One of the worst films of the 1980's
As much as I am a fan of Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and JFK - Oliver Stone has to be one of the least subtle directors, often times forcing a feeling upon the audience rather than letting us think for ourselves. With The Hand he signals out every dramatic moment, every horror moment, and every supposed psychological moment. Whether he's got James Horner's score blaring in our ears, or shoving some truly repulsive dialogue down our throats he wants the audience to know that he's in charge of this movie.
Stone obviously wanted to put a lot of psychological elements into The Hand but it's such a silly premise that there's not much he can do other than have a silly looking hand run around and strangle people. The film manages to go from color to black and white a few times - the reason isn't revealed until the end but you should get it the first time out.
About every other scene I managed to see snippets of dialogue coming before the characters actually spoke. I also managed to peg every scene where a fake rubber hand would start choking somebody - and not a very convincing choke mind you. It's the oldest trick in the book only this time the actors spit out some blood too. Whoop dee do - blood.
As for Michael Caine - he's a tremendous actor and he does what he can - but even after twenty minutes you'll get tired of him and everything else in this movie.
The finale is one of the lamest and most obvious moments in film history.
No gore for the horror fans. Not a scary moment in the film for thriller fans. Pedestrian relationship story between Caine and his wife (who is a horrible actress) and psychological elements that can be read a mile away. Avoid at all costs - one of the worst films I've ever seen.