Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Blistering performances.

The list of people who should be shot, drawn and quartered, then shot again, include the screenwriter(s), the director, the producers, the actors, and I'll even throw in the caterer. Didn't anybody READ the screenplay? The premise is not bad--trapped in a cave-in, the guys eventually decide to eat each other, piecemeal (no pun intended). Right after the cave-in, our lead says, "We have no food and damn little water." Maybe two minutes of screen time later, all our guys are sporting bushy beards (tempus fugit), and one of the other actors says, "They should have found us TWO WEEKS ago." Excuse me? You guys were trapped without food or water (or internet access) for MORE THAN TWO WEEKS(!!!) and the only signs we see of it are you look like refugees from a Gillette commercial? No one seems to have lost weight, no one seems to be DEAD FROM STARVATION. And THEN, they all have the energy to pounce upon the victim and sever his arm? Please. When you start with a gigantic flaw of logic and reality so patently imbecilic, you cannot take anything that follows with the slightest punctillio of even suspended disbelief.

I found this browsing Netflix instant streaming. Some of the dialogue is bad but verges on camp. (For example, the doctor saying to his wife about her choice of reading, "Psycho Lovers? Just drop the "psycho" and get to the lovin'!") The acting is acceptable to me; I love that the doctor's wife tries to obscure her Australian accent but can't. The electronic music score is fantastic. Those who like old analog synthesizer scores in horror movies will be reminded of the score for Shock Waves. (But that score seems mostly to be composed, whereas the one for The Severed Arm seems largely improvised in several layers of overdubbing.)I wasn't expecting the plot twist at the end, and that makes the movie fun for me to watch over and over again. The last 6 or 7 minutes is really entertaining, and it's funny, too. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes B- movie horror.

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.

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.