‘The Hand’ (1981): An Unpolished Gem Worth Watching

the hand 1981
Orion Pictures / Warner Bros.

Forty years after its release, I’ll give you reasons why you need to watch The Hand (1981), starring Michael Caine. This unpolished gem of a psychological thriller came at a time when the horror movie market became saturated. Lost in 1981, amid horror staples like The Evil Dead, The Howling, American Werewolf in London, and Halloween, The Hand was pushed to the side. Even the awaited third film in The Omen trilogy, The Final Conflict, beat The Hand in box office sales by 1000%. Friday the 13th Part 2 came out that year, too. The franchise slasher icon was on the rise. Who wanted a cartoonist-turned-strangler when werewolves were transforming better than ever and psychotic killers were racking up body counts?

Caine had recently cut his thriller chops in Dressed to Kill (1980) with the immortal Angie Dickinson. He proved his ability engage audiences looking for violent action in The Island (1980—written by Peter Benchley of Jaws fame), held his weight in action in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), and dabbled in the seventies’ fascination with large groups of animals and insects in The Swarm (1978). Caine was more than ready to step into horror. The only problem? Aside from his low budget Seizure! (1974), Oliver Stone didn’t have any experience making horror. The Hand, being billed as a thriller, Michael Caine being popular outside of the horror genre, and Stone’s inability to decide what kind of movie The Hand would be were all factors in its failing at the box office. It was the beginning of the home box office movies era, so audiences were content to wait for Michael Caine’s psychological thriller to come home to them.

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Now that we have the reasons The Hand is a lesser known thriller in the horror realm out of the way, here’s why you need to put it on your watch list. As a preteen, I remember watching it over and over, fascinated by the disremembered cartoonist unconsciously bent on reclaiming his masculinity at the expense of his own humanity. Everyone else around him suffers for it. The “twist” of the tale, based on Marc Brandel’s book, The Lizard’s Tail (retitled later to tie-in with the movie), is telegraphed far too soon in the film, but Michael Caine superbly evolves the character along with his costars. Pay particular attention to the scene when he’s talking to the doctor about how strong his prosthetic grip is. The wheels are turning in his mind.

Caine’s character, Jonathan Lansdale, is in a rocky relationship with his wife, and finds escape in a character he’s developed called Mandro. His popular comic strip has given him the masculine voice he longs to have himself. Mandro is a barbarian living in a fantasy world (seemingly influenced by Conan). “Mandro doesn’t think,” Lansdale tells his replacement after losing his hand in a freak accident. “He knows what he wants.” Lansdale claims new depictions of his beloved character are like “cutting his balls off” when it’s actually Jonathan Lansdale himself who feels emasculated. He’s is threatened by male figures in his life and the lives of those he loves. He lashes out to reconnect with his own masculinity. Ironically, he does it passively and unconsciously. Perhaps he’s always been this way, or perhaps the accident gave him a sense he can never again reach his full potential as a man. His frustration drives him to fantasize about exacting revenge on those he’d rather not confront directly.

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While it’s billed as a thriller, viewers should be aware that though story beats happen quickly in the beginning, the rest unfolds rather slowly. It was a different time. There are no quick edits, and it’s less about thrills as it is about chills. When you begin to realize his lost member has taken over his mind, you fear for everyone in his life, including his young daughter. It’s hard to root for the killer when you have been invited into his personal life. It’s like watching Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). By the time you start debating with yourself about whether you can get behind the anti-hero’s rationale, it’s too late.

It’s a dark journey that brings the main character to a place where he finally feels like the character he invented. He knows what he wants. He doesn’t think. He allows the hand to do the thinking for him. The shame he feels near the end isn’t enough to stop him from embracing his own transition into psychopathy. The last several minutes feel like a different movie altogether. This is where Oliver Stone showed his inexperience. It didn’t become a horror movie until the end. The psychological thriller ends when he is caught. It’s when he accepts who he’s become that we finally see him as a horror killer. At this, it seems an opportunity was missed. Michael Caine’s terrifying expressions post climax showed he would have been more than capable had The Hand turned into a franchise. Once his sniveling demeanor turns to deranged confidence, you want more of him. And, isn’t that what makes us walk away from a movie with the idea that it was entertaining? We aren’t unfulfilled at the end, but we still want more.


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