Scarecrow-88 Hands of Orlac once again gets a treatment, this time by writer/director Eric Red, starring Jeff Fahey (back when he still had his matinée idol looks) as a professor of psychology and often visits criminals in prison to study what makes them commit evil. When he suffers a horrible traffic accident thanks to a car losing its tire, it takes his right arm. A breakthrough arm surgery through a "grafting procedure" sees that Fahey will not be without the missing limb...it comes with a price. The arm, he soon discovers, was taken from a serial killer eventually executed. Two other men also received body parts from the killer in surgeries by Dr. Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan), a painter named Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif) and a young man named Mark Draper (Peter Murnik) who had both legs applied after spending time in a wheelchair without them. Eventually, though, someone is "coming to collect".I found some of the plot rather fascinating, as Fahey's Bill Crushank truly dedicates himself to understanding where evil comes from, and how the arm attached to him is ruining his life. The arm is violent, smacking his son and nearly choking his wife while he was sleeping in bed. He can see the murders in his dreams committed by the killer, and Bill increasingly has that gnawing feeling the murder's influence is taking hold of him. Reaching out to the others (Mark's legs cause him to nearly wreck into ongoing traffic), he finds that both men are suitably pleased with their new body parts (Remo's painting reflects what the killer sees; he claims the images just "come from the air" and that he's making far more money since he got his new arm than before when he was creating work for the walls of hotel rooms).The film left me a bit unsatisfied because I think Red has something here that eventually goes off the rails at the end when someone returns to take back the grafted body parts "given away". It is really quite bloody and graphically violent (legs gone, a victim going out a window, losing his grip once one of his arms is pulled right from the torso it belongs), but the reasoning is rather loony. A head actually being transplanted and kept from dying, body parts hooked to "life support", being pumped with a blood supply and machines, and limbs being "confiscated" from "their rightful owner", with Webb's eventual approval (taking a turn towards mad science) leaves Body Parts deteriorating into camp. It left me rather awestruck after following Bill through the travails of this arm causing him much grief that the film decides to turn loose a serial killer towards the end seemingly for shock value. Kim Delaney is the wife of Fahey, just unable to tolerate her husband's danger to her and the children. I had forgotten just how beautiful Kim was or that she was in this movie. The car crash that caused Fahey to need the arm is horrific, the crime scene with the missing legs is gruesome, and Dourif's character is totally enthusiastic about what the arm has done for his life (for the better), not discouraged by Fahey's misery and forewarning about what the body parts might have wrong with them. Dourif's performance is lively and energetic, I'll give him that. I have seen him better, though. I guess his performance fits the character he's provided: a lease on life anew, Bill's concerns pale in comparison to the profit afforded to him. Webb's attitude towards Bill regarding his desire to have the arm removed, not concealing her staggering apathy and disregard for his well being and hope to get rid of it so he can get his life back provides the film quite a cold and remoresless sociopath. Webb's devotion to her work, even if it is harmful to the recipients of the parts she grafts to patients presents her as quite the villain, deserved of her eventual fate.

loomis78-815-989034 Criminal examiner Bill Chrushank (Fahey) has a terrible car accident that leaves him alive but his right arm has been severed. Experimental scientist Dr. Webb (Duncan) convinces Bill's wife Karen (Delaney) to let her perform an operation that would give her someone else's right arm. The operation is a success and after therapy Bill is like new. Bill begins to have disturbing dreams and visions of murder and one day he knocks his son across the room with his arm. Bill knows he didn't mean to and it was like the arm did it without Bill's consent. Bill wants to know whose arm is on his body so a buddy at the police department runs his prints and Bill discovers the arm came from a recently executed death row inmate named Charlie Fletcher (John Walsh) who had murdered over 20 people. With further investigation, Bill learns all of Charlie's body parts were transplanted by Dr. Webb who refuses to do anything about it. Bill tracks down the others who received part of Charlie and they are all suffering from similar problems. The person that got Charlie's head and mind is now slowly going around and taking his original body parts back so no one is safe. Eric Red directs this horror film with an eye on the psychological terror lead character Bill is going through. When Bill sits in a bar contemplating if evil is in the mind flesh or heart we are transfixed as an audience. What Red does very well is mix the emotional side of what is happening to his characters and the extreme violence and gore that is present with Fletcher recollecting his body parts. What could have been extremely silly and over the top isn't due to the nice balance within the story and how it was handled. Jeff Fahey as Bill Chrushank turns in a fine lead performance and the supporting cast is strong as well. Body Parts certainly delivers in the gore and blood department but it is mixed into an involving story that stays believable despite some wild leaps in the story. A haunting and well-fitting musical score by Loek Dikker contributes to a very solid and entertaining horror film which has a lot to offer.

