For a long time I've said that CEMETERY MAN is my favorite horror movie of the 1990s. I did not know that there was an American movie that really feels like the perfect counterpart. IDLE HANDS is that film. This is like if CEMETERY MAN met PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. A movie with great effects work, some laugh out loud moments, plenty of blood and gory moments, and the cherry on top is this is also a great high school movie. I love high school set movies, particularly comedies and this mixes all that with everything I would want from a horror comedy. Despite his lethargic nature I found Devon Sawa's character easy to root for in this. I always like movies where a character needs some kind of conflict or motivation to make them better. Look no further than his possessed hand and then severing that hand trying to find it to put an end to that demon. Elden Henson and Seth Green provide great levity. Jessica Alba is the perfect it girl.
Synopsis: When slacker teen Anton Tobias (Devon Sawa) has his right hand possessed by a demonic force, he finds that his life gets a lot more interesting. While Anton himself is an amiable guy, his hand proves to be an appendage of death, killing his two best buddies, Pnub (Elden Henson) and Mick (Seth Green), who return to life as wisecracking zombies. In addition to murdering those closest to him, Anton's evil hand significantly hinders his chances with lovely neighbor Molly (Jessica Alba)
What I liked about the beginning of this movie was the Halloween ambience. Anton's family has all these jack o' lanterns and Halloween decorations on the side of their house. The crane shot to Anton's parent's room is really well done. The mix of a more orchestral score with the industrial score by Graeme Revell really fits a late 90s film. The soundtrack that we get mixes punk rock of the time with some industrial metal. I dig it. There is also the use of Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil," that is used as a leitmotif of sorts for one character. This opening sequence is actually quite suspenseful and creepy. I like it when horror comedy films can balance the horror and the comedy by not having one undercut the other. The "I'm under the bed message" and what happens with the parents getting killed in this opening is reminiscent of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS.
What makes the movie funny is the transition it takes after the opening. Apparently Anton (Devon Sawa) has a room in the attic of the house and his mother frequently tried to call for him before she was killed. He wakes up with his headphones on so we assume he heard none of the commotion the night before. He wakes up, watches TV, and calls for his mother when he notices they are out of milk. Anton's lethargy is put in place right away as he complains about having to walk right across the street to his friend's house to get some marijuana. He walks across the shirt in just his shirt and boxers and of course when he gets there his friend Pnub (Elden Henson) says he doesn't have any weed. He said he had something for him and that didn't mean weed. The girl next door trope is set up right away as they see Molly (Jessica Alba) riding her moped home. Anton loves Molly but as usual in these films has never been able to bring himself to talk to her. The high school movie tropes are set up quickly here as the centerpiece of the film ends up being Anton going to a Halloween school dance with Molly, then having to save her at said dance.
Devon Sawa as Anton
There were some unexpected developments early on. Anton goes to return a lyric book to Molly after it falls on the ground. He returns it but cannot bring himself to talk to her and just thrusts the book in her face and runs away. Later at home Anton notices a bloody knife and eventually sees his cat, Bones playing with a severed eyeball. Anton then runs upstairs and eventually trips on his way down, into the bodies of his parents. He calls his friends over but realizes he is actually the killer when a part of his shirt is found ripped off. The possessed hand eventually kills both Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub.
The undead version of Mick (Seth Green)
Pnub (Elden Henson) with Mick (Seth Green)
Eventually he runs out of the house and the hand forces him to knock on Molly's door. There are several funny moments here including one moment where he tries to say no but the hand covers his mouth up and forces him to nod when Molly asks him in. This scene is cute, tense, and funny at the same time. The cute moments are when Molly seems to like Anton for being genuine. She at first gets mad at him for reading in her lyric book but then smiles when he sings some of his favorite lyrics. For all the bad things the hand does, such as murder, the hand also brings unintended benefits for Anton. It gets him into Molly's house and eventually into her funhouse so to speak. The hand eventually grabs Molly's ass and she is actually impressed with his audacity. She then proceeds to throw him on the bed and there are some funny moments where the hand begins to really choke Molly and then relents. Eventually he ties the hand to the bedpost. Again Molly is impressed, calling him "kinky." Eventually her parents get home and she asks Anton to the dance. Both of the sequences I described I really enjoy because they are unexpected. You don't expect the woman to fall in love with the main character so early on. Normally that takes up the entire conflict and plot of a film like this. The two friends, who of course come back as zombies, I was shocked when they got "killed," so quickly. There were so many scenes in this movie that felt like climactic scenes that work on a human level, a comedy level, and at times a horror level.
