Idle Hands

1999 ***1/4

Catfreeek mentioned years ago that I should add this movie to my crawling hand collection. I wish I meant a collection of actual crawling hands instead of viewings of movies starring them, as by now I could make a pretty bitchin' crawling human hand centipede.

I threw this in as a last-ditch effort on Halloween Eve, but I blacked out after the first ten minutes. For a while I've been wondering who this Devon Sawa person is, having seen him in Final Destination some time ago and totally forgetting him. The opening minutes of Idle Hands did not make for a kind introduction; I didn't like Sawa's character Anton, a stoner slacker teenager, I didn't like his two sidekick buddies (one of whom played by Seth Green), who just seemed like jerks, and I'm never excited to find out Jessica Alba is on screen, unless maybe she's playing a mute robot. Because, c'mon, she's cute as a button (a sexy button) -- but boy can she not act. The inverse ratio between sexy cuteness and talent with her is, like, a fraction that can't exist. Yet there she is still, making Machete kind of suck.

Going into the bulk of the movie on Halloween night, I was pleasantly surprised to find all of my dour expectations come to naught (except for Alba, she was a cute little plank of wood, as usual.)

I liked Anton's particular brand of well-meaning slacker, and even if it was type casting, I have to give him props for the scenes where he clutched his demonically-possessed hand with the good one. Like a good muppeteer would, he does a convincing job making his evil hand look autonomous as it thrashed around, while he himself focussed on other things.

But really the movie was stolen by this dead guy here. Mick is one of the hand's early victims, and he returns from the dead to reunite with Anton, like Griffin Dunne in American Werewolf in London but without the mission. Mick just wants to hang. He saw the light and heard the celestial music, but... "I figured fuck it. It was really far." The delivery on this is excellent, and puts a gutsy, dark spin on the movie's ongoing joke about stoner slackers.

I'm repressing the urge to detail my rubbing-elbows-with-celebrity experience, but I did work on Robot Chicken for a few months and I got used to seeing Seth Green around. This was the first time I'd seen him in something since then, and it was a fresh surprise to watch him being so damn funny.

This turns into a crawling hand movie after Anton makes the command move to amputate his (a.k.a. "The Ash"). He nukes it in the microwave, but his undead guests inadvertently free it when they go to cook some burritos.

This crawling hand attacks as if it has a body attached to it, with a body's strength and leverage. I can't really accuse them of cheating; the main reason I watch crawling hand movies is to taunt the non-threat of the premise. They might as well make up their own rules.

The climax involves a Carrie-esque prom scene, some amusing gory deaths, Jessica Alba in her underwear, and -- to push the envelope as far as they could -- a demonic hand puppet. Although I didn't give it the full three and a half, I had to give it more than just three. It's got that little something.

This movie's on high goof mode, so skip it if you're not one for horror comedies. If you like them sometimes but not the ones like Scream, this might be for you, because it's not trying to be so clever. If you already like some funny with your bloody, this is definitely worth 90 minutes of your life. Maybe don't watch it sober.