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.

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.

callanvass I saw this quite a few years ago when I was younger, and I remembered being fairly unimpressed with it. How do I feel about it now?? I kinda dug it actually, it's got some balls. They really don't make them like this anymore. Not only does it have a car crash scene that makes some of the scenes in a Final Destination movie look weak in comparison. Watching Jeff Fahey go all unruly with everybody is always a treat to watch. I also really dug the family values in this one. Fahey's family really acted like a natural family, and I really felt for Fahey's descent into craziness. There are some things that I questioned, though. I didn't buy how Bill's (Fahey) kids were all nice to Bill, despite the fact that he knocks his son around, and yells a lot. You would think the kids would learn not to go around him. I also felt the finale was overblown. It was entertaining, don't get me wrong, but it was a bit too chaotic for my liking. It also has some pointless characters as well; Zakes Mokae as the detective being one of them. Jeff Fahey is a criminally underrated actor. He has always been one of my favorites, and why this man is stuck in DTV hell right now is beyond me. Stop being stupid Hollywood and recognize this man's talents! His unpredictable show is a main reason why this film is so entertaining. Kim Delaney lends able support as the caring wife, I dug her a lot. She's not too hard to look at either. Brad Douriff plays a likable role for once. That was rather funFinal Thoughts: It has its faults, but I simply cannot deny the entertainment it provides. Go in with low expectations and have a blast with this puppy. If you like gore, Fahey going nuts like nobody else can, I would check this one out. 6/10

FieCrier A prison psychiatrist and psychology professor is in a bad car accident in which he loses his right arm. His wife is given the opportunity to let Dr. Webb graft a new arm on him. While he is being sedated, he appears to see a decapitation. There are a number of injuries, dismemberments, and shootings in the movie, and they're all pretty gory, though the movie is not wall-to-wall gore.Somehow he doesn't notice, nor does his wife, that he has a tattoo on his new arm until a patient points it out to him. This makes him want to learn where the arm came from, along with the fact that he is having nightmares, and some violent impulses.In the novel this was very loosely based on, the main character is not a person who's gotten a graft. He's a person who's been appointed to keep an eye on people who've gotten grafts, to see that they are doing well (or not). There are seven people in all who have received them (there aren't as many in the film). They all know almost from the start who their parts came from originally. The new parts look better than their old ones, while in the film the arm looks like it was taken from an old corpse, even though it wasn't. They don't have violent impulses, but are exposed to new temptations. For example, the man who gets a new stomach, among other things, eats voraciously since he coincidentally had indigestion before his car accident. The first signs of danger are weird obsessive ideas that some of them get, and also when one of them kills himself.The movie is so different than the novel that it has to be enjoyed on its own terms, and it can be. The novel The Hands of Orlac is similar in some respects, and the movie Mad Love similarly murders the novel, though it can be enjoyed on its own terms too.I've read the novel this was based on, so I'll mention