At least "The Devil's Hand" is short and to the point. Rick is having visions of a beautiful blond woman seducing him at night (I know, what's the problem?) when he tells his far too understanding fiancé Donna about it to which she merely shrugs it off. Yeah, lemme try that one on the wife and see how she reacts. The next day the couple come upon a doll store with one of the figures bearing a remarkable resemblance to the woman in Rick's dream. Turns out the place is run by Francis Lamont (Batman's Neil Hamilton) who tells Rick that he was the one who ordered the doll in the first place and that it's already been paid for him in advance. A confused Rick pleads to Donna that he has no recollection of ever ordering the doll when Donna spies another figure that resembles her perfectly. Turns out this was all planed in advance as the dolls are used for voodoo rituals with Francis the leader of a cult that worships an evil god named Gamba. The couple's fate is sealed as Donna gets bedridden in a hospital with a needle to the heart while Rick gets seduced by his nightly vision who turns out to be gorgeous Bianca Milan who had her sights set on Rick and gets what she wants thanks to her voodoo magick. Soon Rick ditches Donna, joins the cult, and falls head over heels in love with Bianca. Kinda hard to swallow that a looker like Bianca would need to resort to these tactics to get a man, but whatever! Rick becomes torn between his former lover Donna and his allegiance to the cult. It falls apart rather quickly.
I'll readily admit that I'm not exactly Rhodes Scholar material but "Devil's Hand" sent a lot of mixed signals that messed with the overall ending. It's been established that Francis clearly has some sort of supernatural power over his members when he maims Donna and kills an undercover reporter yet he has to use some lame wheel-of-swords type thing that he controls with pedals to dispatch others with. This makes no sense. Why not just use the doll? Another problem I had is trying to read Rick's true intentions. Was he there merely to infiltrate the cult or did he really become ensnared in Bianca's magick? And if so why did he care about Donna when it shows him crumbling up a note from her and tossing it? The conclusion is also perplexing as Rick doesn't want anything bad to happen to Donna but he clearly preaches his innocence to the cult. What would be the point if his intentions in the first place was to save Donna? Why explain anything? When the building went up in flames presumably burning the dolls wouldn't everyone die? Ughh, my head hurts! Linda Christian is quite the head turner as Bianca and Rick is Alan Alda's dad Robert. The film quality is awful as scenes jump quite frequently but then again what do you expect from these multi-movie packs. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to dress my Malibu Palin doll into her wolfskin bikini.
I'll readily admit that I'm not exactly Rhodes Scholar material but "Devil's Hand" sent a lot of mixed signals that messed with the overall ending. It's been established that Francis clearly has some sort of supernatural power over his members when he maims Donna and kills an undercover reporter yet he has to use some lame wheel-of-swords type thing that he controls with pedals to dispatch others with. This makes no sense. Why not just use the doll? Another problem I had is trying to read Rick's true intentions. Was he there merely to infiltrate the cult or did he really become ensnared in Bianca's magick? And if so why did he care about Donna when it shows him crumbling up a note from her and tossing it? The conclusion is also perplexing as Rick doesn't want anything bad to happen to Donna but he clearly preaches his innocence to the cult. What would be the point if his intentions in the first place was to save Donna? Why explain anything? When the building went up in flames presumably burning the dolls wouldn't everyone die? Ughh, my head hurts! Linda Christian is quite the head turner as Bianca and Rick is Alan Alda's dad Robert. The film quality is awful as scenes jump quite frequently but then again what do you expect from these multi-movie packs. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to dress my Malibu Palin doll into her wolfskin bikini.