''The Crawling Hand'' is a 1963 American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by Herbert L. Strock, and starring Peter Breck, Kent Taylor, Rod Lauren, Alan Hale and

Allison Hayes Allison Hayes (born Mary Jane Hayes; March 6, 1930 – February 27, 1977) was an American film and television actress and model. Early life Allison Hayes was born to William E. Hayes and Charlotte Gibson Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia. She ...

. It was later featured on the television shows ''

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on WUCW, KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then ...

'' (''MST3K'') and ''The Canned Film Festival''.

Plot

An astronaut, coming in for a crash landing, makes odd statements over the radio, including "my hand... makes me do things.... kill.... kill!" Strangely, by then, ground control was under the belief that he was already out of oxygen. Later, Paul Lawrence, a naive medical student, discovers a disembodied hand near the crash site and takes it home as a grisly souvenir. He is not aware that the hand is possessed by a strange, murderous alien. The hand murders Paul's landlady. The sheriff suspects Paul, who begins to act more and more strangely as the hand begins to have more and more influence over him. The fictional federal agency responsible for space flight is called to the small town because fingerprints found at the first crime scene match the missing, dead astronaut. Paul, now under control of the Crawling Hand, attacks other people around the town, including his own beloved girlfriend Donna. Horrified at what he's been doing, Paul attempts to take the hand to the beach to destroy it, where he's confronted by federal authorities. The hand, now wounded, is held down by cats who try to eat it. Authorities capture the hand. Paul, recovering in the hospital, appears to be forgiven. Meanwhile the federales charged with transporting the offended appendage open the box used to confine the apprehended hand. The film ends with a quick zoom to the inside of an empty box as the words "the end" appear on black.

Cast

* Peter Breck as Steve Curan * Kent Taylor as Dr. Max Weitzberg * Rod Lauren as Paul Lawrence * Alan Hale as Sheriff Townsend *

as Donna * Sirry Steffen as Marta Farnstrom *

Arline Judge Margaret Arline Judge (February 21, 1912 – February 7, 1974) was an American actress and singer who worked mostly in low-budget B movies, but gained some fame for habitually marrying, including two brothers. Judge specialized in playing fai ...

as Mrs. Hotchkiss * Richard Arlen as Lee Barrenger * Tristam Coffin as Security Chief Meidel * Ross Elliott as Deputy Earl Harrison * G. Stanley Jones as Funeral Director *Jock Putnam as Ambulance Attendant *Andy Andrews as Ambulance Attendant * Syd Saylor as Soda Shop Owner *Ed Wermer as Prof. Farnstrom *

Beverly Lunsford Beverly Lunsford (January 5, 1945 – May 22, 2019) was an American actress best known for playing Shirley Fletcher on the television sitcom ''Leave It to Beaver.'' Early life Lunsford was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Career Lunsford's earl ...

as Patsy Townsend *Les Hoyle Note: character names are not indicated in on-screen credits.

Home media

''The Crawling Hand'' was featured in Episode 6 of Season 1 of the TV series ''

''. This episode was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

by Rhino Home Video in October 1999 and on DVD in June 2002, including the uncut film as a bonus feature.

In other media

Rick Moody Hiram Frederick Moody III (born October 18, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel '' The Ice Storm'', a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1 ...

's novel ''The Four Fingers of Death'', released in July 2010 by

Little, Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...

, is a

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...

al novelization of an imagined 2025 remake of ''The Crawling Hand'' (which means that Moody's fictional 'novelization' is set in a future very different from that of the 1963 film).

References

External links

Mystery Science Theater 3000

*
Episode guide: 106- The Crawling Hand
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawling Hand, The 1963 films 1963 horror films 1960s science fiction horror films American science fiction horror films American black-and-white films Films directed by Herbert L. Strock 1960s monster movies Films set in California 1960s English-language films 1960s American films English-language science fiction horror films Mystery Science Theater 3000