The son of a domineering, and conniving widow (Elke Sommer), whose henchman lover is some kind of Nazi doctor (Oliver Reed), tries to recreate his father's gene experiments. The son loses his arm after getting it caught in a door during an intense argument with them and in an act of desperation tries the formula he's managed to concoct so far on himself. Instead of growing back a normal arm, he grows a sort of tentacled monster arm that can detach, crawl off and kill. He runs away from his mother and befriends a bunch of homeless people who take him in (Garrett Morris's character among them). His mother and her brutal accomplice follow him to get the formula. For B-movie fans, this is a pretty awesome treat. My biggest complaint is that they made this a tragedy with a heroes and not a feel-good revenge movie. I got sick of seeing the hero constantly being stepped on and acting like an idiot. He's got an army and a brain but doesn't seem to know how to use either. I realize that wanting a happy ending is my own personal preference. Others will enjoy it regardless. The effects are cheesy but fun, and the acting is well done on every one's part except for the main character, unfortunately. Sommer and Reed are deliciously wicked. The sets are great and the whole production was well done, in my opinion. If it weren't for the main character's acting and the way the script treated him, I would rate this much higher. In many ways, this reminded me of Idle Hands, which I enjoyed a little more. Definitely recommended for any B-movie lover who likes a cheesy, gooey mess of sci-fi and horror.

Young scientist Harrison Harrison (Billy Morrisette) is working hard to recreate his deceased father's gene splicing experiments. Funded by his mother Helena (Elke Sommer) and her sleazy beau Dr. Hans Vaughn (Oliver Reed), Harrison spends his days in a basement lab trying to splice human DNA with that of a lizard in an effort to regrow limbs. When he conveniently loses his right arm, he injects himself with the fluid and grows a new scaly arm. Wait, isn't this the plot of THE AMAZING SPIDER- MAN? Anyway, after that things get really weird. He runs away from home and lives with some bums led by war vet Stripes (Garrett Morris) who live in the sewer system. When mom comes looking for his formula and steals it back, Harrison creates an army of severed lizard-arms to fight her. This was the third film produced by Fangoria Films (after CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT and MINDWARP) and might be the oddest of the trio. In fact, it is surprising not to see Frank Henenlotter's name on this as it is totally up his alley and the film's look even resembles that of the BASKET CASE sequels. The film is a bit too low budget to be a classic, but it does have some original ideas and good gore effects by KNB. Perhaps most surprising are the performances by Sommer and Reed. They could have totally phoned their respective roles in, but both give it their all. Originally titled ARMY (haha, get it?).

A young scientist is trying to carry on his dead father's work on limb regeneration.His overbearing mother has convinced him that he murdered his own father and is monitoring his progress for her own evil purposes.A young doctor uses reptilian DNA he extracts from a large creature and when his arm is conveniently ripped off a few minutes later,he injects himself with his formula and grows a new murderous arm...Admittedly the special effects in "Severed Ties" are pretty good and grotesque,but the rest of the film is awful.The severed arm is behaving like a snake and kills few people.Big deal.The acting is mediocre and the climax is silly.3 out of 10.

While I liked the above mentioned films more, SEVERED TIES was definitely a good horror-comedy. It was not quite as gory as i had expected. This is probably because my brother and his girlfriend put way too much hype on it. Don't get me wrong, it did have some sweet gore, just don't expect it to be on the level of EVIL DEAD II. There was also some pretty funny parts in the movie, especially the extremely creepy preaching bum. Some of the stuff that dude said had me rolling. I also liked how the old time music in this movie was similar to the music playing in THE SHINING when Jack Nicholson is at the bar. The setting was cool too, kinda like a colorful cross between RE-ANIMATOR and STREET TRASH.Basically as far as horror-comedy/splatter flicks go, it was better than EVIL ED but definitely not as good as BAD TASTE or DEAD ALIVE. If you like this be sure to check out BODY MELT, SLIME CITY, and of course the RE-ANIMATOR movies.