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Idle Hands
The poor, impoverished teen horror of the late 90s
1999
Review: February 19, 2006
Director: Rodman Flender
Starring: Devon Sawa, Seth Green, Elden Henson, Jessica Alba
Yeah.
THE SETUP:
Stoner guy’s hand is possessed.
DISCUSSION:
I remember when this was out, and a bunch of people had told me it was funny as a stoner comedy, and I like a good stoner comedy every now and then, so I thought I’d check it out. I’m not entirely happy I did, though I suppose it could have been worse.
The first thing is that Devon Sawa’s parents go to bed in this stunningly tacky bedroom and get killed. Then we wake up with Devon, who is this total lazy stoner. It’s a little funny how very lazy he is. I also thought it was stunning to notice how quickly iPods have completely taken over, as one sees how odd Devon looks with his big headphones and CD player or walkman, whatever it was. He has no grass, so he goes next door where his friends Mick [Seth Green] and Pnub [Elden Henson], fellow stoners, are. They don’t give him any grass, so he tries to smoke oregano, which makes him feel strange and is when he first becomes aware of his problem.
His problem is that his hand is possessed and killing people. He quickly kills his two friends, but luckily they still hang out in their dead state, as once Seth Green left, my interest would be seriously diminished. It’s too bad that no one has taken advantage of Seth’s talent. What especially annoys me is that since he was on Buffy he can only do teen horror or stupid comedies, whereas if you actually watched him on Buffy [his best work, as far as I’ve seen], you know that he’s best in a sort of offbeat romantic leading man role. Ah well, it’s too bad, but it’s annoying to see someone as talented as he is trapped in movies with Matthew Lillaird. Anyway, Seth has one great line here, after they die: “Yeah, there was this tunnel with this peaceful and comforting white light, and voices saying ‘come to us’… but we figured, ‘fuck it.’ I mean, it was REALLY far.”
Anyway, so soon Devon discovers that it’s HE who’s doing the killing, and this leads to a lot of not-very-funny comedy in which his hand is doing one thing while he does another. His hand also roughly grabs and chokes Jessica Alba while they’re making out, but of course she ‘likes it’ and is not bothered at all by her potential boyfriend’s murderous advances. Are you getting the sense that the sense of humor and whole perspective of this movie is at a high school level? Why you perceptive little bunny.
Ultimately it was just a little too moronic for me, but it could have been worse. I suppose. By the end it was just going on too long in a sort of pointless way and I just fast-forwarded to the end. Ugh, I feel so bad for today’s teens that this is the shit they’re fed up with.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t.
