Over the opening credits, we find a man (Francois Montagut) playing Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" on a piano in a garage. It is soon revealed that he is actually listening to a recording and not actually playing at all. This leads to a flashback (scored with Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain") in which he is speeding along a wet road in a car trying to convince another man on motorcycle to slow down before he gets in an accident. The man on the motorcycle eventually does crash. He is revealed to be Abe, the dead husband of Tracy (Joanna Pacula who also did another P.A.C. production around this time LA VILLA DEI VENERDI aka HUSBANDS AND LOVERS based on an untranslated novel by Alberto Moravia) when she is called to the cemetery to discover that his grave has been robbed. Soon the man from the opening is stalking and killing various people who were the recipients of Abe's organs and other body parts after his death and leaving some grisly surprises for Tracy. Detective Michael Livet (Tomas Arana of Michele Soavi's THE CHURCH and THE SECT) is on the case with pressure from his chief (Gianni Garko) to solve the case quickly (though he does take time out for an obligatory romanctic encounter with Tracy). Also on hand are Giovanni Lombardo Radice (HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK) as a gay friend of Abe's as well as Erika Blanc, Susanna Javicoli (SUSPIRIA), and Bruno Corazzari (THE PSYCHIC).
After a series of TV movies during the late eighties, Bava returned to theatrical films with BODY PUZZLE which is one of his slicker films thanks to the contributions of cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller (rather ordinary compared to DEEP RED), editor Piero Bozza (DEMONS), and a sax heavy score by Carlo Maria Cordio where he seems to have laid off the Korg keyboard. The gore is largely restrained but the effects (by Franco Casagni) are more convincing. The climactic twist is surprising but raises some glaring questions. The murder sequences were originally scored with "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's CARMINA BURANA. While this track is as overused as the Mussorgsky track, it probably would've been more effective here (the film was re-released in Italy as MISTERIA with the rescoring after Orff's family objected though they seem to have no problem with some of the other crap the piece appears in). Besides the obligatory romance between detective and damsel in distress, we also get a nonsensical ending with Livet walking into the horizon in wide shot for no apparent reason (he barely comforts Pacula and the police have just arrived on the scene so the investigation is still under way).
The film was released in the US on tape by Triboro Entertainment uncut (they also released edited versions of BLOOD FOR DRACULA and FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN). The box art sported Anglicized pseudonyms for Arana, Montagut, cinematographer Kuveiller (as Lee Kraus), and Bava (as Larry Louis). While the screener's had the original export version credits, the rental tapes replaced the opening credits with these pseudonyms although Arana and Montagut's own names appeared on the end credits. The early DVD release through Image Entertainment featured the original export credits as well. These releases as well as the Japanese tape were fullscreen. I don't know where my English DVDR copy comes from but its letterboxed at 1.66:1 as is the Italian Prism DVD (in 4:3) but the newer DVD from Flamingo is 1.78:1 (16:9) according to the specs at Kult Video. I've also seen a Dutch DVD cover with a DTS logo.
