The Hand (1981) Orion/Horror-Thriller RT: 105 minutes Rated R (language, some graphic violence, nudity, sexual content) Director: Oliver Stone Screenplay: Oliver Stone Music: James Horner Cinematography: King Baggot Release date: April 24, 1981 (US) Cast: Michael Caine, Andrea Marcovicci, Annie McEnroe, Bruce McGill, Viveca Lindfors, Rosemary Murphy, Mara Hobel, Pat Corley, Nicholas Hormann, Ed Marshall, Charles Fleischer, John Stinson, Richard Altman, Sparky Watt, Tracey Walter. Box Office: $2.4M (US)
Rating: *** ½
When you hear the name Oliver Stone, you probably think of Oscar titles like Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July or controversial ones like JFK and Natural Born Killers. The one that likely doesn’t come to mind is The Hand, the psychological thriller that marks his second time as writer-director (the first was 1974’s Seizure). It’s understandable. A critical and commercial failure upon release, it fell into that abyss of oblivion that swallows up movies ignored or forgotten by 99% of the moviegoing public. I, of course, fall into the other 1%. Not only do I remember it, I think it’s his most underappreciated film.
I didn’t see The Hand when it first came out due to the damnable parental R-rated movie block that kept a lot of titles out of 13YO Movie Guy 24/7’s reach. I didn’t see it until six years later when I caught it on Cinemax one Saturday night in summer ’87. I didn’t like it too much at that time. It wasn’t exactly the movie I thought it would be. I thought it would be about a severed hand going around killing people, but there’s more to it than that. The horror in The Hand is more the psychological kind. I didn’t expect that which is likely why I was so turned off by it. I gave it a second chance about ten years later and ended up liking it a lot. I’d even say it comes close to being brilliant. I said close.
Michael Caine (Get Carter) plays Jonathan Lansdale, a comic strip artist who loses his right hand in a freak car accident caused by his wife Anne (Marcovicci, The Concorde… Airport ‘79) while they are arguing over the possibility of a brief separation. It’s a rough adjustment for Jonathan, especially since it’s the hand with which he draws. He moves to New York with his wife and young daughter (Hobel, Mommie Dearest) where he finds out his agent (Murphy, Ben) hired a new young artist (Fleischer, Who Framed Roger Rabbit) to take over the strip. Needless to say, he’s not happy about it.
Several factors contribute to Jonathan’s deteriorating mental state. With the loss of his hand, he loses his livelihood. His behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He becomes paranoid. He believes Anne is having an affair with her yoga instructor and they’re conspiring to turn his daughter against him. He starts experiencing blackouts during which he imagines his severed hand coming to life. He moves to California to take a teaching position at a community college. While there, he starts an affair with one his students, Stella (McEnroe, Warlords of the 21st Century), who might also be sleeping with a colleague (McGill, Animal House). Meanwhile, his grip on sanity continues to weaken.
Where The Hand goes from here, I’ll never tell. I’ll only say that Jonathan has visions of his lost hand doing terrible things throughout. This is where we see signs of the artistically bold filmmaker Stone would become. When Jonathan’s reality comes into question, the movie shifts from color to black and white. It’s a simple but effective way to distort perception as it pertains to reality. Could it be that Jonathan’s hand is really alive or is it a trick of a disturbed mind? Stone makes you ask this right up until the final scene.
Caine is one of the most reliable actors to grace the silver screen. He’s good even in bad movies like Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Jaws: The Revenge. He gives his scariest performance ever in The Hand. As an artist, his character is already predisposed to being temperamental. When he loses his hand, he loses everything including whatever tenuous hold he had on his sanity. He just keeps going down the rabbit hole until he loses it completely. It’s really something to see. Marcovicci is also good as the wife falling out of love with her husband as he becomes more and more unstable. Hobel has some good scenes as the daughter frightened by her father’s changing personality. Viveca Lindfors (Creepshow), who shows up very late in the game, gives an eccentric performance as a psychologist. I don’t want to say more than that.
Granted, it’s weird and a little bit funny to see a hand moving around by itself, but it works thanks to the expertise of special effects artists Stan Winston (Predator) and Carlo Rambaldi (Dune). Plus, the hand provides a few great jump-scares. They go nicely with the psychological terror of a man losing his mind s his life crumbles down around him. Stone also injects a healthy dose of family drama in The Hand with Jonathan’s family falling apart. It’s a little uneven at times, but that’s to be expected from a director still new to the game.
I’ll admit it’s hard to know how to react to The Hand, especially if you go into it cold. It’s a strange, unusual and sometimes disturbing movie. It’s a far cry from the teen slasher movies that were popular at the time. Hey, maybe that’s why it failed at the box office! Well, it’s one of the reasons anyway. In any event, The Hand is one of those buried movies that deserve to be dug up and re-evaluated. It moves a little slowly and it’s bumpy, but it’s much, MUCH better than it’s given credit for.
