Hand of Death (1962)

HAND OF DEATH opens with a sequence that might've come straight out of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (or VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED). It's an ominous beginning (thanks in no small part to the music) and the fact that the movie involves experiments with Nerve Gas makes it Topical no matter the decade. When Agar begins his Transformation, it's his MIND that goes first, and he ends up looking almost exactly like Ben Grimm ("The Thing" from THE FANTASTIC FOUR), at least as rendered in the beginning by Jack Kirby. And, like any good Monster, he Inadvertently (at least at first) wreaks Havoc wherever he goes. Decades ago, I created a super "hero" of sorts of my own, called The Leper. A homeless man subjected to the experiments of a mad scientist working for The Military Industrial Complex, his mere TOUCH became lethal. Like Agar in HAND OF DEATH, he used GLOVES to try to prevent infecting folks... A couple of years ago, I entered a Halloween costume contest. I made myself up as The Leper. The makeup took me three hours to apply and was convincing enough that my own niece didn't recognize me when I approached her. (One man who attended the contest- held at a local comic shop- couldn't take his eyes off of me.) It wasn't until I got in my car to leave and looked in the rear view mirror at myself that I realized just HOW convincing my makeup was: I didn't recognize myself. On my way home, people stared at me (one woman even rolled down her window and asked me if I was alright) until I explained that it was just a Halloween makeup. Yesterday, reading one of Tom Weaver's books of interviews, I discovered HAND OF DEATH in a John Agar interview. I've just watched it and it's EXACTLY the kind of movie I'd hoped to make about THE LEPER. Dammit.

I saw this movie at a theater as an 8 year old,and was literally scared under the seat. I haven't seen it since 1962, but vividly remember the monster he became. As young as I was, I remember finding it odd that he wandered the streets without garnering more attention. It IS a shame that it hasn't been made available on DVD; I'd grab it up in a minute. It would probably seem hokey now,but, on the other hand,maybe it would still impress, like " The Day the Earth Stood Still" (no insult intended to THAT classic). We don't have AMC available in Canada, so it appears that I'll have a long wait before refreshing my memory of my first REALLY scary horror movie.

Last night, Fox Movie Channel ran the long-feared-lost sci fi thriller HAND OF DEATH, starring John Agar. I believe this may have been the first-ever TV showing of this film. Here's my verdict....First off, anyone hoping that Fox was clinging to a pristine print of this film, which had been simply filed away in the vaults, was in for a disappointment. What FMC ran was a clumsily panned and scanned transfer of a dupey, 16 mm print. The sound quality was fuzzy and the picture quality so contrasty that for stretches the monster-Agar was reduced to a silhouette.Director Gene Nelson and screenwriter Eugene Ling make very little of a fertile idea, unused since The Invisible Ray in 1936. A scientific experiment goes haywire, and scientist Alex Marsh's (John Agar) metabolism is altered so that his mere touch suddenly kills any living creature. The film's first 20 minutes are devoted to bland domestic melodrama and strained comic relief. But the the real problems begin once Agar gains his `hand of death.'When he gains the death-touch, Alex goes insane. Unfortunately, so does the movie. From that point forward, none of his actions have any coherent motivation, and the picture simply lurches from one ludicrious scene to the next without any apparent logic. When there's no logic, there's also no tension. Puzzled viewers are left to simply watch Agar run amok. As a result of the accident, Alex also turns black, and eventually morphs into a grotesque, bloated monster that looks like a cross between Uncle Remus and Ben Grimm (The Thing, from the Fantastic Four comic books). Making the scientist turn black gives the film unintented but hilarious additional layers of meaning.The acting is wooden, but the characters are so poorly sketched that it matters little. Agar has very little to do here except run around in an oversized foam rubber mask and grunt. The film is further weakened by a juvenile score (which, at one point, breaks into `Chopsticks!'). Nelson worked mostly in television, where he shot an episode of the original Star Trek series (`The Gamesters of Triskelion'), among other TV episodes. At just 58 minutes, Hand of Death isn't much longer than `Gamesters of Triskelion.' This appears to have been Ling's final screenwriting credit. Perhaps after this, he was too embarrassed to continue. The most distinguished member of the Hand of Death crew was cinematoprapher Floyd Crosby. Crosby (father of singer David Crosby) had lensed major Hollywood features including the stunning High Noon (1952), but was blacklisted by the major studios and reduced to shooting B pictures (including Attack of the Crab Monsters and Teenage Cave Man). After Hand of Death, Crosby would shoot most of the Roger Corman Poe adaptations, as well as X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes and The Black Zoo, among other genre favorites. It's impossible to judge his work here, due to the poor quality of the FMC print.Hand of Death is not a good film, but manages to hold audiences' attention in the same `I-can't-believe-I'm-seeing-this' sort of way that films like The Hideous Sun Demon amuse audiences. It was not a major rediscovery by any means, but it was nice to finally see this little curio.

One of the most inexplicably hard-to-see Horror titles of the 60's has resurfaced -- well, sort of. Because of a combination of vague legal rights issues, big studio neglect and the dissolution of its original production company, HAND OF DEATH has all but disappeared from sight. Recently, its star, John Agar and a group of his devoted fans got a rare opportunity to watch a videotape of the film. Hopefully, 20th Century Fox (now that they have found a print) will resolve all those pesky legal details and reissue the film on DVD, tape and TV. The film itself has some definite merit. The acting, , writing, direction and basic storyline are totally pro all the way. Technically, HAND benefits from fine cinematography by Crosby (TABU, several Roger Corman features) -- although the Cinemascope film is hampered by a pan-and-scan transfer on tape. The real standout is a jazz cum horror genre score by Sonny Burke (ooh, a CD would be nice, hint hint). On one level, HAND is a typical: Mad scientist INVENTS serum, mad scientist TAKES serum, Mad Scientist BECOMES Monster kind of movie. But, a subplot (underdeveloped mainly because the film runs a too trim 60 whole minutes) about the military creating the serum for nerve gas war is intriguing and the above mentioned tech credits are handled by seasoned vets. I hope all IMDB fans will get the rare chance I did of seeing HAND OF DEATH soon. And, thank you, John Agar for letting me see your movie!