Les doigts du diable

By the early 60s, the Mexican film industry was beginning its slow but constant decline after the Golden Age ended. Facing economic problems and a stronger competition from foreign filmmakers, the Mexican industry found itself at its darkest hours through the decades of the 70s and the 80s. Sadly, this is the period where director Alfredo Zacarías begins his work, starting as a writer under the guidance of his father, director Miguel Zacarías, and the legendary Golden Age director Gilberto Martínez Solares. Soon Alfredo Zacarías started making films on his own and found success directing the comedies of GAspar Henaine "Capulina", however, Zacarías had big plans in mind and by the end of the 70s, he directed two ambitious horror films co-produced with the U.S.A. and starring somewhat famous American actors: 1978's "The Bees" and this film, "Demonoid, Messenger of Death".

Also known as "Macabra, la Mano del Diablo", the film stars Samantha Eggar as Jennifer Baines, who is visiting the mining city of Guanajuato in Mexico as his husband, Mark (Roy Jenson) owns an important mine there that seems to be very rich. At the time when Jennifer arrives, Mark is facing the refusal of his workers to go deeper as they believe the mine is haunted. Thinking it's all mere superstition, Mark and Jennifer enter the mine and discover an ancient altar to the Devil, which holds the Devil's hand as a relic. Mark takes the Hand as a trophy of man conquering superstition, but soon he'll discover that the Devil's hand is not made for fooling around. The Hand begins to possess people transforming them in psycho killers, and only Jennifer knows the truth.

While the movie is written by Amos Powell (of Croman's "Tower of London" fame) and David Lee Fein (who later would write "Cheerleader Camp"), the film is obviously the brainchild of Zacarías himself, as he wrote the source story the script was based on. Unlike in "The Bees", Zacarías really attempts this time to create an interesting horror piece, and while he unashamedly lifts some ideas from Oliver Stone's "The Hand" (released previously that same year), it could be said that he succeeds in making a somewhat original tale of horror. Sadly, the plot lacks the coherency and the sense to put all the elements together and the bizarre story never really takes off.

Zacarías' direction is technically effective, but his style is outdated and unoriginal, and in the end this makes the film look 10 years older than its true age. To Zacarías' credit, he makes really original set-pieces aided by some good special effects and a somewhat effective musical score; however, the bad cinematography, together with the low-budget and the contrived plot, would diminish the power of those scenes. While he has proved to be good with comedy, he seems to struggle with the drama and the suspense of his film, as if he had troubles directing his cast. The various action sequences of the film are really good for the budget, although again, with a notoriously anachronistic look in the execution.

Samantha Eggar does her best with what she has to work and manages to carry the film despite the movie's obvious problems. Her character is really simple, almost typical, but she makes it likable and less two dimensional. The experienced Stuart Whitman is less successful, although overall he pulls off an acceptable performance as the Priest that helps Jennifer against the Hand. The rest of the cast ranges from mediocre to downright awful, although one can't tell if it's completely the actors' fault due to the bad way the script is written. However, to tell the truth, Roy Jenson did give an effective performance in his short screen time.

It's true that at first sight, one could blame the movie's flaws to it's low budget, it's bad special effects or to its director, however, I think that the real problem lays on the poor way the script was built. Contrived and fast packed, the story never really fulfills its main purposes (to scar and entertain), and never really goes somewhere. While the intentions of the writers were good, the plot was probably not meant to work in the first place. Zacarías has done better films when he has a good script to work with, but in "Demonoid", the lack of coherency of the plot simply make the film boring and tedious.

It's kind of sad that Zacarías had the chance to make this film when the Mexican film industry was at its lowest point, as the very ambitious idea (that without a doubt looked good on paper) simply couldn't work well on film. Fortunately, he finally would make a movie the way he wanted in 1989, with "Crime of Crimes", in the meantime, "Demonoid, Messenger of Death", ends up as another good idea that was just badly executed. 4/10

Demonoid: Messenger of Death (1981)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Ultra bizarre horror film has Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar) traveling to Mexico with her husband. The local workers refuse to go down in a mine due to their superstition so of course our two people do. Before long the curse of a severed hand has struck them and before long more and more people are coming under the curse, which requires them to cut their hand off.

