gavin6942 The hand of a dead astronaut comes crawling back from the grave to strangle the living.I like the concept here. We have seen killer hands before. My favorite horror film, "Mad Love", has a bit to do with a killer hand or two. And that, in turn, was based off of "The Hands of Orlac". This film does not follow that same theme, and may not have been influences by them (though I would like to think so). Instead, we just have an arm on the loose. (This should be called the "crawling arm", but we can let that slide.) The basic plot is simple but effective. The acting is pretty average, and at times below average. The biggest issue is actually the length of the film. We have what could easily be 30 or 60 minutes stretched out to 90 minutes, which only does one thing: causes intense boredom. A slow burn is good, but this is not a slow burn... it is a snoozer.

bensonmum2 A space capsule is destroyed upon re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere sending a shower of wreckage across a Southern California beach. A teenager finds the astronaut's dismembered arm and (inexplicably) takes it home. How could he possibly know that the arm is possessed by a killer force or that he too will come under its influence? I've watched a lot of really bad movies lately, but The Crawling Hand is far from the worst. In fact, it's almost "good" in comparison with dreck like Monster A Go-Go and The Starfighters (yes, I've been on something of a MST3K binge lately). The movie has its share of problems (hit and miss acting, obvious budgetary constraints, a ridiculous premise, etc.), but there are some nice moments mixed in here and there. Chief among them is the scene in the malt shop when the owner is attacked. The action, lighting, sound, and cinematography found in this scene far exceed anything you might expect to see in a movie with the reputation of The Crawling Hand. The two biggest problems I have with the movie seem to rarely get mentioned – the shift from the hand of the movie's title to "teen angst" movie and the amount of padding used to extend the film's runtime. So while I may never think of The Crawling Hand as a masterpiece, I certainly see it in a better light than the majority of comments I've read.As The Crawling Hand is from the first season of MST3K, it suffers from the same lack of consistent riffing that plagues most of the early episodes. But in comparison with the other first season episodes I have seen, it's among the best. There is a bit involving a telephone that is very funny. Overall, I'll give this episode of MST3K a very generous 3/5 – a wishy-washy average rating.

thehardyboyz2043 (Possible spoilers) not many people may know this but "The Crawling Hand" was an early MST3K episode from about '89, I think. Personally, I don't feel this was anywhere near being the worst movie they ever did, but it was still pretty bad. The story consists of an astronaut (whose lines consist mainly of "Push the red button" and "Kill" during which he sounds like a William Shatner wannabe) who is blown up and his remains, but mainly his hand are discovered later on a beach by a frolicking couple, a Swedish chick who has to read cue cards and a James Dean clone. For some reason the "James" guy goes on a killing or a dutch rub spree for any one whose seen the film all the while to NASA scientists (I think) and a dumpy sheriff (Alan Hale Jr., whose surprised)are trying to track him down. It's not really a very good movie, though the MST version was quite funny, for an early episode.

Aaron1375 That is the question you will be asking yourself as you watch this sci-fi stinker. The movie obviously takes place before we did any extensive space travel as it involves a kind of force that takes possesion of people. As cool as that sounds the movie is rather dull. Lets just say a rocket blows up after an insane astronaut asks the people to blow it up. His hand ends up on the beach where this dumb guy sees it and wants to wrap it up and put it into storage or something. The hand trys to choke him, then partially tries to control him you know how it goes. Though he does have an attractive girlfriend. And as bad as most of the movies is you still hope the kid doesn't get killed in the end, even if he is a bit dense.