Idle Hands

I wanted to see this movie when it first came out for exactly two reasons: 1) Seth Green; and 2) Offspring. At the time I didn’t know or care about Devon Sawa. Which says a lot about the kind of girl I was in 1999. Not much has changed, really. I still have no idea who Devon Sawa is, I’m still nursing a crush on Seth Green, and I still like Offspring.

Devon Sawa plays Anton, the laziest stoner in slacker town. In a plot that I assume was inspired by too many late-night viewings of Evil Dead and Body Parts, Devon’s right hand becomes possessed and starts killing people. Though it takes him a couple of days to realize his missing parents are actually dead and on display in the living room, Devon eventually takes matters into his own hand and cuts off the offending appendage. But not before he’s offed both his best friends and felt up Jessica Alba.

Enter Druid Priestess Vivica Fox, who explains just what the hell is going on. Turns out there’s an evil spirit that possesses the laziest person it can find so that it can take control of the body and kill kill kill. The only way to deal with this evil is to kill the possessed, which is bad news for Devon Sawa. Luckily, when Vivica finally catches up with Devon, he’s already cut off his hand and stuck it in the microwave so all she’s got to do find the hand, stab the hand, and then have sex.

Makes me think I’ve got the wrong religion.

I have no problem suspending my disbelief. I’ll buy into almost anything. But even after throwing all good sense out the window (which I did when I sat down to watch this movie) I still had a hard time believing a disembodied hand could manhandle Jessica Alba down a corridor and tie her to the roof of a car. I don’t care how evil the thing is, it just can’t be done.

The movie also suffers from a kind of genre ambiguity. It’s supposed to be funny but despite Seth Green’s amazing deadpan, the humour falls flat and the film feels empty. There’s a good chance I might have enjoyed this movie more had I seen it when I was I little bit younger and a lot less discerning, but then I wouldn’t have been able provide the same quality of incisive criticism as I do now: Idle Hands kind of sucks.