Severed Ties



Henderson, a brilliant young genetic scientist, is working diligently to complete his late father’s work. While his dad’s work would have undoubtedly been useful for other applications, his ultimate goal was to create a compound that would allow victims of amputation to re-grow their missing limbs. Henderson is finally on the verge of a breakthrough, but his financier mother and her morally questionable boyfriend just want to sell the formula to a group of super shady individuals with the deepest pockets. But just as he finally perfects the formula, Henderson realizes their despicable scheme and a fight breaks out, resulting in the young doctor fleeing his lab after losing an arm. But hey! No worries! He did just finish a limb regeneration serum, so everything should be kosher, right? Well… No, not really. Turns out the formula wasn’t quite as perfected as he thought, and the arm that grows back is more reptilian than human… And it seems to have a mind of its own… AND it can somehow detach itself from his body, none of which is ideal. Meanwhile his mom and her creepy beau are still trying to track him down to retrieve the rest of the formula, and they don’t give a flying flip who they have to hurt to get what they want.



I don’t know what I was really expecting from this movie, other than knowing it had Oliver Reed in it. So I kinda expected that it couldn’t possibly end up being too crappy but… Woof, I think I misjudged. I mean, it’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not really what I thought it was going to be either. Based on the poster I was expecting more creepy body horror, and this… Is not exactly that. The film’s description just classified it as “horror,” but it turns out that it’s also a comedy, so…. Yay. This was one of three films produced by Fangoria with their ill-conceived Fangoria Films label, back when people still read magazines, and said magazine was still successful enough that it decided  to try to finance and release at least one horror film a year. That didn’t work out though, and they only managed to make it to a whooping 3 films, with Severed Ties being their last hoo-rah before calling it quits. And though I haven’t seen the other two movies they produced, if this is any indication at the quality of their output I can see why their plan didn’t pan out. I mean, I was at least partially right in thinking that Oliver Reed (and his costar Elke Sommer) would be good, but the rest of the movie gets a resounding “meh”.



I actually really dislike doing write-ups for movies like this. If it’s a bad movie or even a good movie I can usually have enough to complain or gush about. But when movie’s like Severed Ties fall squarely in the middle it’s hard to find anything to praise or bitch at. Really, the biggest complaint I have is that the movie is just your standard, cheap, B-grade horror film. Technically speaking it’s fine. The camerawork, the lighting, the framing, the sound… Things like that are perfectly standard and acceptable. Yeah, the sets are kind of shallow and you can tell that some of the scientific equipment is composed of cheap props because certain pieces that should be heavy have no weight to them. But still, they’re fine.



Even the VFX and other practical effects look fairly decent. I mean, yes, I wish they looked better and you can often pinpoint the many (MANY) instances where they clearly cut corners to make things easier on themselves. But still, considering their “monster” is basically Thing from Adams Family with an added snake tail, they look about as well as they’re going to look.


^{Dumb, but serviceable.}

Really though, your enjoyment of the film is going to hinge on whether you like the movie’s humor or not. Because that’s essentially what any other complaints I might have boil down to: it’s like that because the movie was trying to be funny. The story? It’s often strange (mom clearly has an Oedipal complex, ew) and makes little sense (why do they make reference to the buyers being Nazis, yet on the phone they sound Russian?), but that’s because the movie is putting all of its focus on all the silly situations, not so much on the other pointless eccentricities like, you know, plot. The ridiculous monster? It looks that way because the movie clearly thinks this detachable reptile-arm-thing is hilarious. The characters? Dumb and trope-y, because the movie thinks that’s what you’re looking for. Hell, even the main character’s NAME is solely the result of a joke: Henderson Henderson. Yeah, that’s his full, official name. And why is that that stupid?… That’s right, because the movie thought it was funny. I think the only thing not trying to be outright or darkly funny was Oliver Reed. But that’s because he’s playing the “straight man” of the film, again, to be funny (though he does seem to have an obsession with cleaning feet…). Or at least all of this is supposed to be funny. But if you’re like me, I’m sure that mileage on all this stuff will vary. I mean, I’ll admit that a couple things did get a chuckle out of me, but most everything else induced an eye-roll. So make of that what you will.



So…Yeah. Severed Ties is fine for the silly B-movie that it is, but that’s about it. I think the only thing I was impressed with is that it ended on a surprisingly bleak note when you consider the tone of most of the film. But other than…meh. But hey! I don’t know you! You may very well like it. It just wasn’t really for me. But don’t let that stop you if you enjoy obscure little oddities.

Severed Ties is available on a variety of streaming services.

Severed Ties is also available on… VHS? Huh. Beyond that I can’t see if it’s had anything more current. Weird.

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