Idle Hands
USA/Germany 1999
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Bolan, California., a few days before Halloween. The parents of slacker teenager Anton are murdered by a mysterious force, but Anton doesn't notice. He continues to hang out with his dope-smoking friends Mick and Pnub, and fantasise about Molly, the cool girl who lives across the street. Meanwhile, Druid priest Debi is tracking an evil force which takes possession of the lazy and turns them into serial killers.
Anton finds his parents' corpses and calls Mick and Pnub over, only to have his hand - which is possessed - murder them. While Anton tries to get Molly to help, the hand makes advances to her that Anton follows through on. Mick and Pnub come back to life as zombies and suggest Anton consults with heavy-metal kid Randy on the subject of Satanic powers. Anton hacks off his possessed hand but it continues to make mischief. Debi hooks up with Randy, who leads her to Anton. They track the hand to the school dance, where more teenagers are killed but Anton saves Molly. Later, Mick and Pnub return from Heaven as angels.
Review
This likeable, if minor, slacker horror comedy is a reworking of the intermittently popular crawling-hand theme, exemplified classically by The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), although the splatter-comic elements here also seem inspired by a subplot from Evil Dead II in which Bruce Campbell battled with his possessed, amputated hand, a plight closely resembling that of Idle Hands' luckless Anton.
It's an infalliby funny gambit, and Devon Sawa's writhing fingers create a real separate character. There's an undeveloped suggestion that the evil hand is acting out Anton's desires, as when it gropes Molly, thus landing the timid slacker the girlfriend he would otherwise never have got round to approaching. The film's nugget of irony - based on the proverb "Idle hands are the Devil's playground" - is unforced, but also rather thrown away.
Roger Corman-stable veteran Rodman Flender (director of Leprechaun 2) worked previously in television (Tales from the Crypt, Dark Skies). He marshals sick slapstick very well, using a Dario Argento-inspired colour palette still unusual in American horror movies. The amiably blank Devon Sawa, credible as a clod who uses a backscratcher to scoop a remote control when it's out of reach, performs impressive contortions before the evil hand is hacked off his wrist, pulling off the hard trick of approaching Bruce Campbell's skill at battling an apparently rebel body part. Once chopped off and microwaved, the hand is 'played' by Christopher Hart, who handled Thing in the Addams Family films. Hart matches Sawa's moves and creates a distinctively different crawling hand from his earlier character: Thing was perky and inquisitive, this hand is sneaky and cruel. Among many horrid japes, the funniest and crassest moment comes during the obligatory teenage backseat make-out scene, as a girl realises her breasts are being fondled by three hands.
As is the fashion with teenage horror films at the turn of this century, Idle Hands is more of an ensemble piece than a solo venture. This diffuses its potential for real scariness but also means potential dead spots are filled by scene-stealing supporting players. While Jessica Alba is appealing, most of the work is done by double acts, such as Vivica A. Fox and Jack Noseworthy as, respectively, the Amazonian Druid priestess and the bewildered heavy-metal kid, and especially the vastly underrated Seth Green and Elden Henson as Mick and Pnub, who return from the dead because "Some voice said, 'Walk into the light,' but it was, like, really far, so we said 'Fuck it.'" Raised from the dead, the teens pull a few Re-Animator routines: Pnub has to carry around his severed head or jam it back onto his stumbling body with a fork, but the nicest joke is that these zombies would rather lie on the sofa watching MTV eating cheesy snacks than consume human flesh.
