Severed Ties

Take a Barker concept ("Body Politic") & mix it with a dash of latter-day Herbert West - the results would in all probability resemble this dumb gore movie. Perhaps seasoned veterans (in this case Sommer & Reed) need a trash backdrop such as this to really let loose - and do they ever! The kind of film, that if your attention wavered (or you needed to go to the toilet...) , by the time you "came back", you'd swear you're watching a collection of out-takes from SOCIETY, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR & RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART 3 (apologies to Brian Yuzna). What the hell; Sommer is GREAT (a performance that would make Tim Curry look like a master of understatement), Johnny Legend's voice would seem more at home in a DeathMetal outfit - even some bargain-basement Freud thrown in for those of an academic bent. Unfortunate proof that a sincere love of horror movies doesn't automatically = superior product; probably a project that should have been produced by those who actively hate the genre in order to gain a degree of perspective.

A young scientist Harry Harrison is continuing his late father's scientific research into limb regeneration with flying colours, but his interferingly dominate mother and her doctor lover want to sell off the serum. When he finds out, there is an accident involving Harry losing an arm. So, he tries out the serum and what eventuates is a genetically deranged arm that has a mind of its own.

Oh we've seen this oh so many times before, but what lifts this very campy and quite rubbery shonky junk is the performance of movie icons Elke Sommer and Oliver Reed. Actually it's not a bad flick by Fangoria films; just there are better ones out there, which are similar in vein. "Servered Ties" simply lacks it own distinctive style. The oddball nature and unpleasant splatter resembled "Re-animator" and even a touch of slapstick stuck out like something from "Evil Dead 2".

The comic story is truly whacked out with it's black humour, but it can get melodramatic and a bit in dry in the fun factor. Surprises do crop up, especially the flick's final outcome. Which is well accepted, as I thought it could have copped out with something more accessible. For a low-budget production the FX makeup can look rigid and very goofy, but there's some grotesque moments that will make you smile than actually cringe. Even a brush of sexual tension streamlines the story, thanks to Elke Sommer's sternly juicy performance as the mother. Oliver Reed is quite humorously deadpan in a wicked sense and he pulls it off extremely well. They were both immensely diverting as the couple you loved to hate. Billy Morrisette is delightful in a erratic performance as Harry. Director Damon Santostefano briskly paces the film and orchestrates some stylish scenes of gripping and bamboozling horror.

Yeah it's juvenile and basically silly nonsense, but you got to hand it to it for some undemanding entertainment.

While I liked the above mentioned films more, SEVERED TIES was definitely a good horror-comedy. It was not quite as gory as i had expected. This is probably because my brother and his girlfriend put way too much hype on it. Don't get me wrong, it did have some sweet gore, just don't expect it to be on the level of EVIL DEAD II. There was also some pretty funny parts in the movie, especially the extremely creepy preaching bum. Some of the stuff that dude said had me rolling. I also liked how the old time music in this movie was similar to the music playing in THE SHINING when Jack Nicholson is at the bar. The setting was cool too, kinda like a colorful cross between RE-ANIMATOR and STREET TRASH.

Basically as far as horror-comedy/splatter flicks go, it was better than EVIL ED but definitely not as good as BAD TASTE or DEAD ALIVE. If you like this be sure to check out BODY MELT, SLIME CITY, and of course the RE-ANIMATOR movies.

"When scientific madness gets the upper hand... and arm!" Young but somewhat crazy scientist Harrison Harrison (yes, you read that right) is experimenting with human limb regeneration. When he loses his right arm in an accident he injects it with a plasma, a new arm does indeed grow but it is part reptilian, it can detach itself and has a mind of its own ("Part lizard, part psycho, part me" Harry says). This film reminded me of the likes of "Basket Case" (1982), "Brain Damage" (1988) and "Re-Animator" (1985), only they are classics and "Severed Ties" most definitely is not. Made by Fangoria Films, unfortunately their skill at producing horror magazines did not translate to making movies, this is a horror comedy that overall is a disappointment. Oliver Reed stars as some kind of Nazi and is Harry's reluctant step dad. He is one of my favourite actors, sadly the 1980's and 90's saw him appear in plenty of bad movies. This is far from being the worst but even so it rates as one of the poorer movies on his filmography. Elke Sommer plays Harry's mother, she was still looking great at 50 plus but I'm afraid here her acting doesn't match her looks. The plot does have a few eccentric characters,Stripes (Garret Morris) being one of the better ones, but it's not enough to make this a riveting watch. At least the special effects, courtesy of KNB, are good. There's not a great deal of gore, apart from a man having his face ripped off and a woman having a finger sawn off, I had hoped for more. This appears to be a little known movie, I have it on VHS but to the best of my knowledge it has never had a disc release. A blu-ray release would certainly make it look better, maybe one day it will happen and peoples' generally low opinions of it may improve. This movie had good ingredients but sadly the end product was disappointing,

My review was written in September 1991 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

Lip-smacking performances by Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer lift the horror film "Severed Ties" above the pack of low-budget shockers. Columbia TriStar Home Video should have good results with this third entry from Fangoria's film unit.

Tongue-in-cheek effort has Sommer as an extremely possessive mother who has her son Billy Morrissette imprisoned to work on perfecting the gene-bonding regeneration experiments left unfinished by her late husband.

Morrissette comes up with the solution, but it's imperfect, resulting in a severed arm that becomes a lizard-like creature with a life of its own.

Film fits into the grotesque horror genre dominated by Frank Henenlotter ("Basket Case"). Combo of grotesque gore effects and over-the-top acting is a winning one.

Oliver Reed as Sommer's partner in evil, planning to exp;loit the son's formula, is a superior villain and Morrissette delivers as the young antihero.