La mano che nutre la morte

The Hand That Feeds the Dead apparently is often confused with a film called Lover of the Monster. That's not at all surprising; they're both directed by Sergio Garrone, feature basically the same cast (both headed by Klaus Kinski), both were released in 1974, they both feature similar plots and even some of the same footage. Unfortunately, they're also both rubbish. After seeing Lover of the Monster recently, I had it in my head that at least it couldn't be worse than The Hand That Feeds the Dead - but I was wrong, as despite a very nice title; this film is utter dross. The film takes place in the nineteenth century and focuses on a doctor by the name of Prof Nijinski. He stumbles upon an old laboratory in his basement and begins experimenting with life and death (yadda, yadda). Of course, the experiments go wrong and end up messing with the doctors head.

I have to admit that the version I saw was sourced from a Turkish VHS and was cut down to about seventy eight minutes. I don't know exactly what was cut out, but I'm guessing it was all the good bits because we haven't been left with much. I'm sure that some of the gore was cut out because I didn't see much of it; there were a few skin graft scenes but overall the film is very lacking on that front. The period setting and obvious low budget gives the film something of a gritty feel that works fairly well with the plot but is nowhere near enough to save the production on the whole. Klaus Kinski is undoubtedly one of the major stars of cult cinema, but even his presence is not enough to lift this production; frankly he looked about as bored as I was. The pace is very slow and the editing is inept, which makes the film even harder to watch. I really didn't care what happened at the end and the climax was not interesting anyway. This film has vanished into obscurity since its release and I'm not at all surprised about that. The Hand That Feeds the Dead is nowhere as interesting as it sounds and is not recommended!

"The Hand that Feeds the Dead" is blessed with an enticing title and the presence of cult icon Klaus Kinski, but it's basically nothing more than a cheap, uninspired and exploitative rehash of the French horror milestone "Eyes without a Face". That doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing, because many decent and entertaining horror flicks are derivative of that same classic – for example Jess Franco's "The Awful Dr. Orloff" or the British sleeper "Circus of Horrors – but this is a prototypical example of a rip-off that doesn't contribute anything to the genre whatsoever. Kinski stars as Dr. Nijinski, former acolyte of the brilliant Professor/Baron Ivan Rassimov who allegedly stood on the verge of a tremendous surgical breakthrough before he got killed in an all-devastating fire. The same fire also heavily mutilated the beautiful face of Rassimov's daughter (who also happens to be Nijinski's lover) and that's why Nijinski now attempts to finalize Rassimov's experiments. The work requires for Nijinski to lure unsuspecting girls to the castle and for his hunchbacked slave to kidnap innocent victims from the nearby village. "The Hands that Feeds the Dead", like many of its supportive characters, appears to be in a constant comatose condition. The period decors and filming locations are definitely adequate, but the pacing is dreadfully slow and the events are painfully dull and predictable. Half of the film is sheer padding footage, varying from pointless lesbian sex to endlessly overlong footage of bubbly potions and flashy machinery inside a pathetic wannabe laboratory where supposedly the skin and facial transplants take place. Oddly enough, the actual transplants are simultaneously gross and boring. The make-up effects are repulsive, but the extreme close-ups of the skinless faces seem to last eternally. Klaus Kinski obviously also wasn't the least bit interested in this film, and gives away the most indifferent performance imaginable. Those incredibly overlong transplantation sequences, for instance, plainly don't even star him. With his ego and reputation, Kinski probably refused to waste his precious time shooting retarded footage like that, and thus all we ever see are the surgeon's hands and uniform.

Note: although not an actual character in the film, I assume that the chose to use the name Ivan Rassimov must be some sort of inside joke of the director, as Ivan Rassimov really was a respectable Italian cult/horror actor around that time and starred in, among others, "Jungle Holocaust", "Eaten Alive", "Spasmo", etc..

