The Hand (1981)

(On Cable TV, January 2022) One of Oliver Stone’s earliest movies as writer-director, The Hand is an oddity in his filmography in that it’s probably a supernatural thriller. I say probably, because in the usual fashion of psychological thrillers going for Todorovian ambiguity, it intentionally presents contradictory material in order to have it both ways. Michael Caine remains one of the best reasons to see the film, as he plays a comic book artist who loses one of his hands in a very contrived accident scene. That’s bad enough, but when his enemies and personal annoyances start dropping dead at the hand of a mysterious entity, we’re either dealing with our protagonist undergoing a psychotic break, or a supernatural disembodied hand going around and doing his dirty subconscious business. Even hard-core horror fans will opt for the psychological explanation… except that the ending of the film has other ideas. OR DOES IT?!? Because, as is often the case with those borderline thrillers, nothing is really expected to make sense. Still, Caine is fun to watch as a writer going crazy (he reportedly did the film for garage-building cash), and the special effects are not bad for the time and budget of the film. There’s some grand-guignol entertainment value to The Hand even if it’s not all that good, and it’s not even close to the worst film in Caine’s filmography.