shawnblackman An 80's horror shined up by the good people at Vinegar Syndrome. Now I did see the 90 minute version known as Macabro but there are a few different versions . The one I seen was longer but had nudity and violence trimmed.Miners unearth a Satanic cult site which specialized in removing left hands. The owners wife discovers a metallic hand which contains the curse. If you get the curse your left hand is taken over and it makes you kill using that hand until you cut it off. Of course who ever comes in contact with it next gets the curse.It was campy as hell. Most of the time the actors are rolling around fighting a hand stuck on them but it was funny. You get a feel what the acting is going to be like from the first scene. You get lots of people removing there hands using trains to blow torches. Makes for a good late night flick.

Scarecrow-88 Samantha Eggar's husband owns a Mexican mine which contains within it an ancient tomb housing a metal box with a severed demonic hand possibly possessed by the Devil himself. The hand attaches itself to Mr. Bains, in turn, possessing him. Each time the host is killed and the hand is severed it moves on to another human victim. The hand's ultimate choice for an owner is Eggar herself who joins forces with a priest(Stuart Whitman)to try and stop it. I have grown mellow over the years since writing user comments and really, really try to approach even the worse dreck looking for something positive from the experience. DEMONOID is one of those cases where I can not find one good thing to take away from it. The plot is preposterous, the severed hand gags are lame and laughable, and the actors attack their parts with an absolute seriousness which had to have been extremely difficult under the circumstances. Whitman and others doing battle with a severed hand trying to smother them is hard to watch without shaking your head in disbelief, and Eggar's fate at the end, the screaming, the swirling camera, broken glass table, it's the tip of the iceberg. For bad movie lovers, I think this junk will even bore them. It is an absolute slog to get to the end as a lot of nothing, other than the infamous severed hand crawling about, happens for long periods, but there are a series of decapitations which might amuse lovers of rancid cinema: a laser, train on railroad tracks, and a car door among other things. While Eggar hasn't necessarily starred in a ton of quality films in her career, DEMONOID would have to be considered the definite low point. Whitman, who I like a lot, doesn't have a prayer(pun intended)in this movie as the heroic man of the cloth who must use the power of Christ to combat the evil demonic hand. The funniest scene could be when the severed hand helps Eggar's husband Mr. Bain win at throwing dice in a Las Vegas casino--who knew a demonic hand had such luck.

Coventry Okay, explain me this: the film has got an original premise, a uniquely sinister setting and immensely atmospheric scenery. So, then why on earth is it still such a boring and mildly frustrating film? "Macabra" contains all the basic ingredients of a unique horror effort, but the elaboration is so weak and amateurish all the potential and good intentions go nearly wasted. Jennifer and Mark Baines, a married couple, invest their money in a Mexican mine and hope to get rich real fast exploiting silver. The local workers still attempt to warn them about the place being haunted with an ancient demonic evil, but it's useless. Instead of winning silver, Jennifer and Mark unleash pure evil in the shape of a mummified hand that takes control over the people it possesses. When Mark falls victim to the evil first, Jennifer teams up with a reluctant Vietnam veteran turned priest in order to defeat the hand. As said, the basic idea had potential, but a bit more background regarding the nature and origin of the evil would have been welcome. What exactly is it? Why a hand? How did it end up in a Mexican mine, etc? There are some moments of sheer suspense, fast pacing and creepiness, but even more boredom and absolute pointlessness. There's a reasonable amount of gore and typically 80's cheese-effects, including self-crawling hands and explicit amputations. The cinematography is too dark, but the set-pieces are admirably macabre and especially the soundtrack is far superior to any other aspect this overall mediocre effort. The theme music is creepy, and throughout the film uncanny tunes can be heard repeatedly. Bad film, but curiously compelling and still recommended to remotely tolerant genre fans.

brandonsites1981 A severed hand found in a Mexican mine causes all sorts of trouble for the couple (Samantha Eggar and Roy Cameron) when the hand takes over Cameron and forces him onto a massive killing spree and the hand's main target appears to be Eggar. Fast paced, sometimes scary, sometimes unintentionally funny horror flick features some rather nasty special effects. Rated R.