Idle Writing Hands

Picture the scene: a gaggle of writers smoke some pot together while trying to come up with a genre mixing, fresh and satirical horror-comedy movie. They spend some time throwing ideas back and forth (such as Vampire Playboy Bunnies or Cujo Crufts) and come up with the seemingly brilliant idea of a hand that becomes possessed by Satan, goes on a killing spree, gets chopped from the body it is connected to but magically carries on killing... only to be destroyed by a priestess warrior. Sounds hilarious, right?

Idle Hands is the story of Anton Tobias (Final Destination's Devon Sawa): a lazy college drop-out with no aspirations other than getting high with his equally idle friends and watching TV. Indeed, Anton is so lazy he does not notice that his parents have been dead for two days, their faces hidden inside carved out pumpkin heads in his lounge. He also doesn't realise that he is the one that killed them. It is while making a sandwich with a blood spattered knife that something in his weed-addled mind twigs that something is afoot. What follows is a mass of horror parodies and tributes as Anton races to hide in his parents bed only to see "I'm under the bed" written on the ceiling. He runs back downstairs, dog in tow, only to trip on his plastic sword and fall into the mannequins with the pumpkin heads by the front door, except they're not mannequins! They're his murdered parents! D'oh!

Anton runs outside (he does A LOT of running and gesticulating throughout this film) to see his two stoner friends coming round to hang out. Slowly the three pick up the obvious clues around the house, such as the fabric from Anton's t-shirt in his mother's hand and the word "Ant" written on the floor in blood:

Pnub:"Ant?" They-they were killed by ants? 
Mick: [annoyed] Please don't be stupid. 
[to Anton] 
Mick: Do you have, like, an evil aunt? 


Anton voice changes to a manic pleading as he tries to explain himself to his friends. Mick nervously offers Anton a beer to chill him out, only to get a glass bottle to the brain. Pnub tries to escape but gets his head chopped off in the basement. You would think that would be the end of the weed loving trio, but no. Not only does Idle Hands steal from the slasher, serial killer and possession genres... it also snaffles from the trough of the zombies. And a good job too. One of the saving graces of this film is the geeky one liners from Seth Green. One cracker is him telling Anton that him and Pnub didn't go to heaven because it was too far to walk. Another is the typical teenage boy chit-chat between the three best friends. Without both the film would be a complete waste.

The heavy handed gross out satire continues with Anton throwing his cat out of the window then trying to kill completely unrealistic love interest Molly (Jessica Alba plays vixen that chases shy, lazy stoner boy with a psychotic hand in one of her earliest and easiest of roles: "What's that director? Less clothes, more flirting? You're the boss!") while they make out. He then chops his hand off as his zombie friends watch and they all think that, finally, will be the end of this hands murderous rampage... but that is not the case. The hand is still very much alive and possessed. Egads. Thankfully, Debi (played by Vivica A. Fox) gets on the Satan hunting trail and is on her way to save the day. She's been following the news stories of random killings around America and, being a stereotypically black priestess warrior with attitude in a teen scream horror film, she knows "There is evil out there, and I'm gonna kick its ass!"

With one hand freshly chopped and supposedly dead after being microwaved, Anton welds his wound shut with an iron and is about to go to the ball with Molly. What he soon realises is that his hand is still possessed and is coming after his love interest. That is, of course, after it cops come boob as two teenagers make out in a car and crawls up the headmasters leg as he talks dirty on a sex line. It truly is testament to the hand acting of Christopher Hart (Thing in the Addams Family movies) as we allow ourselves to be taken in by the silliness of a murderous hand in this movie. Debi gets on the scene with Randy the trucker close behind. She tries to kill Anton to save the world and Randy wants his blood for stealing his truck (that seems to eternally play Motley Crue). Once they realise it is the hand that is dangerous they all race to kill the hand and save Molly (who has managed to get tied to the top of a car by one single hand) before it is too late. 

The hand has placed itself inside the body of an evil toy that is moving the lever up so Molly will get crushed between the ceiling and the car. I'm on the edge of my seat now, just how will they save her? Using one of the few weapons they have, the trio get the hand so high on weed (err, how does a hand get high?) that it lets go of the lever, allowing Molly to be saved by Anton. There is a great moral for us all to take on board as the boys realise - more than ever - the importance of pot and its ability to "save an otherwise disastrous day." Wow. Debi throws her priestess knife at the hand which is finally killed and free of possession. Everybody's happy! That is, everyone except Anton who stupidly gets crushed underneath the car Molly was tied to. 

The angels make a return and Pnub and Mick decide that yes, they actually can be bothered to walk to heaven but Anton, given the choice between life and death, chooses a long stretch in hospital to be with Molly. So in this little bundle of fun you get a gross out comedy spoof, a mixture of horror genres and a love story. What more could you need? Well. How about a story that hasn't given too many nods and homages to other movies and has therefore kept some element of originality to it? Don't get me wrong, Idle Hands does have its funny moments and has great use of special and make-up effects but overall it spends too much time reminding you of something else to make you remember anything about it after watching.