IDLE HANDS
There have been many classic films that provide a nearly flawless balance between comedy and horror. Two of the most successful, EVIL DEAD 2 and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, seem to have been the biggest inspirations for the new attempted black comedy IDLE HANDS. Unfortunately, the new film is neither as funny or as scary as its predecessors.
Devon Sawa plays a teenage stoner who finds his right hand possessed by an evil force that causes him to go on a killing spree. His victims include his two best friends (Seth Green and Eldon Henson) who come back as zombies because they are too lazy to move on to the afterlife. There is plenty of mildly amusing humor involving pot smoking and severed heads, but a lot of it is stuff we've seen done better before in films like REANIMATOR. The stoner stuff is generally more successful than the mutilation slapstick: Sawa one-ups Sarah Michelle Gellar's cocaine-spoon crucifix in CRUEL INTENTIONS by wearing a pipe disguised as an asthma inhaler. I also like the scene where Sawa recognizes two police officers -- "You were seniors when I was a freshman" - and asks them if they're "holding." The two cops are outraged not so much at the illegality as at the brazen stupidity of asking cops for weed. Another good example of the type of humor they're going for is the scene where a horrified Sawa brings the pre-zombified Green and Henson into his house to show them that his parents are dead. They don't notice the corpses and assume that their friend has brought them in to watch the 2 Live Crew video playing on TV. I myself am always up for a joke involving corpses and 2 Live Crew, and this is a good one, but it doesn't have good enough timing to come off as anything more than a cheesy throwaway joke.
There's not a whole lot more to the story. There's not even a full explanation of where the hand-possession curse came from, why Sawa's character received it or why he was able to kill his parents without knowing it. What little explanation there is comes from Vivica A. Fox, who plays a voodoo priestess who (in the tradition of the bounty hunter guy in JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY) lives to stab the possessed killer with one of them all powerful magic dagger things. Jack Noseworthy (star of DEAD AT 21, MTV's embarrassing mid-'90s attempt at a sci-fi series) plays a local heavy metal enthusiast who drives a souped-up truck that seems to play Motley Crue's "Shout At the Devil" 24 hours a day. His funniest moment is when he and Fox (two actors who, I feel compelled to note, have always bothered me) meet and have an overacting duel.
None of the characters are really fleshed out enough to be likeable or to be really funny. Most of the leads generate a few laughs, but it's easy to lose interest in their plight since it's all so lazily sketched out. Particularly useless is the buxom neighbor chick who Sawa is supposed to have long had a crush on. You're told that she writes lyrics and plays bass in a band, and that that's cool, and I guess that's supposed to give her a personality. Although she is later portrayed as intelligent and heroic, she is instantly charmed by Sawa, who is frantically wiggling his hand around, making bizarre statements, drenched in what he claims is cat blood, repeatedly attempting to strangle her. It's not the most believable teen relationship I've ever seen portrayed on screen - perhaps it's meant to give hope to today's generation of Last American Virgins. If this guy can get laid, so can you. And knowing is half the battle.
Although possessed hands had certainly been done before, it seems certain that the creators of IDLE HANDS were conscious of their film's similarities to the legendary EVIL DEAD 2 scene in which Ash has a fight with his own hand, then cuts it off, chases it into a mousehole and hunts it down like Elmer Fudd on speed. IDLE HANDS never matches the dark looniness of Ash stabbing his own hand, gleefully shouting "Who's laughing now!?" as the blood sprays on his face, nor does it have any lowbrow gags as goofily inspired as the severed hand taunting Ash by giving him the finger. Perhaps Sam Raimi would have known how to extend the premise to 90 minutes, but these filmmakers don't. While the hand is only one of many demonic villains in EVIL DEAD 2, it's the only one in IDLE HANDS, and as the story progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to think of as a genuine threat.
While watching the CHILD'S PLAY movies (even the first one, which I am able to take seriously) I often wonder if Chucky could really be such a threat to these people. I mean yeah, the little bastard might stab you in the knee or something. But it shouldn't be too hard to fake him out with a little foot tap on one side of his head and then punt him hard out the window with the other foot. (If only little Andy had been on the soccer team Chucky never would have made it to the third act.) The hand in IDLE HANDS is much less menacing than Chucky, but of course it is able to defy gravity and many other physical laws and somehow manages to kill a lot of people. (I was thankful for its magic fighting powers in one of the film's best moments, when it single-evil-handedly scalps the lead singer of The Offspring.)
IDLE HANDS actually has a very similar feel to parts of BRIDE OF CHUCKY. Both films seem to be primarily lowbrow comedies, but occasionally there are humorless murder scenes that make you wonder whether the movie is actually supposed to be scary. BRIDE OF CHUCKY, however, is the far better film - its berserk puppet mayhem is enjoyably surreal, despite the many jokes that fall flat. I like movies where hands crawl around on their own and decapitated guys walk around carrying their own heads, but I've seen them before. BRIDE OF CHUCKY is only one of two movies I've seen where murderous puppets have sex, and it's the best of the two. (So how about that - if you're choosing between BRIDE OF CHUCKY, IDLE HANDS and MEET THE FEEBLES tonight, you have my recommendation.)
At one point, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS director Henry Selick was attached to this script. It makes you wonder what kind of exquisitely designed imagery and stop motion severed hand action he had planned. The Selick-less film isn't much to look at, although to their credit the filmmakers mostly stick to old fashioned makeup effects rather than trendy CGI techniques (which so far tend to look out of place in horror films).
As the title implies, the film tries to preach a little bit about laziness leading to evil. For a while, the story links the hand problem with Sawa's empty pot-and-television lifestyle. But then it turns out that keeping his hands occupied really doesn't help, and our heroes smoke up to regain their strength when it really counts. This is typical of the film - too lazy to follow through with its theme, too lazy to work as a comedy or as a horror film or especially as a smooth combination of the two. I didn't hate IDLE HANDS, but I'd be too lazy to ever go watch it again.
Important note: IDLE HANDS contains the Rob Zombie song "Dragula," which also appeared recently in THE MATRIX. Another Rob Zombie song, "Living Dead Girl," appeared in URBAN LEGEND, BRIDE OF CHUCKY and PSYCHO. And I mean, I like Rob Zombie. But I think it's time for his movie-soundtrack-hooker-uppers to take a holiday.
--Bryan Frankenseuss Theiss
"I write rhymes so fresh I try to bite my own verses." --Tash
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews