PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

BA_Harrison There had been 'living' severed hand movies before (The Beast With Five Fingers, The Crawling Hand, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, And Now The Screaming Starts), and there have been a few since (The Hand, Evil Dead II and Idle Hands), but none of them have been as wonderfully schlocky and unintentionally funny as Demonoid, an inept slice of z-grade Mexican horror made all the more laughable by earnest performances from leads Samantha Eggar and Stuart Whitman, and direction from Alfredo Zacarías that shows no sign of intentional humour. Eggar plays Jennifer Baines, who attempts to track down and destroy an ancient evil force that possesses people's left hands (starting with her husband Mark, played by Roy Jenson). Whitman is Father Cunningham, the initially sceptical priest who eventually helps her on her mission.Demonoid immediately displays its trash credentials with a marvellous pre-credits sequence that delivers both gratuitous nudity and gore: a woman wearing cult robes fights against several men, but is overpowered, her clothing torn open in the process, exposing her ample breasts. After she is shackled, one of her assailants hacks off her left hand, the severed appendage crawling across the floor before being skewered and placed in a special metal case. It's a great way to start things off, and is just one of many fun scenes in this very daft horror. Each time someone is possessed, they are driven to remove their hand, which results in some truly memorable moments: Mark's badly burnt reanimated corpse slams his wrist in a car door, a gun-toting cop tells a plastic surgeon 'either you cut my hand off or I'll kill you!', while the very same surgeon severs his own hand by placing his arm on a railway track. Special affects are bloody but wholly unconvincing, which only adds to the charm of the piece. The final act features a supposedly tense chase with zero sense of urgency, and sees Father Cunningham burning off his own possessed hand with a blow-torch, later scattering the ashes in the sea. It looks like the 'devil's hand' has been vanquished once and for all, but a delightfully silly epilogue sees Jennifer attacked by the five-fingered horror, which has somehow returned from the ocean.

insomniac_rod I wonder if this movie somehow inspired "Evil Dead II"!! A demoniac and perverted hand with a bad attitude spreads terror. That's all you need to know.Damn it, the effect of the moving hand is the best feature about this cheapie mess. The hand's performance was truly menacing and comic at the same time! It starts a killing spree while possessing, then, it hides under Samantha Eggar's sheets (dirty hand!), and if it wasn't enough, it jumps over a moving car without a stunt double. That's my kind of entertainment. Now seriously, this movie is as cheap as you can imagine. There are some unintentionally funny situations, CHEAP false scares, horrible f/x, and putrid score. Not even the groovy music is likable.The premise is good but you can't do anything good with such an extremely low budget and cheap production values. But in defense of this movie, it's meant to be pure B-entertainment. Although the movie is boring, it has it's moments of cheesiness and Mystery Science Theatre material. At some points I thought I was watching a bad episode of "Miami Vice"! The car chasing, and shootings just demonstrate how poor this Horror oriented movie is. "The Hand will kill again!". Oh , I forgot to praise the horrible one-liners.

Paul Andrews Demonoid, Messenger of Death starts some 300 years ago in a Mexican mine where some ancient demon or other possesses the left hand of a woman, she is chained to a wall by robed religious fanatics & her left hand is cut off with an axe the disembodied hand then tries to scuttle away but a guy stabs it & places it into a silver hand shaped casket. Cut to the present in a town called Guanajato in Mexico where Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar) has just arrived to join her husband Mark (Roy Jenson) who has recently brought the mine & intends to reopen it, once at the mine Jennifer causes a wall to collapse & reveal a mummified body, women eh? The local workers start bricking themselves & refuse to enter the mine due to ancient legends about the 'Devil's Hand', soon after while in the mine together on they're own Mark & Jennifer stumble across a room with the glove shaped casket in it & Mark decides to take it. Later that night Mark opens the casket & finds nothing but dust, however a hand reforms itself from the dust & possesses Mark. The ancient left hand possessing demon is free & goes about doing what it does best, possessing people's hands with the ultimate aim of possessing Jennifer's for some reason I'm not sure of...This Mexican American co-production was co-written, produced & directed by Alfredo Zacarias & is one zany, crazy & at times gob-smacking exploitation film that provides terrific entertainment for it's slight running time of 78 minutes. I feel Demonoid, Messenger of Death is an ambassador for the much neglected, maligned & under-appreciated sub-genre of possessed killer hand films, I mean there are literally 100's of films featuring evil aliens, indestructible homicidal maniacs, giant bugs, ghosts, Dinosaurs, genetic mutated monsters, zombies & scientific experiments gone bad but how many possessed killer hand films can you name? Not many & that my friends must be addressed... Sorry, I got carried away there. Anyway, the script by Zacarias, David Lee Fein & F. Amos Powell really is as crazy & bizarre as it sounds, at least it shows a lot of imagination & it clearly has the intention of trying to fill every last second of screen time with some bizarre situation. Overall Demonoid, Messenger of Death doesn't make that much sense & you can't take it seriously but that's all part of the fun. I absolutely love the scene in which a policeman walks into a Doctor's surgery & demands at gunpoint that the Doctor cut his hand off or he'll kill him, this part is played 100% straight & the ridiculousness doesn't end there. There are numerous flying severed hands, satanic rituals, dodgy gamblers, disbelieving priest's, mummy's, re-animated corpses, ancient demons, gore, nudity, bad Mexican actor's, a car chase, a woman who thinks walking into a pitch black cavernous mine 100's of years old wearing high heels is a good idea & a pace which never lets up. I have to admit I really liked this goofy film, it was just so entertaining for all the wrong reasons.Director Zacarias creates some pretty decent moments, the sequence where the hand reforms & is inter-cut with footage of real mummified bodies is particularly effective. There are plenty of dumb & downright silly moments in it but god damn I had fun with it. It has that cheap & sleazy early 80's horror film vibe to it & there's some decent gore as well. There are, of course, lots of severed hands but also some decent severing methods like one guy who puts his hand under the wheels of a moving train, ouch! There are surgical removals & one is severed by repeatedly shutting it in a car door & the hands preferred method of murder is to attach itself to someone's face & then squeeze it until the person dies!Technically the film is OK, it's a little rough around the edges but I doubt the filmmakers had much money to work with. The special effects vary from really bad to just bad. I thought the music sounded very familiar & I was right because most of it is stolen from The Incredible Melting Man (1977). The acting was OK & you have to consider the fact that it's very hard to convincingly fight your own hand while it's still attached to your arm, isn't it?Demonoid, Messenger of Death is a pretty unique film, it's certainly something a bit different & overall I was throughly entertained by it. I can't really recommend it as most sane people would probably hate it but if your a fan of obscure exploitation then this is an absolute must. Mr Zacarias, the film-making world needs more people like you, I mean they just don't, won't or simply can't make 'em like this anymore which is not a good thing in my book.

brandonsites1981 A severed hand found in a Mexican mine causes all sorts of trouble for the couple (Samantha Eggar and Roy Cameron) when the hand takes over Cameron and forces him onto a massive killing spree and the hand's main target appears to be Eggar. Fast paced, sometimes scary, sometimes unintentionally funny horror flick features some rather nasty special effects. Rated R.