PHILLAN BISHOP SCORING 1973 PROTO-SLASHER 'THE SEVERED ARM'

Deborah Walley channeling Cynthia Gabrielle in THE SEVERED ARM Year: 1973 Rating: ****

A year before the groundbreaking TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE that ignited the slather genre, a super low-budget drive-in feature aptly titled THE SEVERED ARM came and went... and had actual legitimate actors including GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN starlet Deborah Whalley, STAR TREK 2nd-pilot lieutenant Paul Carr and John Crawford, an American bit player who had previously headlined in British b-crimers...

Then there's the most familiar in comic Marvin Kaplan and semi-familiar character-actor Vince Martorano, who, along with Maury Dexter walk-on Ray Dannis and this production's co-producer David G. Cannon, the most ridiculous aspect sets up the entire ultra-violent revenge-driven plot-line...

Vince Martorano, David G. Cannon, Marvin Kaplan, Ray Dannis & Paul Carr in THE SEVERED ARM

That these five otherwise eclectically professional men would go on an intentional two-week vacation digging into a rural cave like second-rate archeologists... a limited interior (truly displaying the low-budget constraints) where they merely sit stuck and bearded after a cave-in... eventually drawing straws to amputate-in-order-to-eat the arm of unlucky Ray Dannis...

Who's the weakest, most forgettable, soft-spoken and is supposedly the off-screen menace five-years later... in the present time where most of SEVERED has a shadowy killer only witnessed in silhouette, making ARM as much a mystery/thriller as it's a slasher/horror...

John Crawford in THE SEVERED ARM

The best scenes occur whenever the phantom axe-wielder picks off one of the former cave-dwellers, which includes both the meticulous stalking process and the inevitably gruesome attacks...

Kaplan's an offbeat disc jockey in prolonged radio station sequences that ends with a slow-motion axe through crashing glass, while Italian construction boss Martorano's taken in an elevator as Crawford, a wealthy physician, all have one thing in common: whether they barely survive or are violently murdered, each lose an arm to avenge the trapped-in-a-cave backstory...

Artwork from THE SEVERED ARM

Ironically, the most guilty and worthiest of being punished... who had the desperate idea to amputate in the first place... is the last to die in co-producer Cannon, the true leading character having semi-romanced first-billed Deborah Walley as the cave-victim's sultry daughter...

Leading to a wonderfully-torturous twist-finale that foreshadows CHAINSAW MASSACRE in dealing with a rural psychotic family's treatment of regular city folk...

Phillan Bishop credited for THE SEVERED ARM

But what makes SEVERED ARM even spookier, exceeding beyond the realistically-creepy, last-known-photo style low-rent cinematography, is sole composer Phillan Bishop's synthesizer "electronic score" that consists solely of moody Moog noises...

Sounding as if a dementedly demonic arcade game existed in medieval times (also heard in MESSIAH OF EVIL and KISS OF THE TARANTULA)... not only backing capable director Tom Alderman's suspenseful body-count exploitation, but making it that much more of a genuinely  nightmarish experience.

From THE SEVERED ARM

John Crawford and Cynthia Gabrielle in THE SEVERED ARM

John Crawford and Paul Carr in THE SEVERED ARM

John Crawford and Cynthia Gabrielle in THE SEVERED ARM

Deborah Walley in THE SEVERED ARM

Deborah Walley in THE SEVERED ARM

Ray Dannis in THE SEVERED ARM

David G. Cannon in THE SEVERED ARM with Treva Frazee

David G. Cannon and John Crawford in THE SEVERED ARM

David G. Cannon in THE SEVERED ARM with Ray Dannis and Marvin Kaplan

John Crawford in THE SEVERED ARM

Marvin Kaplan in THE SEVERED ARM

Paul Carr in THE SEVERED ARM

Vince Martorano, Paul Carr and David G. Cannon in THE SEVERED ARM

Vince Martorano on The Bob Newhart Show

Vince Martorano in THE SEVERED ARM

Deborah Walley in THE SEVERED ARM

David G. Cannon in THE SEVERED ARM

Deborah Walley in THE SEVERED ARM