The Severed Arm (1973)

"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!

6 men go into a mine which caves in trapping them. They have no food . After several days they decide to draw straws. Whoever gets the short straw is going to get a body part cut off to feed the everyone. One man loses and they cut his arm off. Right after severing his arm they hear people coming to rescue them. So they devise a story to lie and say his arm was lost in the cave-in. And that he's been delirious for a week, claiming they took his arm for food. Years later one by one the survivors gets brutally attacked or killed. I Really like this movie a lot. Sure the actings below average but the story was good enough to hold my attention

Like everyone else who've seen this and commented on it here I will be reviewing an obviously cut version, as there wasn't a single drop of blood in the entire thing, but all of the boring stuff was still there, unfortunately. The film opens in a morgue. A one armed man picks up a surgical saw and saws off a dead body's arm. Next we cut to a parcel. A long box, just big enough for say, an arm! After the credits the parcel is delivered to Jeff (David G.Cannon). It turns out that it is indeed a severed arm. He heads straight for his friend, the local Doctor (John Crawford). They discuss the situation. The Doctor talks of a nightmarish five years, the film then goes into flashback. Six men, Jeff, Doc, police man Mark (Paul Carr), a radio DJ 'Mad Man Herman' (Marvin Kaplan), Bill (Vince Martorano) and Ted (Ray Dennis) are trapped in a cave-in when 'Mad Man Herman' starts to hit the wall with a hammer, idiot. Doc states "we have no food and little water". Two weeks pass and the men are starving. Jeff tells them a story of sailors trapped on a raft out at sea and how they survived by eating one of their dead, and he suggests they must do the same to survive. But non of them are dead yet, so Jeff (who put him in charge?) helpfully says they draw straws and the loser has to give a part of his body up for the survival of the group. Ted is the unlucky loser. They cut his arm off and ate it, apparently anyway as I didn't actually see it happen, as I've said the version that seems to be available at the moment appears to be censored, mine certainly was. However, not long after the men are rescued, Jeff (once again) convinces the men to lie and say Ted's arm was trapped under rocks during the cave-in and that they had to cut his arm off to save his life. They all agree, except Ted obviously. As Ted is lifted in an ambulance he states "I won't forget!". Both Jeff and Doc are sure Ted sent the arm and decide to call a meeting at Docs house later that night. Everyone turns up, they decide not to go to the police for fear of their careers. Meanwhile outside a one armed man with an axe is watching them through a window. Is it Ted? What does he want? Who will survive? Watch it to find out. Directed by Thomas S.Alderman this is a pretty awful film. Technically poor on every level, the 'electronic music' as it's described in the opening credits becomes very annoying, acting is poor as is the photography. But I liked the idea and thought the script was OK, don't forget that this was made way before many highly regarded slasher films, the central idea was neat, the killer actually had a decent motive this time. I also really liked the twist ending (I just about made it that far!), even if it's a little silly, it's entertaining. With all the gore supposedly cut out the film drags badly, lots of padding like people walking and driving around, it gets very boring incredibly quickly. It's a terrible film as it is, but I liked the ending and the idea behind the film. Still impossible to recommend though.

This movie is quite obviously a low-budget film. It does, however, manage to be watchable in spite of its lowly budget. There are some scenes that are reasonably well done and the overall film wasn't AS bad as I expected. Having said that, this is no masterpiece. It certainly deserves a place in the annals of bad movie-making. Don't anyone think for a moment that this is somehow anything other than a cheap, cheesy suspense/horror. It is better than some, however. And it could have been worse. I gave it a "3" out of "10."