Noutions
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Michael_Elliott
Demonoid: Messenger of Death (1981) * 1/2 (out of 4) Ultra bizarre horror film has Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar) traveling to Mexico with her husband. The local workers refuse to go down in a mine due to their superstition so of course our two people do. Before long the curse of a severed hand has struck them and before long more and more people are coming under the curse, which requires them to cut their hand off.In 1981 who didn't want what is basically a remake of THE CRAWLING HAND? In all seriousness, there have been countless horror films going back to the silent era that have dealt with a possessed hand coming back for some sort of revenge. This film pretty much takes elements of THE EXORCIST and mixes it with one of these movies and the end result is pretty bad but mildly entertaining.The best thing going for this film is the fact that it offers up quite a bit of violence and some silly death scenes. As one person gets "possessed" with the hand, it eventually requires them to cut the hand off so we get several scenes where people have to be creative to try and get the hand off. There are also a few scenes where skulls get crushed by one of the hands, which adds some red stuff.Eggar turns in a good performance but you can't help but feel she's wasting it on a picture like this. At least she showed up and did the job unlike so many who usually just cash their paychecks with movies like this. I also thought Stuart Whitman was good in his role of the Father trying to help the woman destroy the hand.The biggest problem with this movie is that it just doesn't contain too much plot or characters that we actually like. We basically just get a bunch of short scenes where people get possessed, kill and then cut the hand. There's certainly no tension to be found anywhere, although the ending itself is quite nice.
Scarecrow-88
Samantha Eggar's husband owns a Mexican mine which contains within it an ancient tomb housing a metal box with a severed demonic hand possibly possessed by the Devil himself. The hand attaches itself to Mr. Bains, in turn, possessing him. Each time the host is killed and the hand is severed it moves on to another human victim. The hand's ultimate choice for an owner is Eggar herself who joins forces with a priest(Stuart Whitman)to try and stop it. I have grown mellow over the years since writing user comments and really, really try to approach even the worse dreck looking for something positive from the experience. DEMONOID is one of those cases where I can not find one good thing to take away from it. The plot is preposterous, the severed hand gags are lame and laughable, and the actors attack their parts with an absolute seriousness which had to have been extremely difficult under the circumstances. Whitman and others doing battle with a severed hand trying to smother them is hard to watch without shaking your head in disbelief, and Eggar's fate at the end, the screaming, the swirling camera, broken glass table, it's the tip of the iceberg. For bad movie lovers, I think this junk will even bore them. It is an absolute slog to get to the end as a lot of nothing, other than the infamous severed hand crawling about, happens for long periods, but there are a series of decapitations which might amuse lovers of rancid cinema: a laser, train on railroad tracks, and a car door among other things. While Eggar hasn't necessarily starred in a ton of quality films in her career, DEMONOID would have to be considered the definite low point. Whitman, who I like a lot, doesn't have a prayer(pun intended)in this movie as the heroic man of the cloth who must use the power of Christ to combat the evil demonic hand. The funniest scene could be when the severed hand helps Eggar's husband Mr. Bain win at throwing dice in a Las Vegas casino--who knew a demonic hand had such luck.
Lee Eisenberg
...there's not much point in watching "Demonoid: Messenger of Death". Had they gone deeper into the history of how the first hand became a killer hand, maybe the movie would have been better. But just showing one scene of a cult, and then showing a husband and wife going into a Mexican mine and finding the remains of a temple, thereby releasing an evil hand? Not good enough.Anyway, this isn't the worst movie (it's easily more interesting than "Baryshnya-Krestyanka" or "Everyone Says I Love You"). But they could have easily developed it further. I suspect that Samantha Eggar and Stuart Whitman don't try to stress this on their resumes. Pretty lame.
Coventry
Okay, explain me this: the film has got an original premise, a uniquely sinister setting and immensely atmospheric scenery. So, then why on earth is it still such a boring and mildly frustrating film? "Macabra" contains all the basic ingredients of a unique horror effort, but the elaboration is so weak and amateurish all the potential and good intentions go nearly wasted. Jennifer and Mark Baines, a married couple, invest their money in a Mexican mine and hope to get rich real fast exploiting silver. The local workers still attempt to warn them about the place being haunted with an ancient demonic evil, but it's useless. Instead of winning silver, Jennifer and Mark unleash pure evil in the shape of a mummified hand that takes control over the people it possesses. When Mark falls victim to the evil first, Jennifer teams up with a reluctant Vietnam veteran turned priest in order to defeat the hand. As said, the basic idea had potential, but a bit more background regarding the nature and origin of the evil would have been welcome. What exactly is it? Why a hand? How did it end up in a Mexican mine, etc? There are some moments of sheer suspense, fast pacing and creepiness, but even more boredom and absolute pointlessness. There's a reasonable amount of gore and typically 80's cheese-effects, including self-crawling hands and explicit amputations. The cinematography is too dark, but the set-pieces are admirably macabre and especially the soundtrack is far superior to any other aspect this overall mediocre effort. The theme music is creepy, and throughout the film uncanny tunes can be heard repeatedly. Bad film, but curiously compelling and still recommended to remotely tolerant genre fans.
