robertbisceglia
I enjoyed it, but the low budget was noticeable. They did good enough. It was actually creepy, but quickly became boring and unrealistic. I do appreciate the soundtrack, and the car chase scene. It is a good classic horror film to watch drunk, if you're looking for anything in the realm of reality look away.
BA_Harrison
There had been 'living' severed hand movies before (The Beast With Five Fingers, The Crawling Hand, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, And Now The Screaming Starts), and there have been a few since (The Hand, Evil Dead II and Idle Hands), but none of them have been as wonderfully schlocky and unintentionally funny as Demonoid, an inept slice of z-grade Mexican horror made all the more laughable by earnest performances from leads Samantha Eggar and Stuart Whitman, and direction from Alfredo Zacarías that shows no sign of intentional humour. Eggar plays Jennifer Baines, who attempts to track down and destroy an ancient evil force that possesses people's left hands (starting with her husband Mark, played by Roy Jenson). Whitman is Father Cunningham, the initially sceptical priest who eventually helps her on her mission.Demonoid immediately displays its trash credentials with a marvellous pre-credits sequence that delivers both gratuitous nudity and gore: a woman wearing cult robes fights against several men, but is overpowered, her clothing torn open in the process, exposing her ample breasts. After she is shackled, one of her assailants hacks off her left hand, the severed appendage crawling across the floor before being skewered and placed in a special metal case. It's a great way to start things off, and is just one of many fun scenes in this very daft horror. Each time someone is possessed, they are driven to remove their hand, which results in some truly memorable moments: Mark's badly burnt reanimated corpse slams his wrist in a car door, a gun-toting cop tells a plastic surgeon 'either you cut my hand off or I'll kill you!', while the very same surgeon severs his own hand by placing his arm on a railway track. Special affects are bloody but wholly unconvincing, which only adds to the charm of the piece. The final act features a supposedly tense chase with zero sense of urgency, and sees Father Cunningham burning off his own possessed hand with a blow-torch, later scattering the ashes in the sea. It looks like the 'devil's hand' has been vanquished once and for all, but a delightfully silly epilogue sees Jennifer attacked by the five-fingered horror, which has somehow returned from the ocean.
Woodyanders
Jennifer Baines (the always classy Samantha Egger), the wife of industrialist Mark Baines (a sturdy portrayal by Roy Jensen), joins forces with renegade boxing Irish priest Father Cunningham (a gloriously hammy portrayal by Stuart Whitman) to combat a lethal ancient evil force that has taken on the form of a deadly severed crawling hand.Director/co-writer Alfredo Zacarias keeps the entertainingly absurd story zipping along at a brisk pace, treats the ridiculous premise with utmost misguided seriousness, and delivers many jaw-dropping moments of inspired lunacy. The crude (not so) special effects further add to this film's considerable infectiously clunky charm. Buxom Russ Meyer starlet Haji pops up (and out) in a small role as a cheap floozy. The sharp cinematography by Alex Phillips Jr. makes this low-grade schlock look more polished than it deserves. The funky pulsating score by Richard Gillis hits the get-down groovy spot. A deliciously tacky hoot and a half.
Rrrobert
Ghastly high-camp Mexican horrors with Stuart Whitman as a Priest attempting to help Samantha Eggar in her battle against a murderous demon which possesses people's left hands. Whitman's acting is suitably over-the-top (his accent changes from Irish to American and back) while Eggar gives the shoddy production more class than it deserves. Russ Meyer starlet Haji has a small role as a gangster's moll while Mexican superstar Erika Carlsson receives prominent billing for her challenging role of "Nurse Morgan": a sexy blonde cleavage-revealing nurse who has about 45 seconds of screen time and who's only dialogue is screaming out "NOOOOOO!!!" (See Alicia Encinas' role in "The Bees".)Infinitely compelling and enjoyable in its badness, the film is enlivened by several grisly/hilarious horror sequences and quite a few genuinely suspenseful situations. The funniest sequences involve assorted possessed people finding various imaginative methods of removing their left hands. Of course as soon as the hand has been removed we see it scurry off in search of a new victim and the process begins again. Unlike Alfredo Zacharias' other opus "The Bees" (1978) it appears the makers really were attempting to make a good film this time around. They almost made it but fortunately there is enough terrible acting, laughable dialogue (possessed cop to a plastic surgeon: "cut my hand off or I'll kill you!") and high-camp hilarity to keep any bad-movie buff enthralled.The film apparently sat on the shelf for three years; release of "The Hand" starring Michael Caine undoubtedly encouraged distributors to finally release this to cash-in on the living-hand craze.
AD
