Idle Hands

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Idle Hands is a luridly mis-timed slasher-comedy about an American high school student whose lazy right hand becomes possessed by murderous demonic forces. Director Rodman Flender learned the ropes working with B-movie king Roger Corman, thus ensuring that the flick serves up clunky gross-out humor and scarcely clad nubile teens. Anton (Devon Sawa), the lethargic stoner, kills his two best friends who return as chummy undead. Before you can say 'bummer, dude,' Anton's schizophrenic savagery arouses the nymphet-next-door. So much for a moral lesson. Meanwhile, Debi the Druidic princess (Vivica A. Fox) is trying to banish the ancient evil currently lodging in the bad boy's hand. Forces culminate at the Halloween dance.

In the vein of Evil Dead but missing the mark, Idle Hands is brainless humor which seems to advocate that the audience follow the lead character and stumble through life stoned. After the incidents at Colorado's Columbine High School, do we really need to see Idle Hand's celebration of senseless violence and mockeries of a student mourning service?