A part of this movie is pure camp a severed hand plays a kind of an avenging angel for its former proprietor. Special effects abound. In my opinion they almost destroy the whole movie, especially the final scene they are more silly than scary.
Strange as it may sound, there is a serious, well acted and superbly constructed drama behind all this. I suspect Oliver Stone wanted to do something in the vein of Kubrick's Shining here. The story has so many similarities that a mere coincidence can be ruled out. A comic book artist feels a midlife crisis coming on. He becomes estranged from his wife and during a bickering scene while she's driving a car the you know what event takes place. It is perfectly filmed and the way it comes about is totally plausible. The accident triggers an insane obsession in the main character's life about what is missing you feel it but you don't have it - and it goes much further than a severed hand. In my opinion Michael Caine does a superb job here playing the disillusioned artist. Andrea Marcovicci is also very good as the wife who is a woman with principles" and wants to find herself" it's stereotype, but high quality stereotype.
The best and really memorable scene of the movie takes place in a class room in the attic of a college deep in the sticks. The Caine character accepted a teaching post there after the accident. The camera takes a glance of the assembled students. They look extremely dumb and devoid of any interest. Caine asks them who is their favorite comic book character. You, Billy? Billy starts thinking hard. After several, very long seconds he answers I dunno". Caine asks a few other students but does not get better results. The scene creates a perfect atmosphere of disillusionment and doom. A girl at least makes eye contact, and she's not even bad looking. She later looks the Caine character up for some joyless sex, and the bottomless sadness that girl displays throughout is simply heart wrenching and epitomizes the dead end aspect of life one would rather like to forget. Good performance by Annie McEnroe, the girl. Whatever happened to her? I saw her in Stirba-Werewolf Bitch, but, well.
Strange as it may sound, there is a serious, well acted and superbly constructed drama behind all this. I suspect Oliver Stone wanted to do something in the vein of Kubrick's Shining here. The story has so many similarities that a mere coincidence can be ruled out. A comic book artist feels a midlife crisis coming on. He becomes estranged from his wife and during a bickering scene while she's driving a car the you know what event takes place. It is perfectly filmed and the way it comes about is totally plausible. The accident triggers an insane obsession in the main character's life about what is missing you feel it but you don't have it - and it goes much further than a severed hand. In my opinion Michael Caine does a superb job here playing the disillusioned artist. Andrea Marcovicci is also very good as the wife who is a woman with principles" and wants to find herself" it's stereotype, but high quality stereotype.
The best and really memorable scene of the movie takes place in a class room in the attic of a college deep in the sticks. The Caine character accepted a teaching post there after the accident. The camera takes a glance of the assembled students. They look extremely dumb and devoid of any interest. Caine asks them who is their favorite comic book character. You, Billy? Billy starts thinking hard. After several, very long seconds he answers I dunno". Caine asks a few other students but does not get better results. The scene creates a perfect atmosphere of disillusionment and doom. A girl at least makes eye contact, and she's not even bad looking. She later looks the Caine character up for some joyless sex, and the bottomless sadness that girl displays throughout is simply heart wrenching and epitomizes the dead end aspect of life one would rather like to forget. Good performance by Annie McEnroe, the girl. Whatever happened to her? I saw her in Stirba-Werewolf Bitch, but, well.