A look at 7 classic creepy films about haunted severed hands
Our hands are marvels. Truly. And we rely on them so much: feeding, holding, writing, working and other stuff which we won’t mention on a family website. But as the horror genre is prone to doing, the visceral, terrifying concept of losing control of one’s hands has been exploited often. From early films like the brilliant Peter Lorre vehicle Mad Love to not-so-brilliant ’90s comedy horror favorite Idle Hands, having our hands doing bad things against our will is frightening. But some of the wildest horror films go a step farther and have hands actually liberated from arms running wild, taking on lives of their own and getting up to no good. I’m not talking about helpful severed hands like “Thing” from The Addams Family (comic strip, TV series and film franchise) but really evil, sentient severed hands that really enjoy committing murder most foul.
Here then are our picks for the 7 greatest evil severed hand horror movies ever. Like all of these listy-thingies, our picks are subjective and we’re more than open to suggestions from you, dear readers, as to other key creepy crawling claws in arcane cinema we may have missed.
So grip something tight and have a read below and discuss in the comments section!
Severed Hands
-
The Crawling Hand (1963)
Prime schlock from director Herbert. L. Strock, this drive-in D-movie classic is tons of fun. And astronaut's obliterated body parts come crashing to earth, including his now alien-possessed hand which creeps around the town strangling folks until a savvy cat brings it down. A camp gem that is best watched with inebriated friends.
-
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
Brilliant Amicus anthology with an all-star cast (Cushing, Lee, Donald Sutherland and more) that features an entire segment about a killer hand. In it, Christopher Lee plays an art critic at war with a famous painter. When Lee provokes and accident that causes the painter to lose his hand, the artist commits suicide and his hand comes back from the grave, seeking revenge. Lee is great, the movie is great...and that hand is awesome!
-
And Now the Screaming Starts (1973)
Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom and Ian Ogilvy star in this chilling, underrated Amicus horror film, one of the few non-anthology shockers released by the company. In it, a cursed family endures many horrors, including the creeping, homicidal spectral severed hand of a long dead - and super pissed - servant. Slow, moody and man, that rubbery, bloody-stumped hand is relentless.
-
The Hand (1981)
I've never understood the indifference people have to Oliver Stone's second film, The Hand. It's a deft psycho thriller with Michael Caine delivering a powerhouse performance. Caine plays an artist who loses his hand in an accident and inexplicably, the hand returns to commit all manner of murder. Or does it? A quiet masterpiece that needs far more love than it gets.
-
Demonoid: Messenger of Death (1981)
Awesome Mexican horror movie with The Brood's Samantha Eggar about an exhumed hand that is possessed by the Devil. Or a Devil. Or Demonoid. Whatever, the hand leaps about attaching itself to the stumps of its victims and forcing them to do terrible things. Great fun, bloody and often very atmospheric and eerie.
-
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Sam Raimi's deluxe follow-up to his cult-hit Evil Dead is even more wild, as much an exercise in surrealism as it is horror (and comedy!). The scene where a deadite possesses Ash's hand and throws him around like a doll is Bruce Campbell at his best. But when Ash severs his hand with a chainsaw, the now liberated paw comes after him...and of course, insults him by flipping the bird. Maybe the greatest man vs. hand movies ever made.
-
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Brian Yuzna's middling sequel to Stuart Gordon's 1985 masterpiece Re-Animator, this film makes up for in weirdness what it lacks in elegance. Among the re-animated, mutant body parts in Herbert West's lab is this multi-fingered horror, a crawling hand with a lovely, leering eyeball on it. Credit FX legend Screaming Mad George for this diabolical and totally weird creation. Nothing else like it!
