Scott LeBrun This viewer was hoping to enjoy "The Crawling Hand" more than he did. It's got enough absurdity at times to make it diverting, but the whole premise is boringly handled by director Herbert L. Strock, who makes us wait too long for the "good" moments. The actors do their best at looking dead serious, which naturally helps to make things funnier. The special effects, surprisingly, aren't that terrible, and the movie actually does have a sense of humour in some scenes. All in all, this does go on longer than it really should. It gets off to a great start with its opening credits, promising more fun than it eventually delivers.Astronaut Mel Lockhart (Ashley Cowan) goes crazy while in space, and crash lands in California. Turns out, the alien intelligence that possessed him still resides in his severed arm & hand, and it commits a murder, and soon exerts an evil influence over dopey medical student Paul Lawrence (Rod Lauren). Paul struggles to regain control of himself while the local sheriff (played by The Skipper himself, Alan Hale Jr.) believes him to be guilty of the killing.The cast also includes a hammy Peter Breck as ill-tempered Steve Curan, Kent Taylor as his associate Dr. Max Weitzberg, the 50 foot woman (otherwise known as actress Allison Hayes) as Donna, cute Sirry Steffen as Pauls' girlfriend Marta, Arline Judge as landlady Mrs. Hotchkiss, and Richard Arlen as Lee Barrenger. They're all entertaining to watch, and the movie, even if not that funny, does possess a certain low budget bad movie charm that's hard to resist. The ending is the best part; it's pretty damn amusing.Schlock devotees will likely have a reasonably good time with this.Four out of 10.

ferbs54 On the flip side of the Rhino DVD of the 1963 sci-fi film "The Crawling Hand," Joel Robinson and his two 'bot buddies, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, skewer the movie in question in their typically merciless manner, and Lord knows the picture deserves such treatment! Cheaply made and cheezy as can be, featuring some pretty lousy thesping and a whackadoodle plot, the movie IS certainly ripe for the "MST3K" treatment. But is the picture also fun? Oh, yes! In it, Earth's second lunar astronaut is taken over by an alien life form during his return trip to Earth. His capsule is destroyed by Mission Control after his own pleadings, but unfortunately, the possessed, eponymous limb somehow makes it back to Earth intact, where it washes up on a California beach and is found by a hunky premed student. The student, Paul Lawrence (lamely portrayed by Rod Lauren), occasionally becomes possessed by the alien entity, too; we know when he is "under the influence" because he then develops heavy mascara smears around his eyes and turns decidedly anti-social! Anyway, a raft of "psychotronic" talent both in front of and behind the camera has conspired here to bring this loopy conceit to the screen. Director Herbert L. Strock (previously known for such enduring works as "Gog," "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," "Blood of Dracula" and "How To Make a Monster") adds some interesting touches, and Allison Hayes (five years after "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," and wasted here in a small, secretarial role), Peter Breck (he'd be infinitely more memorable that same year in Sam Fuller's cult film "Shock Corridor") and Alan Hale, Jr. (one year pre-"Gilligan") do their best to enliven their roles. The picture actually does feature two memorable sequences: that possessed astronaut pleading to be killed, and the possessed Paul attempting to strangle the local malt-shop owner, while lights flash stroboscopically and the jukebox blares out the Rivingtons' hit song "The Bird's the Word." Of course, the film is a sci-fi rehash of 1946's "The Beast With Five Fingers," but for what it is--a teenage rock 'n' roll sci-fi/horror flick--it remains reasonably goofy fun. Oh...the Rhino disc here looks just fine, but features some pretty lousy sound. Be prepared to turn your audio system ALL the way up...and to have a few cold ones HANDy....

Lee Eisenberg Poor Alan Hale. Before he got the role of a certain short-tempered sea captain with a dim-witted first mate, he was stuck in grade-Z movies. An example is the idiotic stinker "The Crawling Hand". Since the title explains the whole plot, I'll tell you what I said while watching it: "Everybody leave him to his business. This may be the Skipper's only chance not to get frustrated by Gilligan." You can't even focus on the hand going after people (which, I gotta "hand" it to, is the best part)! Anyway, you can just picture the Skipper hitting Gilligan with his hat throughout the whole movie. Apparently, "MST3K" once showed this movie, although I've never seen that episode.

Jonadab the Unsightly One This is not a great movie. It's definitely a B movie. It was clearly done on a low budget, belongs to a generally unremarkable genre, and has a plot that leaves much to be desired. For all that, it's actually not nearly as bad as would be expected. The major premise (that in space there is some kind of immateriel life form that possesses human flesh and wants to kill people) is obscurely bogus, yes, but many much better movies are open to the same criticism. SpiderMan's premise is hardly more realistic, for example, but that is a major motion picture and gets very good reviews. Then there's the plot. Sure, it's a little thin, but the movie does *have* a discernible plot (not something you can take for granted in a B-grade movie), and what is more, the plot is quite coherent. You do not find yourself confused part-way through about what is going on, which of the people on the screen are from which group (good guys, bad guys, et cetera), or any of the other vagaries that often haunt the plots of lousy movies. The plot isn't deep, but as far as it goes it is solid. The acting, moreover, is not bad. I did not notice a single instance of noticeably poor acting. Not that anyone's going to win any awards for the acting in this movie, but they don't do anything to break all pretenses of mimesis and make you want to scream at the actors, either. This is fairly unusual, especially for such an obviously low-budget flick, and extra-especially in the horror genre. You expect, in a movie of this sort, to be disgusted when actors stutter, scream at the wrong times, leave long pauses between lines, and have wooden, unlifelike expressions on their faces. I didn't notice any of that, unless you count characters who were at the time possessed by the alien life form, and that was clearly a deliberate charactarization of the menace as quirkily unhuman. As for the writing, I've seen worse. The characters were mostly flat and static, but horror movies seldom make any pretenses about having round, dynamic characters. Only a couple of the characters were really obvious stereotypes (notably, the scientists' boss and the deputy). Probably the worst thing about this movie is that the ending quite obviously left things wide open for a sequel.