The Dark Backward (The Man with Three Arms)

The Dark Backward (The Man with Three Arms) (1991)

  • 45% of critics liked it
    (11 reviews)

  • 59% of users liked it
    (513 ratings)

Writer/director Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward is set in a dark, grimy, garbage-strewn urban netherworld, where a company named "Blump's" apparently owns everything. Marty Malt (Judd Nelson of The Breakfast Club) is an unhappy garbageman who moonlights as an atrociously unfunny… More

R,
Directed By
Genres
Comedy
In Theaters
Jul 26, 1991 Wide

Critic Reviews

  • James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

    a film so astoundingly strange that you might think it fell to the earth fully formed from another dimension

  • Keith Breese, Filmcritic.com

    just too off-putting

  • Brian Webster, Apollo Guide

    Extras on the disc include an interesting 40-minute question and answer session filmed at a 15th anniversary screening of the movie.

  • Brian Webster, Apollo Guide

    Odd and twisted, The Dark Backward has plenty to thrill admirers of ugliness and enough food for thought to interest the rest of us too.

  • Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com

    A seriously weird, seriously cool surreal black comedy.

Read all 9 critic reviews

See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Greg S


    A spectacularly unfunny comedian finally find success--sort of--when an arm begins growing out of his back. Bizarre, hard-hearted black comedy in the spirit of John Waters. Form follows plot premise: if you can't be funny, you can at least be grotesque enough so people… More

  • El Hombre I


    Judd Nelson is Marty, a garbage collector (or sanitation engineer, whichever you prefer) who moonlights as a stand-up comedian. Bill Paxton is a true sleaze-ball of a friend/agent that decides exploiting a third arm that has grown out of Marty's back is a sure shot way to… More

  • Anthony V


    A dark comedy for fans of the bizarre.

  • Christopher B


    The dirtiest film ever made, it seems like the lens is covered in mud. Paxton is fantastic in this, playing the scummiest human being on the face of the planet. The laughs in this one are so uncomfortable that it becomes hilarious. A one of a kind film. Maybe there can be a sequel… More

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Cast

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