The Hand (1981)
Review by Noel
On October 17th Oliver Stone’s biopic W. opens across the country, oddly enough mere days before the election. Coincidence? Probably…
I’ll bet W. represents a horror film of sorts to some of you readers out there, but to each their own.
What does The Hand have to do with W.? I thought nothing until a couple of months ago because I’ll admit to ignorance in not knowing that 1981’s horror film The Hand was three-time Oscar Winning writer/director Oliver Stone’s (JFK, Platoon, Natural Born Killers) very first directing credit until I saw it in the multiples of films Netflix subscribers get recommended to them on a regular basis.
Oliver Stone? A horror film? I had to check it out because like most of his films (except Heaven and Earth and Alexander) even if it sucks it’ll be more interesting than most bad films because, he’s such a natural born filmmaker…
Jonathan Lansdale (Michael Caine) is a cartoonist. He’s been writing and drawing the character Mandro for the past 10 years. He’s made a living at it, but nothing spectacular, nothing that keeps him living from check to check with his wife Anne (Andrea Marcovicci - looking like one of the Dixie Chcks) and little daughter Lizzie (Mara Hobel).
Things aren’t so hunky-dory with the Lansdale marriage. Anne wants to branch out on her own and live in New York. Jon wants to stay in England. They fight. They argue. She says don’t do Jaws: The Revenge in 1987. He says yes, thinking it’ll be the perfect follow-up to Hannah and her Sisters.
They take a drive…that’ll change their lives.
Because as they’re driving they get into a terrible accident and Jon loses, you guessed it, his hand. Trouble is, the police can’t find said hand as they search land and sea looking for it. It’s lost. Where could it have gone? Because it’s apparently difficult to find a freakin’ hand in a field…unless of course the field is rife with severed hands.
Jon can’t draw Mandro without his writing hand and needless to say the resulting trauma hasn’t done wonders for his marriage either. Anne and their daughter stay in New York while Jon takes job teaching college in a little Podunk town in California. I laughed because for a little while I actually lived in said town (no, I won’t mention its name).
But odd things are happening. Jon’s having loco dreams about people getting killed. He’s blacking out. He’s having images flash of…his missing hand. But that’s impossible. Hands don’t go around killing people independent of their human minds. It sounds like something out of a shitty 80’s horror movie whose director would go on to bigger and better things.
OR IS IT?!!!
What works with The Hand:
1.) Nice image of a vicious cat on a lizard, though it’s a very convenient (or handy) case of foreshadowing.
2.) The accident is very well shot and appropriately traumatic, though it does show you how road rage isn’t always the best way to go. Just breathe…
3.) Director Stone has a cameo as a bum who has a very unfortunate run-in with Lansdale.
4.) Jon’s prosthetic arm reminds me of Robocop.
5.) The hand itself is actually well done in terms of 80’s special effects. I think it’s an excellent hand job.
That’s not what I meant…
6.) Even though he did this movie for the paycheck, it’s hard to find anything wrong with this Michael Caine performance. He plays the innocence and the madness well, but what else would you expect? And few actors can get strapped to a chair with such gusto.
7.) Getting hit in the crotch is painful enough…but to get socked in said very sensitive area by your OWN HAND…
8.) Random student/teacher trysts have ample opportunities for nudity.
What doesn’t work:
1.) Not very scary, as most of the hand’s antics occur offscreen, in Jon’s mind and you the viewer only get to see the aftermath. You wish the movie had more “attack” moments, if only to liven it up.
2.) An is-he-crazy-or-isn’t-he? twist that only the blind or the comatose won’t be able to get. Actually, the blind would be able to get it. And the comatose would be right 67% of the time.
3.) Stone randomly decides to show scenes in black-and-white for no other reason than…I can’t think of a reason.
4.) It’s much too long in the movie before the hand actually comes into a play. You feel you’re watching some kind of whiny drama about a one-armed cartoonist instead of a horror movie.
5.) A dude in Danskins may be the scariest part of the movie.
The best thing I can say about The Hand is that based on it, you’d never know that years later Oliver Stone would have two Oscars for directing (Platoon, Born on the 4th of July) and one for writing (Midnight Express - seriously, watch than one again if you really want to be freaked out “Oh…Billy!”). I think that, more than anything else should serve to give some hope for aspiring filmmakers out there whose first films are simply less than. Hopefully, Stone’s story will serve as a helping…hand to the cinematically downtrodden.
Should you see The Hand? Hands down no, unless like me you’re overwhelmed by morbid curiosity and a huge Oliver Stone fan, because if it weren’t for his name, this movie would disappear (rather handily) along with other forgettable, disposable 80’s horror movies. Like that one movie whose name I forgot…
Watch the trailer for The Hand:
Popularity: 7% [?]
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