The Severed Arm 1973

Severed arm arrives in the mail

Jeff Ashton is at home when a mail carrier delivers a strange package. Upon opening it, he is horrified to find a severed human arm. He promptly contacts his friend, Dr. Ray Sanders, to discuss the shocking discovery and begins to fear a link to a buried past.

Jeff enlists Ray to investigate

Jeff calls Ray to share what he found and seek help. The two discuss a five-year-old incident involving a group of cave explorers who were trapped in a cave-in, and the grim decision they made to survive. They start to realize the severed arm might be connected to that old tragedy.

Flashback: the cave-in and the arm

Five years earlier, a cave-in traps a group of explorers. To avoid starvation, they cut off the arm of a fellow caver, Ted Rogers. Moments after their grisly act, the group is rescued and they concoct a cover story that Ted lost his arm in the cave-in.

Search for Ted begins

To locate Ted, Jeff and Ray recruit Mark Richards, a former caver who is now a police detective. Mark eventually tracks down Ted's daughter, Teddy, who initially refuses to help. The search becomes personal as Teddy's willingness to cooperate grows.

Herman killed on air

As the group closes in, Herman, a friend and radio host, is killed on air when someone hacks off his arm. The brutal murder shifts Teddy from reluctance to cooperation, convincing her to join the hunt for her father.

Teddy agrees to help

Witnessing the escalating violence, Teddy agrees to help locate her father. She joins Jeff, Ray, and Mark in their efforts to find Ted Rogers before more harm occurs.

Killing spree escalates

The killer continues their spree, targeting Jeff's circle as the investigation tightens. Jeff and Mark realize the danger is closer than they thought as suspects multiply and trust frays. The tension mounts as they follow leads toward Ted.

Trap attempt at the cliff

Jeff and Mark attempt to trap the killer, but the plan backfires when Mark is pushed from a cliff with a rope around his wrist. His arm is ripped away, leaving him gravely injured and the group more exposed. The team grows more desperate as the net tightens.

Jeff knocked unconscious

After a struggle, the killer knocks Jeff unconscious. He awakens later in a bare white room, disoriented and terrified by the isolation and the mystery of his captor.

Revealed mastermind: Teddy's plan

Jeff learns that Teddy, Ted Rogers' daughter, is behind the killings. Her plan is to have Roger (their father, now catatonic) kill Jeff's friends and kidnap Jeff, reviving the caving group's original idea to harm for survival.

Confinement and cannibal ultimatum

Teddy seals Jeff in a room to starve him, revealing that the only way to avoid death is for Jeff to cut off his own arm and eat it. The room becomes a grim prison as Jeff faces an almost impossible choice.