamberto Bava (Demons). It tells the tragic story of mourning widow Tracy (Joanna Pacula, Gorky Park). Not only has her pianist husband Abe died in an auto accident, but someone keeps breaking into her house and leaving severed body parts lying around. The investigating police officer, Michael (Tomas Arana), strikes up a highly inappropriate romance with her to keep Tracy’s mind off the rapidly accumulating trophies. Michael desperately searches for a connection between the victims, and unearths a shocking secret from Abe’s past that reveals the identity of the killer." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 3.75/5

Body Puzzle comes on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 30.8 GB

Feature: 29.4 GB

The source looks clean and free of any noticeable source debris; flesh tones and colors look correct; image clarity and black levels are strong; and there are no issues with compression. That said, there are times where grain is not as tight as it should be and it looks noisy.

Audio: 4/5 (Both Audio Tracks)

This release comes with two audio options, a DTS-HD stereo mix in Italian and a DTS-HD stereo mix in English. Both tracks sound clean and balanced, and ambient sounds and the score are well-represented. Included are removable English subtitles for the Italian language track and removable English SDH for the English subtitles for the English language track.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a theatrical trailer for Body Puzzle (1 minute 11 seconds, DTS-HD stereo English, no subtitles), a theatrical trailer for The .44 Specialist (3 minutes 22 seconds, DTS-HD mono English, no subtitles) and film historians and Hosts of Wild, Wild Podcast Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett.

Summary:

A psychopath, somehow connected to her deceased husband, sends body parts to the widow of a pianist who died in a car accident. 

Although his career spans five decades (three as a director), Lamberto Bava has yet to gain the recognition that has befallen most of his contemporaries, most notably Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento. He has also spent his entire career living in the shadow of his legendary father, cinematographer/director Mario Bava. Despite this lack of accolades as a filmmaker, his output has never waned as he continues to find work for Italian cinema and an occasional theatrical release.

By the early 1990s, the giallo, a once popular genre, had seen better days. So when Lamberto Bava made Body Puzzle (his first Giallo since Delirium: Photo of Gioia) in 1992, it is not surprising that the film barely registered on most filmgoers' radars. When Body Puzzle was initially released in Italy, it was re-edited and retitled Misteria due to legal issues around the use of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. The new edit under the title Misteria uses Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain in place of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

Body Puzzle follows that blueprint that was laid out by Lamberto's father, Mario, whose first two thrillers, The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace, are considered the starting point for what would become the Giallo genre. While Body Puzzle effectively exploits many of the giallo’s cliches, revealing the killer's identity early on is an area where it goes against the grain. Where a staple of the giallo is a cat-and-mouse game between the killer and their victims, Body Puzzle shifts its focus to the killer's motives. That said, Body Puzzle ends like all giallo films end by tying up all loose ends with the revelation of the killers’ modus operandi.

When it comes to the performances, most of the cast are adequate in their respective roles. Fortunately this is not a major blow since the main ingredient for why Body Puzzle works as well as it does is Lamberto Bava’s solid direction, which does a superb job setting the tone and maintaining momentum. Notable cast members are Gianni Garko (The Psychic) in the role of the police chief; Erika Blanc (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave), who portrays a psychiatrist; and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (City of the Living Dead), who portrays a flamboyant caretaker of a horse stable.

The narrative is briskly paced; it does a superb job crafting tense moments and building momentum. There are an ample number of visually striking moments; the most notable is a scene where a blind school teacher is carved up in front of her blind students. That said, although the kill scenes are not as gory as one would expect from a giallo, they are well-crafted moments of tension. Ultimately, Body Puzzle is one of the better post-1980s gialli, making it a film that fans of the genre should thoroughly enjoy.

Raro Video gives Body Puzzle a strong audio/video presentation and an informative audio commentary.

 

Written by Michael Den Boer