The Severed Arm

There are some B movies and there's "The Severed Arm". It makes a whole lot of sense in every way. Especially, when the postal worker gives you a special delivery. That delivery contains a severed arm. That arm eventually brings back a memory of some men who ventured into a cave and get trapped for days. During their time, they would resort into cannibalism in order to survive. So they resort in maiming one of victims. After being rescued, they concocted a story to the police about the cave-in. 5 years later, one of the men received a cut up arm in the package. And their nightmare is just the beginning. The doctor is assaulted. And the rest of them have been maimed and/or killed by the limb hacker. Is it the comrade exacting revenge? Or is it a copycat with the same M.O.? You decide. Before Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, this is the first killer in slasher film history. Way before "Prom Night". One must not make hasty remarks about B movies. This movie may have flaws, but it was entertaining. And it's the beginning of Angus Scrimm 6 years before "Phantasm"! 2 out of 5 stars

A group of men exploring an old mine get trapped in a cave in, and after weeks of starvation decide to draw straws, and have the unlucky loser serve up an arm for lunch. After much scuffle the unlucky winner is soon liberated of the offending appendage, and Murphy's law being what it is they are rescued mere seconds afterwards. Fearing for their reputations everyone except obviously the victim agrees to lie and say that they had to cut his arm off because it was crushed in the collapse, but being quite perturbed because he can no longer clap and can only row boats in circles he vows revenge. Things start off a few years later when the man whom first suggested the idea receives a severed arm gift wrapped in the mail, and with few exceptions that's where this movie's creativity ends.

Not particularly bad but overall pretty slow and boring, although there is a little bit of a haunting surprise at the end it's not enough to make it worth while. Be weary of the severely edited 83 minute version missing all the gore, its like the editors took a hacksaw to the film stock and made an already extremely weak movie worse.

3 out of 10, strictly blood and guts, although it doesn't do that all that well either.

When a half-dozen friends become trapped in a cave for a fortnight, they contemplate cannibalism as a means for survival, amputating the arm of one of their companions but then live to regret that decision years later.

David G.Cannon is essentially the star, the anti-hero who conjured the great idea, Paul Carr is his policeman buddy, and John Crawford the surgeon whose limb lopping lunacy lands him top of the list when vengeance comes knocking. Former one-time "Gidget" Deborah Walley has a sympathetic supporting role and whilst overall the acting is serviceable, the direction and narrative is weak and full of contrivances; it's essentially a conceptual outline of a movie without the logic or detail and it suffers accordingly.

There's a couple of memorable amputation scenes that work effectively and the climax is, while not entirely unexpected, still reasonably effective. Overall the film is clumsy, lacking suspense at the crucial moments and threadbare on plot detail. Great title, mediocre film.

What a shame that a movie with this title will only appeal to the usual high school braindead gorehounds. It is nothing of the sort. This is quite a thoughtful and meticulous revenge film. A gang of starving men trapped in a pit finally decide on a desperate day of hunger to prey on the weakest man, thereby cutting off his arm and feeding. Ironically, the men are saved hours later, but the Wounded is spouting crazy cannibalism talk. The remaining men enter into a conspiracy, saying they severed his arm only to save him from a worse cave-in mishap. What follows is a story of revenge in the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO tradition. In retrospect, this film is definitely more of a drama than it is a horror film. But as most people assume this picture is a drive-in splatterfest, it will only attract the immature, shock-seeking crowd. What a shame. The ending of this film is true poetic justice.

although the movie's acting and directing were very amateur, the plot was an amazing concept. the films script was cheesy, but the story in general was genius. the whole time watching the film, i was thinking to myself that if this movie had th chance, it could be very good. again, its not the story that was bad, it was the acting and directing. i mean if u look a the basic idea, a group of people stuck in a cave, fighting one another for each others flesh, thats a winning plot right there, just ready for any big time producer to bite into. if this move is redone today, with a larger budget and a better cast and crew, this could be a very popular film. too bad it just wasn't done right the first time around.