The Crawling Hand (1963)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This viewer was hoping to enjoy "The Crawling Hand" more than he did. It's got enough absurdity at times to make it diverting, but the whole premise is boringly handled by director Herbert L. Strock, who makes us wait too long for the "good" moments. The actors do their best at looking dead serious, which naturally helps to make things funnier. The special effects, surprisingly, aren't that terrible, and the movie actually does have a sense of humour in some scenes. All in all, this does go on longer than it really should. It gets off to a great start with its opening credits, promising more fun than it eventually delivers.Astronaut Mel Lockhart (Ashley Cowan) goes crazy while in space, and crash lands in California. Turns out, the alien intelligence that possessed him still resides in his severed arm & hand, and it commits a murder, and soon exerts an evil influence over dopey medical student Paul Lawrence (Rod Lauren). Paul struggles to regain control of himself while the local sheriff (played by The Skipper himself, Alan Hale Jr.) believes him to be guilty of the killing.The cast also includes a hammy Peter Breck as ill-tempered Steve Curan, Kent Taylor as his associate Dr. Max Weitzberg, the 50 foot woman (otherwise known as actress Allison Hayes) as Donna, cute Sirry Steffen as Pauls' girlfriend Marta, Arline Judge as landlady Mrs. Hotchkiss, and Richard Arlen as Lee Barrenger. They're all entertaining to watch, and the movie, even if not that funny, does possess a certain low budget bad movie charm that's hard to resist. The ending is the best part; it's pretty damn amusing.Schlock devotees will likely have a reasonably good time with this.Four out of 10.

Watching The Crawling Hand tonight all I could think of was The Addams Family and The Thing which was guest starring in this film. The Thing should have received top billing.It's hard to believe that so many name players were desperate for work to sign on to this film. An astronaut dies on a mission, but his severed hand takes on a life of its own and starts strangling people. And it possesses the mind of young Rod Lauren who is starting to show some homicidal tendencies.People like Alan Hale, Jr. Peter Breck, Syd Saylor so many I know from many films just look downright embarrassed to be in this thing. And in the end, the security of NASA leaves something to be desired.It's not even funny bad, just bad.

I wonder if I could make it through The Crawling Hand if it weren't for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys along for the proverbial ride. It's a wonder if this could be made entertaining at all... then again in 1987 in Evil Dead 2 one would see what mayhem and fun could be had with a demonic hand. But in the case of this film, the plot is thin save for some "watch out for, um, radiation fall-out from space" scare-messages, and the characters are practically non-existent types. Or rather, they do exist, but you wonder where the character parts 'went'.But there are some moments of hilarity, even without the commentary from MST3K There's the guy on the TV screen out in space who is first affected by the radiation (he really goes so far into banana-land that he makes Shatner look like Olivier) and whose hand becomes THE hand that lands on the beach and attacks those by lunging for the throat. The way the hand lunges from its point of attack is also quite funny, how it creeps up and jumps off in such a manner that you're all but waiting to see the other hand that through that hand at the actor's throat! Some of the wooden acting is fun too; Peter Breck, who the same year this came out legitimately wowed me with his turn in Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor, is given little do but act and talk serious at a, (haha), crawling hand that when it attacks someone they get up and, uh, become the hand themselves! I'm sure that when this came out some of the scare scenes were possibly scary. Today it can't be helped that it's all very tacky, and despite an attempt at a shocking climax at a junkyard, where cats are the ones who really can get the most credit in doing the most damage, its a tacky sci-fi B movie in a mostly dull kind of way. But, as mentioned, MST3K comes in to save the day if one is so inclined to watch with it (i.e. any reference to 'smoking').

(Possible spoilers) not many people may know this but "The Crawling Hand" was an early MST3K episode from about '89, I think. Personally, I don't feel this was anywhere near being the worst movie they ever did, but it was still pretty bad. The story consists of an astronaut (whose lines consist mainly of "Push the red button" and "Kill" during which he sounds like a William Shatner wannabe) who is blown up and his remains, but mainly his hand are discovered later on a beach by a frolicking couple, a Swedish chick who has to read cue cards and a James Dean clone. For some reason the "James" guy goes on a killing or a dutch rub spree for any one whose seen the film all the while to NASA scientists (I think) and a dumpy sheriff (Alan Hale Jr., whose surprised)are trying to track him down. It's not really a very good movie, though the MST version was quite funny, for an early episode.