"There's a psycho loose with an axe" and he's taking an arm… and an arm… and an arm in the slasher precursor THE SEVERED ARM, on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.

When television writer Jeff Ashton (David G. Cannon) receives a severed arm in the mail, he and his close circle of friends – doctor Ray Sanders (John Crawford, THE ENFORCER), police lieutenant Mark Richards (Paul Carr, SISTERS OF DEATH), obnoxious radio DJ Mad Man Herman (Marvin Kaplan, THE GREAT RACE), and contractor Bill Hale (Vince Martorano, THE CANDY SNATCHERS) – know that their past is catching up with them. A few years ago, the adventurers went spelunking in an old mine shaft and were trapped in a cave-in. After two weeks of subsisting on meager supplies with no sign of rescue, Jeff suggests nothing so drastic as to kill and eat the weakest member of the group, but merely they each in turn sacrifice a part for subsistence. Buddy Ted (Ray Dannis, THE CORPSE GRINDERS) loses the coin toss and is forcibly held down by the others while Ray saws off his arm. In a cruel twist of fate, they are rescued moments later. Realizing that they will all be ruined if the story gets out, Jeff suggests that they attribute Ted's ravings to his delirium to his arm being crushed in the cave-in and Ray having to amputate to save his life. Old Teddy never recovered from the trauma and spent years in and out of the hospital… until now, that is. After Ray nearly dies after having his arm hacked off by a late night intruder, Herman and Bill are running scared while Jeff and Mark decide to hunt Ted down before he can come after them. Their only hope of tracking Ted's whereabouts seems to be his worried daughter Teddy (Deborah Walley, SKI PARTY), but family loyalty may be out the window for the madman when Jeff falls for Teddy.

A late night TV staple of the 1970s and 1980s, THE SEVERED ARM is a bit of a frustrating experience. The scenario is ripe for exploitation but the budget hampers much in the way of gore – the blood is smack-dab and the prosthetics of make-up artist Gordon Freed (BLACKENSTEIN) are exactly that – and Cannon's Jeff is a pretty unlikable protagonist, seeming to feel no remorse for his decisions and only really concerned about finding Ted when he is directly threatened, and he may fall for Teddy but only after wanting to use her as bait. His fate is fitting, but it takes a long time to get there. It is odd seeing TV character actors Carr (who had a long stint on the NBC soap opera THE DOCTORS) and Kaplan in a horror film, but much of the suspense is undercut by intercutting between the place where we know the killer is really stalking someone and the apprehensiveness of characters in another location who are anticipating attack (we know the killer is at the radio station terrorizing Herman at the exact time that Jeff and Mark are trying to draw Ted out by having Teddy stay the night at Jeff's house). Composer Phillan Bishop seems to be playing with the same synthesizer settings he used on MESSIAH OF EVIL released the same year – and indeed, some of the droning tracks may be from the same recording sessions – and that element is alternately effective and bombastic.

Released theatrically two years after its completion, THE SEVERED ARM was easier to see on late night television into the 1980s. Unfortunately, most of the VHS releases were derived from the television cut apart from the uncut Video Gems clamshell cassette release. Some of the budget DVDs were uncut while others were derived from the television cut, but all were poor quality. When Code Red released the film on DVD in a double feature with SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA, it turned out to be a British release print of the film which retained the film's gore but trimmed about seven minutes of exposition. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is fully uncut and derived from the original 35mm camera negative which wound up with MGM. The film's cinematography always looked murky on VHS and DVD, but the new transfer rehabilitates the lighting schemes of talented exploitation cinematographer Robert Maxwell (BLOOD MANIA) who makes use of gobos as well as large swathes of black in the locations while keeping his subjects and some accents illuminated. Vinegar Syndrome seem to have done their best averaging out night and day-for-night shots, erring on the darker side for the most part but still looking leagues better than what we got before. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track – a Dolby Digital 2.0 track is also included – boasts clear dialogue and scoring, and optional English SDH subtitles are also included.