Director: Newt Arnold
Year: 1962
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Mad Doctor
Plot:
After losing his hands in a tragic accident, a gifted pianist finds that the surgically replaced hands he now has take a murderous life of their own and must try to stop them from acting out the deadly urges.
Review:
This here turned out to be pretty much a fun and enjoyable effort. A lot of what makes this one so much fun is brought along by the film's central point of a lot more focus on the hands and how they're getting comfortable following the accident. Since they're far more crucial to the film's plot rather than any other side quality, the fact that this can put more focus on that through the long arguing done before and after the actual surgery, as well as the procedures afterward, testing how they've come along since. It's all nicely handled here until it turns over its murderous qualities in the second half. This is an enjoyable affair, as it gives us plenty of good scenes, including the meeting with his girlfriend in her apartment and the young son of his driver when he stops in to meet with him. The finale here is also fun, where it has more creepy qualities than expected, starting with the carnival altercations of people using their hands that eat at him before he plays the game, resulting in a freak-out in the area, and the stalking of his girlfriend in the theater, which includes a fine brawl mixed in here. These here are all enough to make this one enjoyable enough to hold out nicely over the few small flaws here.
The biggest problem here is the film's uneven pacing, where this one is pretty front-loaded with the bland talking scenes and saves the action for the end. While there's still some focus on the surgeon and his radical experiment here, the fact that this comes in the form of the over-the-top speeches and throwing around how unethical the action procedure is means that there's really no time to get this one going on with the hands' ineffectual nature by showing it in action. A lot of that is how this one seems to spiral between being a serious horror effort and more campy material, rather than bringing on any kind of display of powers during the examination scenes, which makes this one lose some steam along the way. As well, the rather underwhelming finale does it no favors either, with a simple, matter-of-fact occurrence that takes place off-screen for the most part, which really lowers the impact of the action. Otherwise, this one was quite entertaining.
Overview: ***.5/5
Pretty fun and intriguing effort with a lot to like about it, there are some enjoyable elements within here that make everything enough to hold off the issues that bring this one down. Those with an appreciation for this style or who enjoy this era of the genre will have a lot to like here, while most others might want to heed caution.
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