Klaus Kinski plays an evil scientist named Nijinski who wants to restore beauty of his disfigured wife.With the help of his hunchback he kidnaps young women to steal their faces."Evil Face" by Sergio Garrone is a dull Italian horror film with a bit of gore and lesbian sleaze.The characters are often wandering around doing nothing.There are some huge lapses in logic and several characters are extremely dumb.The cinematography is lazy and uninspired too.Fortunately "Evil Face" never reaches the dullness of Garrone's annoying Nazisploitation flick "SS Experiment Camp".It's always great to see Klaus Kinski in the role of villain.I have seen much worse Italian horror films,so I can recommend this one for fans of Italian horror.6 face transplants out of 10.

This is another collaboration between crazed German actor Klaus Kinski, hack Italian director Sergio Garrone, and beautiful Dutch actress Katia Christine, and it is a marginal improvement over their other collaboration "Amanti di Mostro". The story is superficially similar to the other film. Once again, Kinski is a mad scientist married to Katia Christine, and once again he is carrying on the work of his late father-in-law (named "Ivan Rassimov" in this movie, which is perhaps an inside joke since Ivan Rassimov was a familiar character actor in Italian exploitation films during this era). But instead of Kinski turning himself into Mr. Hyde and attacking all the half-naked,local women, this movie has an "Eyes without a Face"-type plot where Kinski uses his Igor-like assistant to kidnap all the half-naked, local women in order to transplant their flesh onto his disfigured wife.

Sergio Garrone (to borrow a line from "Shock Cinema's" Steve Puchalski) probably couldn't successfully direct his own bowel movement, so it's impressive here that the direction at times approaches borderline competence (or maybe that should be credited to his Turkish co-director?). Kinski generally gave two kinds of performances in movies like this--scenery-gnawing or totally phoned-in. He definitely gnawed some serious scenery in "Amanti di Mostro", but here is performance is pretty much phoned-in (he also may have stormed off the set at some point because they seem to use a double for some of his scenes). If you're a fan of Katia Christine's acting, you'll enjoy this more than "Amanti" because she has much more screen time and essentially plays two different roles, one of which is deliciously evil. If you're more a fan of Katia Christine's body, however, you might prefer the other movie because she generally keeps her Victorian garments on here. There is as much nudity and even more gore than in "Amanti", but it all comes toward the end of the movie, by which time you may have already slipped into a boredom-induced coma.

Although the best thing about this might be the literal translation of the Italian title, "The Hand that Feeds Death", this was recently released on Region 1 DVD under the ho-hum title "Evil Face". I wouldn't really recommend this, but god knows I'VE seen worse movies.

Klaus Kinski delivers a rather subtle performance here as a mad scientist dominated by his disfigured wife Tanja. With the assistance of his ace henchman, a brutish, limping dolt named Vanya (Erol Tas), he must procure victims to function as donor bodies in order to restore Tanja's beauty. A young woman named Katja (the appealing Marzia Damon) is certain that this couple murdered her sister, and intends to find out for sure. Meanwhile, a travelling couple named Alex (Ayhan Isik) and Masha (the gorgeous Katia Christine) must take advantage of Kinski's hospitality when their coach has an accident on a trail.

The set-up and the story (by director Sergio Garrone) are largely routine, in this umpteenth variation on the old "Eyes Without a Face" tale. But there are still pleasures to be had. The film, a period piece, looks pretty good (Kinski's lab is a standout), and there's a steady parade of attractive ladies (also including Carmen Silva as Sonia) to maintain viewer interest. Also, people who like their period pieces / mad scientist yarns to be on the trashy side will be satisfied, as there is a notable amount of both sex and gore. Squeamish people will want to avoid this for the repeated shots of surgical procedures, but voyeurs will love the ample nudity and the lovemaking scene that takes place around the 50 minute mark.

The performances are actually all pretty decent. It's nice to see a more restrained performance from Kinski that even contains some pathos at the end. Christine is fun to watch, especially towards the end. Isik is amiable, and Tas is amusing as the almost mute thug who is regularly tortured aurally by a device that Tanja employs.

Although obviously not very well known, this is now available on DVD and Blu, so interested viewers can check it out for themselves.

Seven out of 10.