Severed Ties

Young scientist Harrison Harrison (Billy Morrisette) is working hard to recreate his deceased father's gene splicing experiments. Funded by his mother Helena (Elke Sommer) and her sleazy beau Dr. Hans Vaughn (Oliver Reed), Harrison spends his days in a basement lab trying to splice human DNA with that of a lizard in an effort to regrow limbs. When he conveniently loses his right arm, he injects himself with the fluid and grows a new scaly arm. Wait, isn't this the plot of THE AMAZING SPIDER- MAN? Anyway, after that things get really weird. He runs away from home and lives with some bums led by war vet Stripes (Garrett Morris) who live in the sewer system. When mom comes looking for his formula and steals it back, Harrison creates an army of severed lizard-arms to fight her. This was the third film produced by Fangoria Films (after CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT and MINDWARP) and might be the oddest of the trio. In fact, it is surprising not to see Frank Henenlotter's name on this as it is totally up his alley and the film's look even resembles that of the BASKET CASE sequels. The film is a bit too low budget to be a classic, but it does have some original ideas and good gore effects by KNB. Perhaps most surprising are the performances by Sommer and Reed. They could have totally phoned their respective roles in, but both give it their all. Originally titled ARMY (haha, get it?).