Idle Hands

"Idle Hands" was released to theaters in 1999 in which it received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics along with dismal box office grossing only 4.2 million against a budget of 25 million. It had the misfortune of being released only 10 days after the Columbine tragedy which hurt its chances somewhat. The film mixed teen comedy with R rated horror violence & gore in which a teenager's right hand becomes possessed and begins killing his friends and family much to his shock and dismay. The cast includes Devon Sawa in the lead of Anton, Seth Green & Eldon Henson as his best friends, an incredibly sexy Jessica Alba (who was only 18 when this film was made) as Anton's crush, and an amazing looking Vivica A. Fox (her body is a work of art!) who is tracking the possessed hand as it transfers from person to person. Fred Willard also has a small role at the beginning of the film.I saw the film initially in a theater back in 1999 and enjoyed it quite a bit. The mix of comedy and horror worked for me quite well. The entire cast does great work with Devon Sawa displaying a natural knack for physical comedy when his right hand becomes possessed. "Idle Hands" has steadily gained an audience over the years and is now a bona fide cult classic."Idle Hands" received a special edition DVD release back in 1999 featuring a commentary track, a making of featurette, the original ending, a storyboard comparison, and the theatrical trailer. It got its first blu-ray release by Image Entertainment in 2013 which featured a terrific transfer but sadly was bare bones in terms of any extras.Scream Factory gave the film some blu-ray collector's edition attention in 2020 in what can be labeled as the definitive edition of this film. Fans should be ecstatic with this blu-ray release of "Idle Hands"!Scream Factory repurposed the same transfer from the previous blu-ray for this release. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio utilizing the AVC codec at a beefy bit rate usually staying locked in at 36 mbps. Simply put the movie looks great with nice colors, contrast/black levels, accurate skin tones, and detail throughout. No digital noise reduction or sharpening appears to have been used. I do not have the previous blu-ray to compare but from what I have researched online, the Scream Factory disc features a superior encode compared to the Image Entertainment disc from 2013 which used the same HD master. I can't imagine the film looking any better other than a 4K UHD release.Audio wise we get two options in a 5.1 DTS-HD master audio mix and the original 2.0 channel DTS-HD master audio mix too. I watched the film with the 5.1 lossless mix and thought it sounded great with the dialogue, music, and sound effects to be evenly mixed. English subtitles are included for the hearing impaired.In terms of extras, Scream Factory commissioned a lot of new stuff in addition to thankfully porting over the DVD's extras too. The full list of extra content is as follows:- NEW Audio Commentary With Actors Devon Sawa, Seth Green, Elden Henson, And Vivica A. Fox- NEW Bloody Punk Fun – An Interview With Director Rodman Flender (12 min. 53 sec.)- NEW Stoner Headspace – An Interview With Actor Elden Henson (9 min. 42 sec.)- NEW This Face, These Hands – An Interview With Actor Sean Whalen (10 min 59 sec.)- NEW Sleight Of Hand – An Interview With Actor Christopher Hart (15 min. 9 sec.)- NEW Written In Blood – An Interview With Writer Terri Hughes Burton (5 min. 51 sec.)- Audio Commentary By Director Rodman Flender And Actors Seth Green And Elden Henson- Deleted Scene (i.e. the original ending) With Optional Audio Commentary (9 min. 19 sec.)- Commentary By Director Rodman Flender- Vintage Making-Of Featurette (6 min.)- Storyboard Comparisons (3 min. 4 sec.)- Theatrical Trailer (2 min. 26 sec.)For the first few months, the Scream Factory edition comes with a slipcover with newly commissioned artwork. You can flip around the artwork on the case itself to have the original theatrical poster which is nice.Fans of "Idle Hands" should be very happy with Scream Factory's collector's edition blu-ray. The film looks and sounds great in addition to containing a nice assortment of new extras along with all of the vintage extras from the ancient DVD release too. If you own the bare bones 2013 blu-ray from Image Entertainment of the film, the upgrade to the Scream Factory edition is highly recommended and well worth it in my opinion.

Being a huge film fan all my life, I've always aimed to increase my collection at every turn. Mixing my two favorite genres: comedy and horror, into a nice blend, "Idle Hands" is a film I greatly enjoyed. The overall mix is done quite well, blending the two genres quite well.The plot focuses around a teenage boy named Anton Tobias. Like any other teenager, Anton is lazy and enjoys the usual stereotypical activities such as getting high. His two best friends are no better than he is, and together the three of them are the ultimate slacker archetype.Anton is so out of touch with the world that he does not even realize the sudden slaughtering of his parents that occurs, instead deciding to continue with his usual behavior. It isn't until later that Anton even realizes that both of his parents have been brutally murdered and all of the fingers are suddenly pointing to him as the sole suspect of the crime. They say that "idle hands" do the devil's work, but in this case it's true. All of those years of doing nothing have come back to haunt Anton. After inviting his two friends over, Pnub and Mick, Anton's hand suddenly brutally murders the two of them. It appears as if his hand has a mind of its own, and the only thing on its mind is murder.His hand begins to make him do further things that he would not normally do upon his own freewill, such as confront the girl next door that he's been crushing on for quite some time. As it turns out, Molly (Jessica Alba) has always had the same feelings for Anton, but he had never approached her to find out. After his hand makes him approach Molly, the two of them actually realize how they have truly felt all this time. This turns out to be the only positive thing that his hand has brought him, but after several other hi-jinks and misfortunes, Anton decides to cut off his own hand, reminiscent of Evil Dead. Further antics begin to occur, as Mick and Pnub return to life and assist Anton in saving Molly from the demonic hand. With the assistance of a demon hunter, the group spends the remainder of the film battling the demonic hand in a series of laugh inducing scenes.I was not expecting much from this film, being the only reason I purchased it was to add to my collection of Jessica Alba films, but I was greatly surprised with the results. The film is a perfect blend of horror related comedy, kind of amongst the lines of other horror-comedy films such as "Shaun of the Dead", "Young Frankenstein", "Evil Dead" and more recently "Zombieland". Being a blend of these two genres means that one cannot take the film seriously, so do not expect award winning writing or acting, it's meant more as a parody of the horror genre. As long as you know what to expect from this movie you will gladly enjoy a few good laughs and find yourself indulging in a highly underrated film.

I must've been living under a rock for the past 20 years, but I just watched Idle Hands for the first time last night and I absolutely loved it! I bought the beautiful Shout Factory blu-ray and it was definitely worth it. The film doesn't take itself too seriously, Devon Sawa, Seth Green, and Elden Henson all had great chemistry and looked like they were enjoying every minute. Another bonus is that the movie takes place around Halloween, and they play Rob Zombie music. The plot reminds me of a scene from Evil Dead 2 where Ash is forced to cut off his hand because it's possessed. The movie is an hour and a half of that scene, but it's done so well!Devon Sawa stars as Anton Tobias, the laziest teen in the world who only cares about watching tv, eating junk food, and getting high with his friends. On Halloween, he finds that his parents have been killed and his right hand has been possessed by evil and forced him to do it without his knowledge. His friends, Mick and Pnub come over and they slowly realize he's the killer. After killing them, his friends turn into undead zombie buddies, who were too lazy to talk into Heaven. He finally cuts off his hand, and it escapes and goes on a killing spree in town and the Halloween dance at school. Anton must stop his evil hand and save the girl he loves (played by the beautiful Jessica Alba) before the hand kills anyone else. If you want a fun, silly, stoner horror comedy, I would highly highly recommend IDLE HANDS!!!

Super great movie! Cult classic and definitely recommend you give it a watch!