FlashCallahan When Bill Chrashank loses his arm in a car accident, he has the arm of an executed murderer grafted on in its place. The only problem, as he soon discovers, is that the arm is possessed by a force he cannot control.....This used to be a firm favourite of mine when I was a teen, here in the UK, it was a straight to video release, and not many people saw it, so it vanished almost without a trace.Seeing it almost twenty years later, it's aged pretty badly, and although it's a schlocky, hokey horror, it does take the main character too seriously, as supporting characters are a lot more entertaining, and make it the B-movie it should be.It's not Fahey's fault, he's a great actor, and can do nuts no problem, but he just spends the majority of the movie maundering around, cutting himself shaving, or shouting at his kids.The final third makes up for the dull first two, by going bonkers, and upping the gore factor, which, for 1991, is pretty graphic.So it's one of those movies that isn't as good as you'd like to remember, but still watchable fluff.

Foreverisacastironmess Effectively uses it's gruesome premise... Jeff Fahey is a great actor, calling him awful is just plain ignorant. Awful actors don't get to be in 118 different features. He is not one of my absolute favourites, but I have always appreciated his laid back, yet edgy style of acting. Brad Dourif! Dourif by name, somewhat dour-looking by nature! Brad is one of my all time favourite horror actors. It is always great to see him, even in small parts in movies like this. I found it really cool to see him and Jeff Fahey acting together, as they are two actors I really like, and they usually play intense, occasionally mad dudes. Brad plays it with his usual manic flair, and Jeff mostly plays it straight, but I love it cause' I know that Jeff could outdo Brad in terms of insanity if he wanted to. People moan that the film copies golden oldies like The Hand and The Hands Of Orloc...So? Know a lot of films about evil body parts, do you? Because I could count them on one hand(!) There's not enough body-part themed horror movies out there... I love the music theme that plays at the beginning, a few times in between, and right at the end. It starts out kind of silly, and then becomes booming and ominous. To me the music represents the film's grotesque sense of fun, and it's shock value. The film has a very good, slow build up of tension. In my opinion it is not until approximately 44 minutes and 38 seconds in that something actually happens. This film is certainly gory, but not very. It doesn't have too many bloody moments, but the one that I find really gross is at the beginning when Bill has had his operation. The way that his arm looks, all freshly stitched, raw and pink...ew!!! I thought it was an okay, average horror movie for quite a while, but my interest had a boost when it came to the scene where Bill discovers that someone has been grafted new legs.(I know that that one is still an impossibility) The film's main antagonist is the dastardly Doctor Agatha Webb. It is made very clear early on that Dr.Webb has her own dark agenda. It is indeed confirmed later on that Webb is indeed a real psycho bitch who will not give up no matter what and cares not a damn that people have to die for her experiment to reach it's insane conclusion. The two kids in the movie are not very interesting or effective, as they were both such bad little actor's! I remember the boy from Are You Afraid Of The Dark? There is a sequence in a bar that's pretty cool. The three transplantees are philosophizing. Brad and Jeff are sitting there with the other guy in the middle, which struck me as funny, as everyone knows who the other two are and no one knows who he is. Sorry other guy, you were good, too! I actually thought he was kinda cute, despite those ears! There is also an awesome fighty bit where Bill, responding to the pestering and insult of a drunk,(Ouch! That one would get anyone ticked off!)proceeds to take on all newcomers with his super-strong evil arm!!! When it comes to the big finale at the end, I don't agree that it's crap, but it does seem to run out of steam a bit. They could have done it better. It turns out that the evil mantis doctor of death Dr Webb's master plan has been, in layman's terms, to amputate the arms, legs, and head(?)of a serial killer?!, transplant them to "lucky" recipients, while still keeping the original torso alive, to later restore, whether the current owners like it or not, the parts back to the original body. Furthermore, she has an enforcer for this, in the killer, who she has kept alive as a head on an unidentified body. All this is for the purpose of proving some great medical advancement in body part manipulation procedures, or some-such. The seen is very impressive because you see all the reclaimed parts strung up in a chamber around the still breathing disembodied torso, awaiting reattachment. I saw what I thought was a very similar and for me far more effective scene in another surgery based horror movie that came out 15 years after this one, and that movie was Autopsy. I bet a lot of people hated or were very unsatisfied with the ending, and I could see why, but I personally loved the ending. I thought it was a different and perfect way to end the picture. It ends like this: the nightmare is over and Bill and his wife are relaxing in a peaceful outdoor scene. He is writing in his journal,(Something that is kind of interwoven that I thought added a lot)reflecting on his experience, and how the arm is now finally truly his. Anyway, they're just sitting there and...nothing happens. No big, last minute fright,(A very nice change)and the credits begin rolling, while lingering on the two, to the film's theme tune. And it's bizarre, and funny, and creepy as hell, and to me it really brings it home that the film was never meant to be taken too seriously. A cool, weird little movie, one that makes you wish you never lose a limb and become ensnared in the evil machinations of a mad doctor! Right on the limb!