The Severed Arm

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.

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.

"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.

I watched this and immediately got a sense of film from my childhood (films appropriate for my age!) with the synthesizer soundtrack and the station wagons. Anyway back to this.

An annoyingly degraded print didn't help my enjoyment neither did the premise. The film begins with a timeline from five years previously. A group of six men go on some caving expedition and predictably get trapped. With ever growing facial hair their chances of survival are of course reducing until one of the six comes up with an idea that may increase their depleted food stocks! Let's cut off the arm of one of us and eat the human flesh. As you do in these situations.

Drawing lots one poor member of the six has his arm severed as in the title. His life when/if he gets out of this cave ruined as such. What makes the situation even worse is a rescue party arrives very shortly after the dastardly deed is committed.

Quelle surprise a mental breakdown and the action returns to five years later the poor guy in total mental breakdown mode and out for revenge on the other five guys. Murder (what method?), fear, retribution. A daughter of the perpetrator joins the film as the others fight for survival.

Predictable suspense but a horrific premise.