BootDigest
Such a frustrating disappointment
Maleeha Vincent
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
MartinHafer
John Agar stars as Alex Marsh, a researcher working on a combination nerve gas and hypnotic drug. However, there's an accident in the lab and instead of killing Marsh, the poisonous gas turns him into a giant toxic monster. Just touching him kills folks...yet he somehow is immune to it. Can they stop him or turn him back into the handsome researcher?There are many problems with this film. First and foremost, there's enough material for about 30 minutes worth of film. As a result, the film is heavily padded and you see many, many scenes of Marsh running about town evading the authorities. Second, the weird costume they put on Agar didn't allow him to talk or act. In fact, it could have been ANYONE inside the ridiculous looking getup. Third, it just wasn't interesting...in fact, it was pretty boring...which means it's a pretty typical John Agar film.By the way, when the monster came upon a gas station attendant played by Joe Besser, I sure was hoping to see him touch him! I never could stand Besser and his naughty little boy shtick back in the 50s and he was probably the worse guy to try playing Curly's part in the Three Stooges...even worse than Joe DeRita!!
mopmonkey-1
I saw this movie at a theater as an 8 year old,and was literally scared under the seat. I haven't seen it since 1962, but vividly remember the monster he became. As young as I was, I remember finding it odd that he wandered the streets without garnering more attention. It IS a shame that it hasn't been made available on DVD; I'd grab it up in a minute. It would probably seem hokey now,but, on the other hand,maybe it would still impress, like " The Day the Earth Stood Still" (no insult intended to THAT classic). We don't have AMC available in Canada, so it appears that I'll have a long wait before refreshing my memory of my first REALLY scary horror movie.
MartianOctocretr5
A scientist (John Agar) fools around with some chemicals, looking for a formula that could be used by the military to paralyze their enemy. Like any scientist working with dangerous chemical reactions, the good doctor falls asleep on the job, and spills the toxic substance. Soon he is dreaming about flying beakers, while the poison turns him into a screaming brute with a serious complexion disorder. He looks like a very tan version of the Hulk, and his touch is lethal to anybody except some guy with bongo drums who seems to be just off-camera in every scene.This drive-in second feature had a premise that held some possibilities, but a budget of about five bucks didn't allow for much except a lot of dialog between characters. The actors all try, but there isn't much substance for anybody to work with. Just chase scenes, and a few chance encounters with the creature. After menacing Hollywood, he beach combs Malibu.Not enough is done to make the character sympathetic, and the movie just ends abruptly as the budget ran out. A nostalgic curiosity only.
sol1218
Not all that bad horror, if you take it for an unintentionally comedy, film with it having a former member of the three stooges as well as the hilarious Stinky Davis of the Abbot & Costello TV show Joe Besser as a gas station attendant as well as one of the "Hands of Death's" victims. "Hand of Death" with it's star John Agar as the obsessed and crazed scientist Alax Marsh who ends up turning into what looks like a overripe avocado. Marsh runs and drives around L.A doing his best to terrorize everyone he comes in contact with but mostly leaving them in a state of total bewilderment trying to figure out just what the hell he, or it, is.Trying to perfect this nerve/hypnotic gas for the US military that would not only knock out anyone who's affected by it but turn them into obedient zombies Marsh working day and night in his out of the way desert laboratory. One day Marsh falls asleep and knocks down a bottle of the nerve agent and gets infected by it. The gas gives him the power to kill by just touching anyone. Later Marsh develops a leprosy-like appearance that even his own mother would run from.Killing everyone he as much as touches Marsh trying to hide his identity, as the killer Avocado Man,just puts on a Humphrey Bogart like trench-coat and fedora hat thinking that would be enough to fool anyone! One of the craziest scenes in the movie is when Marsh pops into a taxi cab trying to communicate to the cabbie ,Fred Korne, where he want's to go, to the beach in order to get a suntan? The taxi driver turning around and seeing this weird and grossed-out guy isn't at all surprised or even scared at how he looks! Is he used to picking up customers like him,looking like vine-ripe avocados,in the city's many farmers markets and fruit and vegetable stores?Trying to contact his girlfriend Carol ,Paula Raymond, so he can take her, I could only guess, to the local drive-in to see someone who looks a lot like him his screen hero "Ceature from the Balck Lagoon". Marsh later gets to where she's hiding from him at her friends Tom Holland's, Stephen Dunne, beach-front home. As he breaks in Carol calls Tom gets the police who both come to her rescue. Marsh running along the beach and trying to take a dip into the ocean, with his heavy and bulky street cloths on, is shot dead and left floating on the waves as the movie finally comes to an end.Hard to believe that anyone would have been insane enough to take, much less pay for a movie ticket, "Hand of Death" seriously back in 1962 when it was released. "Hand of Death" looks like it must have been the final movie that was part of a quadruple feature following even the cartoons and coming attractions where by the time it came on the screen there was almost nobody left in the movie-house to watch it. Which may well have been the best thing that could have happened to the professional careers of everyone unfortunate enough to be in it.
