A successful comic book
artist in New York named Jonathan
Lansdale (Michael Caine) suddenly uses
his good hand during a car accident and
it jeapardises his career so he becomes
an art teacher in California and living
near a cabin.
However, his hand was never found and it
seemed to have a life of it's own and
kills anyone whenever he feels angry at
someone since he misses his artwork and
doesn't feel the same anymore.
He also has an affair with one of his
students named Stella Roche (Annie
McEnroe) but yet she seems to be the
victim of his cut off hand and then on
Christmas his family comes to see him in
which he doesn't see eye to eye with his
wife Anne (Andrea Marcovicci) as her life
can be taken as well if she crosses her
husband.
We
do spot a nice close up shot on Jonathan Lansdale doing his sketch art for a comic
book which looked good and very artistic
like.
There's also some good side shots on both Jonathan and Anne having a disagreement in a car on her
travelling for a career and him acting
dominant and obnoxious which looked
almost believeable as a dysfunctional
couple but it needed to be spiced up a
bit. Of course it looked fine in it's
time. Then we have a good shot on their
car swerving with his hand being cut off. There's great disturbing shots
on all of this.
There's a good scene with a doctor testing Jonathan's wrist and talking about his hand that was
cut off. It looked realistic on what was
happening there.
We spot a good shot on Jonathan in
the grassy area near a road trying to
look for his hand with good shots on the
camera looking over the grass as well as
shots on the hand moving with insects
like beetles crawling over it.
There's a good moment with Jonathan trying to use his other hand to work on
his comics and then a cat comes attacking
and then smashes through a window as the scene in this flick makes you wonder what that was all about.
There's a good argumentive moment
between Jonathan and David Maddow about him
taking over with the story on his comics
as well as a good shot on Jonathan himself standing up to look at the scribbling on
the comic pages that David and an agent looked shocked
and disgraced at giving it a nice feel.
There's a good shot on Jonathan sleeping in bed with a nice black &
white shot on him having nightmares and
showing the flashbacks.
There's some good dark conversations between Brian Ferguson and Jonathan in a bar
having some dark discussions as it looked
quite spooky about Jonathan discussing obscene artwork he spotted and
not remembering he did them with good
shots on him drawing an obscene pic.
There's a cheesy approach with Stella Roche coming on towards Jonathan with a good close up shot on her removing
her shirt.
There's a cheesy shot on Stella going underneath a Christmas tree holding
a present and then the hand attacking
her.
We spot a good aggressive moment with Brian showing a raging anger towards Jonathan outside of a bar.
A good argumentive discussion
between Jonathan accusing Anne on having an affair which looked intense
as well as him grabbing her by the neck
which showed not too bad blocking.
There's a good moment with Lizzie Lansdale hearing
a knock on the door convinced that it's
her mother with Jonathan intensely
telling her that it's not her mother at
the door.
We spot a good shot on the hand grabbing
onto Anne lying in bed
with Jonathan by storming in as well
as Lizzie at the doorway
screaming at Jonathan. All of this
looked intensely done.
We see a good shot in a barn looking down
at Jonathan and then having a
struggling battle with the hand. There's
also a good close up shot on the hand
grabbing his neck with his mouth in an O
shape looking shocked.
There's a great intense moment with Jonathan and his reactions when he is asked to
open up the trunk with a felmale cop demanding him to do
so. Plus we spot a great shot on Jonathan losing his mind after he opens up the
trunk.
We spot a couple good shots with
a doctress in a room questioning Jonathan with a good shot on him looking out of it
with wires attached to his head and a
printer sheets looking at his results and
her getting fresh and cocky with him.
Bottom line is that I read many bad
reviews on this film but usually any Oliver
Stone flick is a blockbuster but
most of the critics were right as this
one was a total flop. The story was very
slow and we needed to see more of this
hand attacking people as it took it's
time. This film was almost like a take on
those old 50's black & white horror
and sci-fi flicks but it looks like a
ripoff tribute to them. The story really makes no sense when it
tries to describe itself during the
ending of the film. It beats from bombing
cause Oliver Stone really tried
his best with his work on it but yet he'd
probably admit that this was his worst
project to date. The rest of his work was
very mainstream and this film can easily
be forgettable. I've seen worst though
which is another reason why I didn't bomb
it. The story tried too hard to be scary
and there's not alot of scary moments
expect for some hallucinations and
flashback sequences which looked
believeably twisted. Still it's nothing
to brag about. Skip this and watch Evil Dead 2
instead as it's both creepy and funny
with a hand attacking.
The acting is
well... I'd say... fair. Lead actor Michael Caine
(Jonathan Lansdale) seems to steal most of the acting credit
and shows a good obnoxious attitude and
aggressions as well as good insane
expressions with his cold speaking too.
He really knew how to act from happy to
totally insane. He could play a mad
scientist easily with what he had to do. Yet he was supposed to have screamed
intensely when his hand got cut off but it looked a bit lacking.
Andrea Marcovicci (Anne Lansdale) tried her best to
play the wife in the film with a
disturbed behavior against her husband
and what is happening to her family and
is passable at doing so. But at the same
time she is really nothing too
spectacular with her work in it.
Annie McEnroe (Stella Roche) tried to bring on her
charm as a horny art student and does the
trick plus had the good looks for a
victim in the film in which we need
someone like her so she passes as well.
She wasn't award winning by any means
though.
Bruce McGill (Brian Ferguson) really does a great job
as someone hanging out at a bar smoking
and drinking plus had the right dark and
creepy looks too. He also knew how to
perform creepy and showed a great
mysterious attitude to his role. He just
was someone who gave me the creeps.
Child actress Mara Hobel (Lizzie Lansdale) really
focused on her role as the daughter of
the dysfunctional family and showed good
energy for what she had to do throughout
the whole story. She carried on with her
career in TV and film after her part with
this one and was probably better known
for them too.
There's a small supporting role by Viveca
Lindfors (Doctress) whom is worth to mention as
a doctor forcing the truth out of the
lead actor as she really brought alot of
character to her part in it by acting
demanding but in a mellow way as well as
seeming almost wicked about everything.
She was one of the drawing cards for the
final ending of this flick.
Annie McEnroe takes
off her top and exposes her breasts.
A hand is cut off with
blood splurting but the blood looks very
fake
A female doctor lands on the back of her
head with the hand stangling her and
cracks her head open
There's terrific
dark sounds for the creepy moments mainly
involving the killer hand with some low
chord sounds too which sounds similar to
the music in Black Christmas
as well as the typical classical screechy
violing music too and the low keyboard
sounds too making it sound very gloomy. James
Horner did the music for this film
and used his talents in other low budget
horror flicks like Deadly
Blessing which sounds very
similar too. |
