106 - THE CRAWLING HAND (RHINO DVD & VHS)

Genre:  Low Budget Horror (1963, B&W)

Synopsis:  The movie opens with fireworks-enhanced credits as an astronaut flies through space.  Then a smoking guy and some lady are in a small office and are upset about losing yet another astronaut in space.  The Smoking Guy goes into another room and meets with a couple of angry guys who also go on and on about killing astronauts yet again.  But – surprise, surprise! – the astronaut isn’t dead yet as he radios in to “Moon Blast” even though he’s looking a bit ghoulish and jabbering on about “killing” and “his arm” and “pushing the red button.”   Finally to shut him up, they push the red button that blows the spaceship – and astronaut – to smithereens.  Now the Smoking Guy and the Angry Boss Guy talk on and on about what kept the astronaut alive after all of his oxygen ran out 20 minutes earlier. (I dunno, maybe he held his breath?)   Next, the movie switches to an ice cream joint where we meet a couple of rat-loving babes, Patsy and Marta, while the dancing-hating old guy who runs the place yells at everyone.  Soon Marta’s weird boyfriend Paul shows up and the couple take off for the beach where they can strip and frolic around.  But the fun ends – for Marta, at least – when they find a severed hand (and forearm) on the beach, so they leave.  But Paul, still thinking of the hand, returns to the beach that night to retrieve the loose limb and take it back to the house where he’s renting a room.  That night, Paul’s landlady is sleeping with a gun under her pillow and keeps getting up and doing stuff until she gets up just one too many times and is attacked and killed by the crawling hand.  Paul hears the gun and runs downstairs, where he finds the landlady’s dead body, so he called Sheriff Skipper who then rushes over.  After investigating the murder, Sheriff Skipper inexplicably allows Paul to stay there for the night and also leaves even before the paramedics arrive to take away the dead body.  While waiting, Paul is attacked and knocked unconscious by the crawling hand while on the phone.  The incompetent paramedics arrive and decide to raid the fridge for beer when they find Paul’s unconscious body and throw him in back of their ambulance along with the dead body.  While the paramedics are taking them back to the hospital, Paul wakes up and sees the dead body next to him, so he jumps out of the ambulance and runs away.  Paul gets back to the house, where a waiting Sheriff Skipper grills him, but Paul protects his “little buddy,” the hand.  Paul then goes upstairs to record a diary entry about “the hand” on his tape recorder, however he flips out before finishing and now looks just like the crazed jabbering astronaut with the ghoulish eyes – but rubbing his face makes it go away.  Getting a report about the murder, the Moon Blast G-Men arrive in town to investigate what’s going on.  The two G-Men visit the landlady’s body in the morgue and discover it has just the right needle pattern they were looking for.  Back at the landlady’s house, the G-Men see that the cabinets have right needle pattern too, but are soon attacked by a ghoul-eyed Paul, who then runs out of the house.  Paul goes to the ice cream joint and attacks the crotchety old man with a mop, before changing back to normal (or as close to normal as Paul ever gets) and running off again.  Before going back home, Paul takes a detour over to his girlfriend Marta’s house to tell her a lot of nothing as well as try to try to choke her before running off back to his landlady’s house to look for the crawling hand, which he captures and wraps in a tablecloth.  Paul then drives to the city dump with the hand, but it somehow is able to escape the tablecloth and attack him.  Paul is able to cut up the hand and soon some hungry cats come to the rescue and finish off the hand.  Paul falls out of the hand’s spell before the police have a chance to shoot him. (Damn!)  The movie ends as Paul is now in the hospital recuperating, while the beer-stealing paramedics are unfortunately trusted with transport of the box containing the remains of the hand.

Don’s Review:  When I first watched this episode, it was the first Season One episode I had seen since the season aired back in 1990.  I remember that way back then, at first, I actually missed Dr. Larry Erhardt when he left the show and was replaced by TV’s Frank, although I quickly forgot about him when I began to like Frank.  Now looking back, I’ve got to say that Josh “Elvis” Weinstein really overgeeked the role as the assistant mad scientist Larry Erhardt too much – Frank is much, much better.  But I also remember liking his voice for Tom Servo back then and so, hearing it again, I’ve got to say that I kinda miss his been-there-done-that take on Servo (...but I do prefer Kevin Murphy as Tom Servo, so maybe this is just some nostalgia I have for the character as I first saw him).  As for the episode... well, I’m surprised that Rhino picked this one for release, because it really isn’t very good, even by Season One standards.  The dreary movie itself isn’t any fun at all and the riffing is rather weak for the most part, only picking up nicely in a few scenes (particularly the phone call scene, a type of scene which would develop into a Joel specialty).  The host segments are also a pretty weak bunch, except for the somewhat funny “William Shatner” spoof segment and the Limb Lengthener invention.  So, overall, this is a very disappointing episode that I think is one of the weaker episodes of the entire series and was a lousy choice for release by Rhino.  Therefore, I say just see it for completeness sake, but I would recommend buying every other episode from Rhino before shelling out the money for this thing on Video/DVD.

Don’s Rating: 

Related Link:
   (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)