The Severed Arm

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.

This is far better than some make out and certainly more worthy of attention than it's low average score would suggest. However appropriate the title, I guess it does give the impression that there may be more blood and guts than there is and some may be disappointed in that respect. The direction is certainly uneven and the acting perhaps more so and maybe there could have been less driving about in the dark but I still enjoyed it. There are some standout scenes including two excellent lift sequences and the early scenes down the cave are pretty grim. I thought the crazy DJ was going to irritate but in the end I found his antics quite endearing, especially as we (and he) are anticipating the inevitable. Admittedly the film slows now and again but never for long and the great ending is worth the wait.

One of the unfortunate heroes hints at the sixty sailors lost at sea;but there's also a French nursery rhyme ("IL était un petit navire" =once upon a time a little ship )which goes like this :

"They drew straws To know who would be eaten.

The lot fell on the youngest, The cabin boy who set to crying Next they ponder with what sauce The poor child will be eaten."

With gore kept to the minimum,the scene in the cave (which follows the plot of the folk song ,so to speak ) ,and the terrifying ending (which will make your hair stand on hair ) make stuff like "saw" almost look like fairytales. Remember it was made in the early seventies!

There's a slight sag in the tension towards the middle of the movie which has a tendency to become repetitive ,but it regains its strength in the final sequences .

A must for horror movies!

"The Severed Arm" has a very low score on IMDb and the reviews are generally unfavorable. Oddly, I actually liked the film and thought it very unique and worth seeing. I could be wrong, but I was surprised as the title sure makes it sound like a terrible film.

The first part of the film is told as a flashback. A group of six guys go exploring in a creaky old cave. Unfortunately, one of the guys is a stupid idiot and he causes a cave-in...and they are trapped for two weeks. Not surprisingly, they are starving when one of them insists that they only way to survive is to eat PART of one of them. He insists that they draw lots and the loser is eaten...in part. Not all of them are in agreement but he pushes them to do this. After ripping off the poor loser's arm, a rescue party arrives--and the folks all agree to lie about what happened and say that the man with the missing are was injured and they HAD to do surgery on him!

Five years pass. Now bad things start happening to the five who perpetrated this arm-carnage. Some are dismembered...some are killed. But there is a special punishment for the ring leader!

I thought the film very original, quite clever and set a wonderful and tense mood. Is it a great film? Nah...but for what it is, it's surprisingly watchable. Also, I was glad that the who arm ripping off angle was not overly gross and gratuitous!

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.