Severed Ties (1992)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply A Masterpiece

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

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.

A young scientist Harry Harrison is continuing his late father's scientific research into limb regeneration with flying colours, but his interferingly dominate mother and her doctor lover want to sell off the serum. When he finds out, there is an accident involving Harry losing an arm. So, he tries out the serum and what eventuates is a genetically deranged arm that has a mind of its own.Oh we've seen this oh so many times before, but what lifts this very campy and quite rubbery shonky junk is the performance of movie icons Elke Sommer and Oliver Reed. Actually it's not a bad flick by Fangoria films; just there are better ones out there, which are similar in vein. "Servered Ties" simply lacks it own distinctive style. The oddball nature and unpleasant splatter resembled "Re-animator" and even a touch of slapstick stuck out like something from "Evil Dead 2".The comic story is truly whacked out with it's black humour, but it can get melodramatic and a bit in dry in the fun factor. Surprises do crop up, especially the flick's final outcome. Which is well accepted, as I thought it could have copped out with something more accessible. For a low-budget production the FX makeup can look rigid and very goofy, but there's some grotesque moments that will make you smile than actually cringe. Even a brush of sexual tension streamlines the story, thanks to Elke Sommer's sternly juicy performance as the mother. Oliver Reed is quite humorously deadpan in a wicked sense and he pulls it off extremely well. They were both immensely diverting as the couple you loved to hate. Billy Morrisette is delightful in a erratic performance as Harry. Director Damon Santostefano briskly paces the film and orchestrates some stylish scenes of gripping and bamboozling horror.Yeah it's juvenile and basically silly nonsense, but you got to hand it to it for some undemanding entertainment.

Severed Ties starts with an opening narration by the main character who is sitting alone in a room in a wheelchair, Harrison Harrison (Billy Morrissette, yes Harrison x2 is his name!) that goes something like this "red, blood red on white, nothing else would do. I got so desperate for the visions I would look for ways to cut myself. I wasn't always in this chair, there was a time when I could run and play but Mother never let me play. She told me I wasn't like the other boys, that I was special and besides like she always said it was too, too dangerous". He then has a sketchy incomplete flashback to when his Father died in a fire. The main bulk of the film is told in flashback. Harrison is continuing his Fathers work in a laboratory in the basement of his Mothers, Helena Harrison (Elke Sommer) large mansion. Harrison is trying to develop a serum that regenerates organs and skin. He is basing his research on reptile genes as the reptile possesses the ability to regrow parts of it's body, well apparently anyway. Harrison finally succeeds in creating the serum. Helena, along with her accomplice Dr. Hans Vaughan (Oliver Reed, he must have needed beer money badly!) tries to sell the serum to a company called 'Nordkem' for a large sum of money. Harrison is against the idea as the serum should be available for everyone. In a struggle an accident occurs and Harrisons arm is severed. Harrison uses the serum on himself and his arm instantly regenerates, wonderful he thinks at first but soon realises there are strange horrifying side-effects with the serum he hadn't counted on. A homeless man know as 'Stripes' (Garrett Morris) witnesses this and befriends Harrison. Stripes takes Harrison back to where he lives in the sewers with other homeless people. Helena and Vaughan are left with no serum and decide they must find Harrison or they will lose the money. After bribing a corrupt cop they track him down and retake the serum and kidnap his new girlfriend, Eve (Denise Wallace). Together with Stipes and his mutant lizard arm he sets out to rescue Eve and take revenge. Directed by Damon Santostefano I actually quite liked this. It isn't brilliant or any sort of masterpiece but I had a decent enough time watching it. The script by Henry Dominic and John Nystrom is well paced and fairly entertaining. It's very silly but luckily never takes itself seriously. I think it was mean to be a comedy horror but the comedy doesn't quite work which I found to be advantageous as instead of slap-stick silliness I felt it came across more like dark comedy. The twisted 'unhappy' ending was good and felt an appropriate way to round things off. It's just a shame about the middle third which tends to drag a little. The photography is OK and Santostefano has a stab at some style occasionally by lighting certain scenes in a very staged theatrical way that gives the film a slightly surreal feeling. Characters are likable enough and what on Earth is Oliver Redd and Elke Sommer doing in this?! Their fun to watch I guess, I think Santostefano must have a shoe fetish or something because he has Oliver Reed down on his knees cleaning Elke Sommers stilettos on two different occasions and throughout the film in general there are an unusually high amount of feet and shoe shots. The special effects are variable, some very impressive, others less so. The living arm effects aren't the best and they end up looking silly at times. There are a few good gore sequences, a severed arm, a ripped off face and someone has their lungs pulled out! It's a pretty fun low-budget horror film overall that I quite liked but I don't think it's for everyone. Worth a watch if you can catch it on T.V. or find a copy going cheap somewhere.

The TV guide described the plot of SEVERED TIES as thus : " An experiment on a severed arm goes awry " so right away I thought this was going to be about an arm that`s got a mind of its own as seen in THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS or THE HAND or someone getting an arm transplant as in BODY PARTS . Both premises are tried and tested , or to be more accurate tired and tested so I was curious as to how the producers would approach the story . I actually thought they were making an arthouse movie like PI down to the use of B&W photography at the start of the film but the makers seemed to have tired of this approach after 20 seconds and decided to make a splatter comedy similar to THE EVIL DEAD . I`ve very little to say on this except that I disliked THE EVIL DEAD movies and I disliked SEVERED TIES and it seems really unfair that films like this use an obscene amount of rubber when the third world is crying out for condoms