Credits
- Director
- Rodman Flender
- Producers
- Suzanne Todd
- Jennifer Todd
- Andrew Licht
- Jeffrey A. Mueller
- Screenplay
- Terri Hughes
- Ron Milbauer
- Director of Photography
- Christopher Baffa
- Editor
- Stephen E. Rivkin
- Production Designer
- Greg Melton
- Music
- Graeme Revell
- ©Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Co. Medien KG
- Production Companies
- Colubia Pictures presents a Licht/Mueller Film Corporation/Team Todd production
- Executive Producer
- Jeffrey Sudzin
- Production Co-ordinator
- Pearl A. Lucero
- Unit Production Managers
- Roger Pugliese
- Jeffrey Sudzin
- Location Manager
- George Agnew
- Assistant Directors
- Christian P. Della Penna
- Deanna Stadler
- Maria Battle Campbell
- Sharon Swab
- Script Supervisor
- Suzanne Gundlach
- Casting
- John Papsidera
- Associate:
- Wendy O'Brien
- Group Supervisor:
- Burt Sharp
- Camera Operator
- Dan Ayers
- Visual Effects
- VCE, Inc
- Special Effects
- Lou Carlucci
- Additional Editing
- Christopher S. Capp
- Art Director
- Roland G. Rosenkranz
- Set Designer
- Scott Herbertson
- Set Decorator
- Evette Frances Knight
- Storyboard Artist
- Darrin Denlinger
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Julia Caston
- Wardrobe
- Christina Mongini
- Susi Campos
- Brenda Ware
- Make-up Supervisor
- Scott Eddo
- Prosthetic Make-up
- Barry R. Koper
- Special Effects Make-up Design/Creation
- Cannom Creations
- Hair Supervisor
- Janice Alexander
- Hairstylist
- Audrey Anzures
- Main Titles Design
- The Attik
- Titles/Opticals
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Orchestrator
- Tim Simonec
- Music Supervisor
- John Houlihan
- Music Editor
- Ashley Revell
- Soundtrack
- "Peppyrock" by BTK; "Bloodclot" by Rancid; "Shout at the Devil" by Motley Crue; "Santeria" by Sublime; "Core (In Time)", "Glow in the
- Dark" by Davíd Garza; "I Am a Pig" by Two; "Pop That Coochie" by 2 Live Crew; "Dragula" by Rob Zombie; "Rude Boy Rock" by Lionrock; "Second Solution" by The Living End; "Mindtrip" by Zebrahead; "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley; "Beheaded" by The Offspring; "Cailin" by Unwritten Law; "Push It" by Static X; "How Do You Feel" by Vanessa Daou; "I Wanna Be Sedated"
- Production Mixer
- Joseph Geisinger
- Re-recording Mixers
- Jeffrey J. Haboush
- Greg Orloff
- Bill W. Benton
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Michael O'Farrell
- Sound Editors
- Mark A. Lanza
- Simon Coke
- Alison Fisher
- Bruce Nyznik
- D. Chris Smith
- Jim Matheny
- ADR Supervisor
- Michael Haight
- Foley
- Supervisor:
- Jonathan Klein
- Artists:
- Gary Hecker
- Michael Broomberg
- Mixer:
- Richard Duarte
- Editor:
- Andy Kopetzky
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Charles Picerni Jr
- Film Extracts
- Dawn of the Dead (1979)
- Glen or Glenda (1955)
- Cast
- Devon Sawa
- Anton
- Seth Green
- Mick
- Elden Henson
- Pnub
- Jessica Alba
- Molly
- Steve Van Wormer
- Curtis
- Fred Willard
- dad
- Jack Noseworthy
- Randy
- Vivica A. Fox
- Debi
- Christopher Hart
- the hand
- Katie Wright
- Tanya
- Sean Whalen
- McMacy
- Nick Sadler
- Ruck
- Connie Ray
- mom
- Kelly Monaco
- Tiffany
- Timothy Stack
- Principal Tidwell
- Joey Slotnick
- Burger Jungle manager
- Tom DeLonge
- drive thru jockey
- Sabrina Lu
- news reporter
- Kyle Gass
- Burger Jungle guy
- Mindy Sterling
- lady bowler
- Donna Scott
- nurse
- Randy Oglesby
- Sheriff Buchanan
- Molly Maslin
- Carl Gabriel Yorke
- chaperones
- Dexter Holland
- band lead singer
- The Offspring
- the band
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,281 feet
- 92 minutes 1 second
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- Technicolor
- Prints by
- DeLuxe