In 1981 who didn't want what is basically a remake of THE CRAWLING HAND? In all seriousness, there have been countless horror films going back to the silent era that have dealt with a possessed hand coming back for some sort of revenge. This film pretty much takes elements of THE EXORCIST and mixes it with one of these movies and the end result is pretty bad but mildly entertaining.

The best thing going for this film is the fact that it offers up quite a bit of violence and some silly death scenes. As one person gets "possessed" with the hand, it eventually requires them to cut the hand off so we get several scenes where people have to be creative to try and get the hand off. There are also a few scenes where skulls get crushed by one of the hands, which adds some red stuff.

Eggar turns in a good performance but you can't help but feel she's wasting it on a picture like this. At least she showed up and did the job unlike so many who usually just cash their paychecks with movies like this. I also thought Stuart Whitman was good in his role of the Father trying to help the woman destroy the hand.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it just doesn't contain too much plot or characters that we actually like. We basically just get a bunch of short scenes where people get possessed, kill and then cut the hand. There's certainly no tension to be found anywhere, although the ending itself is quite nice.

This Mexican flick with international actors is still unavailable up to this writing on DVD. You can find it easily on NTSC VHS. And I was glad that I found it. It starts of immediately with a woman being hunted by some KKK lookalikes in a cave. It appears that she has some superhuman powers in her left hand. Finally they can capture her and while she's stripped naked they cut off her hand. And from there on this movie gets going. The hand possesses the next victim whom possesses the next one, it goes on and on and of course the hand is being hunted by Jennifer Barnes (Samantha Eggar; CURTAINS) after she looses her husband being killed by the hand. What happens next is a must see for drive-in or turkey flick freaks. The car chase is really laughable especially with the police car involved but still it do has his moments. Some find the ending a bit of overacting but I really enjoyed it. The effects are good enough to watch and it never bored me. Glad I tracked it down and shipped it from the US.

A couple (Samantha Eggar and Roy Cameron) while working in a Mexican mine discover a severed hand. The hand becomes one with Cameron and possesses him, causing him to commit all kinds of nasty murders.

Not as bad as other people make it out to be, but nowhere near good. And poor Eggar gives it her all even though she is in such an unispired production. Some of the effects are incredibly grotsque though. My rating: 5 out of 10.

Rated R; contains Graphic Violence, Nudity, and Language.

Ghastly high-camp Mexican horrors with Stuart Whitman as a Priest attempting to help Samantha Eggar in her battle against a murderous demon which possesses people's left hands.

Whitman's acting is suitably over-the-top and Eggar gives the low-budget production more class than it deserves. Russ Meyer starlet Haji has a small role as a gangster's girl and Erika Carlsson receives prominent billing for her challenging role of "Nurse Morgan": a sexy blonde cleavage-revealing nurse who has about 45 seconds of screen time and who's only dialogue is screaming out "NOOOOOO!!!" (See Alicia Encinas' role in "The Bees".)

Infinitely compelling and enjoyable in its badness, the film is enlivened by several grisly/hilarious horror sequences and quite a few genuinely suspenseful situations. The funniest sequences involve assorted possessed people finding various imaginative ways of removing their left hands. Of course as soon as the hand has been removed it scurries off in search of a new victim and the process begins again.

Unlike Alfredo Zacharias' other opus "The Bees" (1978) it appears the makers really were attempting to make a good film this time. They almost made it but fortunately there is enough terrible acting, laughable dialogue (possessed cop to a plastic surgeon: "cut my hand off or I'll kill you!") and high-camp hilarity to keep any bad-movie buff enthralled.

The film apparently sat on the shelf for three years; release of "The Hand" starring Michael Caine undoubtedly encouraged distributors to finally release this to cash-in on the living-hand craze.