Jessica Alba as Molly
What enhanced this movie a lot was the outstanding practical effects and makeup work. The broken bottle effect on Seth Green's head is great. Elden Henson's severed head and headless body walking around was great. The talking severed head reminded me of scenes in CEMETERY MAN. Some of the kills the hand does throughout such as scalping a person and later tearing a woman apart in a ventilation shaft. Two cops show up at Anton's house and they are killed by a knitting needle going through both ears and the other is tased to death. There are so many funny moments throughout, including Anton's eulogy for his friends when he says I enjoyed sitting smoking weed and watching TV with you guys. He comes to a realization that that is all they did. Later Anton goes to find his neighbor Randy (Jack Noseworthy) for help. Anton breaks into a fast food restaurant and tries to talk to Randy at the drive-thru after Randy wants nothing to do with him. This was preceded by another great comedy moment where Randy is flirting with a woman and Anton comes up and the hand starts making the woman think he is masturbating so she walks away.
The film comes to a climax after Anton finds a way to cut off his hand by having Pnub bite on his hand while Anton chops it off with a meat cleaver. The hand eventually escapes, even after Anton burns it in the microwave. Anton goes to look for the hand while sending Molly off the dance, promising he will come back for her. Druidic High Priestess Debi LeCure (Vivica A. Fox) comes into town hunting for the hand. She eventually finds Randy, who is interested in her and he tells her about Anton. The hand eventually breaks into the dance, forcing a scene out of CARRIE where the hand shows up and locks the doors and kills many people. There is a great moment of horror movie nudity in the scene before when the hand shows up and kills a couple having sex in a car. Molly and her friend Tanya (Katie Wright) eventually make their way to the vents to escape but Tanya is eventually killed and Molly is forced into a classroom.
Vivica A. Fox as Debi
During the whole climax there are more funny moments to provide levity. When Debi first finds Anton she tries to catch him off guard attacking him when he doesn't expect it which was quite funny. Both Mick and Pnub get some funny meta lines. When they are at the dance they refer to one another as "dead" in front of others with others not getting the joke. Everyone thinks they are wearing costumes, as Pnub has now taped his head back on. One great meta line comes toward the end when Molly has the midsection of her costume ripped off and Pnub says "I bet she wins best costume." Eventually the hand takes over a puppet and Anton and his friends light a giant bong "for strength" Anton eventually blows smoke up the puppet. Debi shows up and throws her dagger at the hand, killing it. Right after that Pnub has another great line where the hand just disappears and he seems disappointed that nothing more happened. He lowers a car that Molly was tied up to, going closer and closer to the ceiling to crush her. They embrace, and of course Mick hits the lever and the car drops and crushes Anton. The movie ends with Anton refusing to go to heaven and going back to the living to be with Molly. Both Pnub and Mick appear as his guardian angels and play a trick on him by putting the message "I'm under the bed," above the ceiling in his hospital room.
I think she would win best costume unanimiously
The tone of this movie is quite Looney Tunes mixed again with CEMETERY MAN. Like PINEAPPLE EXPRESS it also shows characters smoking and talking about marijuana. There is a fun moment early on when Anton's friends tell him to mix nutmeg and oregano if he has no weed. Anton does and everything that happens from there involves the hand. The scene where they talk about the nutmeg and oregano felt like something PINEAPPLE EXPRESS would do later when they talk about different ways to smoke marijuana. I enjoyed that aspect of the movie because in some stoner comedies they seem to be around characters actually partaking in doing drugs. BILL AND TED comes to mind with that. The combination of that aspect, with the likable and fun characters, the high school setting, the excellent practical effects, and great comedic writing made this into my top horror films of the 1990s.
Rating: 9.5/10
Trivia: The dish soap that Devon Sawa squirts in his mouth after attempting to smoke nutmeg and oregano was real dish soap. He came up with the gag on the spot
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