Demonoid

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.

Samantha Eggar has to fight off a killer severed hand after her husband and his team accidentally stumble upon a cursed cave. The hand jumps from body to body, turning them into killers. The premise is silly and the film doesn't do a lot to bring any seriousness to it, but it's fun enough.

DEMONOID is about a demonized left hand that creeps, crawls, leaps, and kills! It also possesses those it chooses and uses them to further its agenda of eeevil!

Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar) tracks the horrid hand after it destroys her husband. Stuart Whitman co-stars as a priest with all the personality of soggy communion wafers! Much maligned, this movie may be absurd, but at least its fun to watch!...

"Demonoid:The Messenger of Death" is an entertaining and bizarre Mexican horror flick about a mine proprietor(Roy C. Jensen),his gorgeous wife (Samantha Eggar) and the hand case found by them in an underground mine chamber.During the night the dust turns back into a flying hand,which promptly starts possessing people.Admittedly this crazy horror flick is really bad,but I had lots of fun watching it.Its premise is similar to Oliver Stone's "The Hand":a possessed severed hand is stalking people.The possession of the left hand creates the opportunities for many bizarre scenes:a hand literally catching the train,fortune hunter dynamites his own mine- with his entire crew still inside it and a policeman pulls his pistol on a surgeon and insists the MD amputate the cop's arm sans anesthesia to name only a few.Watch "Demonoid" as soon as possible.7 out of 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.