mark.waltz Two obscure Spanish language films have been shoved together with newly cheap film footage to try and create a new movie. The 40's footage of two movies from Chile look expensive but dated compared to the cheap new film added featuring John Carradine. Attempts to tie the two films together are unsuccessful and the the result is boring. With American International successfully producing modern frights on a budget, this looks like paper machete to their Styrofoam like sets that could be torn down and put back together to resemble whatever location castle the writers chose to set the story in. The first story us a loose re-telling of The Suicide Club, the second a weak attempt to create thrills for what appeared to be original. Carradine narrates both tales in what appears to be the only new footage with bad dubbing covering up the obvious Spanish by the original actors. This appears to have been barely released at all, although I did locate a few pictures of actual posters and lobby cards. At least there is a nice title sequence that reminded me of Charles Addams drawings. Not really horror, this barely has any chills and any attempts to create a proper Gothic setting are destroyed by the obvious theft of two long forgotten films.

tostinati 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.

Michael_Elliott Curse of the Stone Hand (1964) BOMB (out of 4) Here's another history lesson for you fine folks, this time we take another look at the incredible hack Jerry Warren who really is the worst director ever. What Mr. Warren would do is buy foreign movies, cut them in half, hire John Carradine to film a couple new scenes and then add narration over the foreign elements of the film. Warren would then release these films as something "new" but they always turned out horrible and that's no different here. A mysterious stone hand is causing people to kill themselves but who cares? The "stone hand" only shows up twice and really doesn't play a part in the film. Warren took a Mexican film and another one from Chile to edit together and on their own both films appear to be quite good but with 2/3rds of them edited out there's really nothing this film is good for.

todmichel For a long time, the true origins of this pitiful travesty of a film were unknown; it was rumored that two Mexican films were used as the basis of the Jerry Warren "work" - but in fact CURSE OF THE STONE HAND is composed (apart of the Warren-filmed horrendous sequences with Carradine, Katherine Victor, etc.) of two EXCELLENT (in their original form of course) Chilean movies of 1945, both directed by exiled Argentinian directors. The segment known as "House of Gloom" is made of one-third of LA CASA ESTA VACIA, directed by Carlos Schlieper, and the other segment, "The Suicide Club, is equally one-third of LA DAMA DE LA MUERTE, directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen. Both directors were highly talented men, and as you can imagine their works are totally destroyed by the Jerry Warren ineptitude. Another Christensen movie, LA BALANDRA ISABEL LLEGO ESTA TARDE (1949) was also "cannibalized" by Warren, and released under the title "The Violent and the Damned". If you can, AVOID AT ALL COSTS any Jerry Warren travesty (you can eventually watch his OWN films, such as "Teenage Zombies" or "Frankenstein Island"...) and try to see the original foreign movies destroyed by this man...