'Biting the hand that feeds you' has another meaning when cannibalism is involved

The Severed Arm (1973)
Starring: David G. Cannon, Paul Carr, Marvin Kaplan, and Deborah Wally
Director: Thomas S. Alderman
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Trapped by a cave-in in a remote, abandoned mine, five men cut the arm off of another companion in order to ward off starvation. Five years later, the man they mutilated seemingly returns to seek bloody revenge on them. Viewer boredom and an utterly predictable "twist" follow.


"The Severed Arm" is a low-budget film that's too slow-moving to be a real thriller and nowhere near intense or violent enough to even approach the status of slasher-flick. With its bland, badly acted characters, dippy electronic score (that sounds at times like someone is just pushing random keys on a Moog synthesizer), and its multitude of plot holes and characters behaving stupidly for no reason other than to advance the plot, there really isn't much to recommend this film aside from the occassional glimmer of creative camera work and some nice lighting of night scenes and dark rooms. The final few minutes do finally manage to bring a little bit of horror sensibility to the film, but it's really too little, too late. (In addition to being pretty much be exactly where I was expecting the movie to head all along.)

In fact, I think the only reason to see this film is to look at those nicely done lighting set-ups. On a couple of occassions, they manage to evoke some drama in this otherwise dull movie. (On the flipside of that, there's also an extended night sequence that's so badly lit it's hard to figure out what the heck is happening.)

'Slave of the Cannibal God' has no surprises

Slave of the Cannibal God (aka "Mountain of the Cannibal God" and "Prisoner of the Cannibal God") (1978)
Starring: Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach, Claudio Cassinelli, and Antonio Marsina
Director: Sergio Martino
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Susan Stevenson (Andress) arrives in New Guinea to launch an expedition to search for her husband who has gone missing. A former collegue of is (Keach) reveals that he traveled secretly to a mostly unexplored island to study cannibals who worship a holy mountain. Suan convinces him to help her in her search, and they head into the unknown, along with her sociopathic brother (Marsina).


"Slave of the Cannibal God" is about what you'd expect from a movie with the words "Slave" and "Cannibal" in the the title, starring Andress, and made by Italians. I'd expected more gore, nudity, and sexual perversion, but I suspect I may have seen the "censored" version.

Storywise, the film was reminicent of a 1930s jungle adventure film, or a Joe Kubert-penned Tarzan tale--most of the explorers are in the jungle for reasons that are not at all what they claim they are--but production-wise, it's all cheesy Italian production from the 1970s. (You know you're not going to be watching the cream of the film crop when the first shots in a film are images of random animals in the jungle.


However, the film is mercifully light on filler animal footage, the acting is better than is usually found in these sorts of films, and the story moves along at a good pace. If you like jungle adventure movies, you can do far worse than this one. On the other hand, if you're looking for a gory cannibal flick, you should probably pass on it. I'm still not sure who the "slave" of the title is.)

Will anyone survive the night in 'Murder Mansion'?

Murder Mansion (aka "Maniac Mansion") (1972)
Starring: Evelyn Stewart, Andres Resino, Analia Gade, Annalisa Nardi and Alberto Dalbes
Director: Francisco Lara Polop and Pedro Lazaga
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A group of strangers, lost in the fog on isolated back roads, are forced to spend the night in a mansion at the edge of a cemetery. Although their hostess (Gade) seems welcoming enough, a night of murder and terror ensues.


"Murder Mansion" is a well-acted, well-filmed, and very moody gothic horror film. While it's got its fair share of characters doing stupid things just to move the plot along, and a few predictable twists, there are enough twists and startling surprises that the short-comings can almost be forgiven. If you like haunted house movies, I think you'll enjoy this film. (That's not to say the mansion our travelers find themselves trapped in is haunted... or is it? (Duhn-duhn-daaaaaah!))

With a surprisingly small amount of gore and nudity for an Italian horror film from the early 1970s, this film instead relies on effective camerawork and a decent script to bring the sort of chills and scares necessary to make a truly effective haunted house movie. It feels like they took the sensibilities of the thrillers and horror films from the late 1950s and early 1960s and updated them for the 1970s. If Hammer Films had done this--instead of going the more gore and boobs route--perhaps they would have lasted.