Watch Curse of the Stone Hand For Free

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Other reviews here indicate that the pilfered film footage in this "effort" by schlockmeister Jerry Warren comes from legitimately *good* Chilean movies, but you wouldn't know it from Warrens' bungling. He manages to make this assemblage of footage pretty dull and uninteresting. It still has some appeal for people channel surfing in the wee hours of the morning, and is not without atmosphere. "Curse of the Stone Hand" only really comes to life in scenes where the legendary John Carradine, one of Warrens' repertory players (and seemingly a man who could never say no to *any* script), appears. (However, that's because of Carradines' grandiose screen presence, not because of anything Warren does.)The first tale is an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevensons' "The Suicide Club", in which a young man, desperate to rid himself of debts, enters a club where he thinks he can gamble his way to good fortune. The second story is derived from the 1945 feature "The House is Empty", regaling us with the experience of two brothers tormented by an older sibling. Warren attempts to tie all of this together with his "stone hand" nonsense, which has something to do with a curse on the residents of a house, and removes the dialogue from his source material in favour of narration.Even at only 68 minutes, this is a little tough to get through. In compressing / editing the footage from the two Chilean features, Warren and company rob them of their effectiveness. There's still the entertainment value from the revelations provided, in any event. If you're a Carradine fan, you may feel let down from only seeing him in the brief additional scenes. Another of Warrens' regulars, Katherine Victor, also appears here.At the very least, seeing this exercise in dullness may motivate one to see the Chilean films in their proper context.Four out of 10.

"Curse of the Stone Hand" bears a 1964 copyright, but this two-part anthology consists of footage derived from a pair of atmospheric Chilean titles made by Argentine directors nearly two decades earlier. The first half is taken from 1946's "La Dama de la Muerte" (The Lady of Death), from director Carlos Hugo Christensen, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1878 3-part anthology "The Suicide Club" (roughly half its original length), while the second half (at the 34-minute mark of this 57 minute feature) consists of 1945's "La Casa esta Vacia" (The House is Empty), from director Carlos Schlieper, reduced to about 30 percent of its footage. The final product was created by schlock director Jerry Warren, with himself and 'Hugo Christensen' listed as co-directors. Warren tied these stories together through some newly shot sequences depicting a stone hand, which supposedly signifies a curse. John Carradine was no stranger to Warren ("The Incredible Petrified World," "Invasion of the Animal People," "House of the Black Death," "Frankenstein Island"), but for his three brief scenes, received second billing under actor 'Ernest Walch,' an Americanized pseudonym for Ernesto Vilches (from "La Dama de la Muerte"), who not only died in 1954, but was also listed ninth in the cast list, under the more simplified moniker 'Ernest Vilche.' Carradine, along with Katherine Victor and Bruno Ve Sota, only appears in the final reel, as 'The Old Drunk,' relating how he spied on a married woman cavorting with her husband's brother, totaling less than two minutes screen time (Victor gets one additional scene, confronting the husband, conveniently seen from the back). Warren's butchery makes for very dull viewing, even worse than "Invasion of the Animal People," another waste of Carradine's exceptional talents. "Curse of the Stone Hand" made its only appearance on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater May 4 1968, followed by second feature "Frankenstein-1970."

I remember seeing most of the first half of this film years ago, being somewhat impressed by the atmosphere, and feeling that the fault must be my own, for having tuned in five minutes late, that it wasn't making total sense. I cut it more slack for being obviously dubbed. Sure, after all some movies suffer from bad translation.These many years later, after finding a public domain DVD online, I had a chance to finally check my generally positive -- and at any rate intrigued --memory of this film. First off, I am convinced that someone studied the visuals of the original films this was supposedly re-shot from (or however culled from) with no access to a translation.Therefore, while there are motivated people walking to and fro, gazing smolderingly at each other, uttering lines of obvious deep portent, all as a pretty serviceable music track swells and fades in the background, while camera setups and lighting that seem to come right out of a well-made film are everywhere in evidence, none of it -- NONE OF IT -- really makes clear sense. It's close to a pantomime in which the audience is not invited in, as they would have been in a high period silent film with few inter-titles. Something's missing; it all stays fuzzy.The first half is a basically comprehensible story, in that you can tell what's going on in a schematic sense. But the connective tissue that would make it a full-limbed, resonant experience is missing. We see a couple, not really meeting them, and never learn anything about them. Right off, the husband opens a letter summoning him on account of a gambling debt. You can tell by the furrow of his brow and the flaring nostrils that he's up against it. But why do we care? We don't even know him or his wife. OK, so I'm an empathetic sort who decides to care about other people who are in trouble. Still, the experience of this film is completely opaque. I want to care, but I am held at a distance. It's a pity, too.I read a lot of really harsh criticism of Jerry Warren online, even an article in which we are told that Warren himself said in an interview that he didn't care about film -- he was making money. But the look of this film is actually pretty accomplished. There seems to have been the craftsmanship there to put something credible and creditable together. There is a respectable achievement of atmosphere throughout, even in the stone hand framing device at the beginning which is pretty much a non-sequitur cooked out of purest nothing. There's a semi-potent horror scene when the poor husband is in a town square at night, and wheels around to face various creepy grotesques peering at him from the dark. It's an effective moment. It's because of these things that Curse is doubly frustrating. This film didn't have to be as opaque and nebulous an experience as it is.At whatever point you drop the needle on this film, it will seem as if you came in after something major happened, and that you will never get the point because of that until you backtrack and watch the entire thing. But no. That's just the way Curse plays.The second half makes even less sense than the first, and with no big horror payoff moments. I can't tell who anyone is, what their relationship is or what is going on, until the end comes, when I can only wonder what has just happened.I don't dislike this film. I wish I understood what the heck happens during that last half. And I wish they'd had a translator for the first half so they actually had known what was going on with the characters and been in a position to share with us. --Or do I? The famed, hated Carradine sequence of this film is native-spoken English, and it is horrible. Junk. Maybe this film seems better specifically because of the cryptic quality it has from having been stolen sans understanding by the makers/thieves.

I saw this film once, on the late, late show, when I was in high school. The only part that stays with me is an interesting segment that suddenly makes the previously dull movie come to life, when a group of men are holding a meeting of some kind. I remember exclaiming out loud, " Wait a minute, this is Robert Louis Stevenson's story The Suicide Club!" It was the only part of the movie that actually made any sense, and held my interest, as it was based on a strong literary source, and professionally acted and directed, in contrast with the typical Jerry Warren goofiness of the rest of the picture.My impression of Jerry Warren is that his movies were just one slight step above the level of Ed Wood's productions. The hilarious sequence in Invasion of the Animal People, where a psychiatrist solemnly questions Katherine Victor about the argument that led to her daughter leaving the house in a snit, and later encountering a UFO, is like something you'd see on Saturday Night Live, along with the bit where the police surgeon demonstrates to his colleagues the structure of the inner ear, using a Halloween prop skull.