Misunderstood Masterpieces: Idle Hands
Posted by Will Helm on 03.09.2004
…or, Ladies and Gentlemen: HOT CHICKS IN TROUBLE!
The next two weeks are dedicated to the fine folks in the 411Movies Celebrity News & Gossip forum. I think they know why.
Tradition holds that the Hollywood “slasher” flick dates back to 1978, when an inventive writer/director named John Carpenter masterminded a pleasant little film titled Halloween. While other films may have served as prototypes, this was the first to set down all of the archetypes of the genre: the unstoppable killer, the “expert” who is the only individual that can defeat the antagonist, the creepy repeated theme on the soundtrack, and the HOT CHICK IN TROUBLE! Of course, the role of HOT CHICK IN TROUBLE! has rules that must be followed, mainly a certain virtuousness and innocence as well as the ability to survive the entire picture. HOT CHICKS IN TROUBLE! never die during the original feature, but they’re fair game in any sequels. Anyway, if we accept Halloween as the original slasher film, that would make Jamie Lee Curtis the original HOT CHICK IN TROUBLE! Many others have followed in her footsteps in the 26 years following that film’s release: Adrienne King (Friday the 13th), Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Jennifer Aniston (Leprechaun), Neve Campbell (Scream . . . which was originally a sort-of satire of the genre), Giggly Tits (the I Know What You Did Last Summer series), as well as others.
The recent boom of slasher flicks has greatly increased the ranks of HOT CHICKS IN TROUBLE! in Hollywood, with many well-regarded (as well as not-so-regarded) actresses joining that storied group. One example of these recent slasher flicks is the 1999 horror-comedy (and I use both words loosely) Idle Hands. It’s the touching story about a stoner, his friends, and the HOT CHICK who lives next door. Featuring a cast of relative unknowns and somewhat famous supporting players, including Vivica A. Fox and the always awesome Seth Green and Fred Willard, Idle Hands, much to its credit, may have played a bit with the conventions of the genre, but they’re still there. Of course, just toying with the traditions of a style of filmmaking does not a Misunderstood Masterpiece make, so please allow me to elaborate further . . .
Setting the scene as only clichés can, the opening credits feature nausea-inducing visuals and “Fun with Occult Iconography.” Also, not straying far from the Halloween paradigm, it’s Halloween season somewhere in the American suburbs . . . and there’s a plastic reindeer on someone’s lawn. That someone: none other than über-talent Willard, who tries to relax in his bed while some middle-aged woman (Connie Ray) pesters him. After lying back, she spies a cryptic message written in glo-paint on the ceiling! Look out! It’s the ghost of A.C. Moore! The unhappy couple dismisses the supernatural arts-and-crafts as just another prank by their slacker son “Scooter.” No wonder he’s unmotivated; his parents still call him “Scooter.” Of course, just to keep the movie going, the woman, her paranoia overwhelming, sends Fred to investigate some mysterious noises in the house while she lays in bed and knits. Hmmm . . . someone’s lazy. Moments later, she goes off to investigate her husband’s whereabouts; with big Fred missing, she just goes back to her bedroom . . . and the bed eats her. OK then.
The next day or sometime in the future or whenever (again, this is another movie that suffers from a vague timeline), Anton Tobias (Devon Sawa) wakes up. He begins the day like he does any other, I would assume: he crashes on the couch, smokes up, and watches Mr. Magoo. That’s how you know he’s a stoner, by the way; only a stoner would ever watch Mr. Magoo. The real horror of the film begins now as it seems that Anton is out of his precious weed, so he calls his connection and goes out in search of his buzz while still clad in his boxers. Upon reaching his destination and crawling through a basement window, his goofy friends, Mick (Green) and Pnub (Elden Henson), mock Anton’s stoner ways, as if they’re Darth Vader and he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or not. In addition to being ersatz comic relief, Mick and Pnub (what kind of name is “Pnub” anyway? That’s almost as bad as “Scooter”! No wonder they’ve turned to drugs. . .) are also helpful sources of exposition. I love it when movies feature characters who explain more than Lucy Ricardo. Anyway, just what are Anton’s friends exposing? Anton’s near-obsession with the local HOT CHICK, Molly (Jessica Alba). Oh, and the fact that there’s also the requisite Halloween dance at school.
Cliché watch #1: Every teenage slasher flick must, in some way, feature a Halloween party. Ginger Snaps had one, Night of the Demons 2 had two, and so on.
It seems that HOT CHICK Molly is a singer-songwriter and, on the way into her house, she serendipitously drops her lyric book in the middle of the street. Anton, finally sensing an opening to get into one of her openings, rescues the book from the blacktop. He returns it to Molly, but not before embarrassing himself by referring to one of her awful songs as “badass” and then freaking out and pushing the book into her chest. At least she’s got a lot of padding there so it didn’t hurt. Somewhere else, a nun goes to prison but leaves just as quickly as she entered. Surprisingly, she’s not actually a nun, but a HOT CHICK (Fox) on the trail of a psychopathic killer. Ooh, TENSION!
Cliché watch #2: An expert who is the only one capable of bringing down the villain. Need not be a HOT CHICK, though. Usually, only the British need apply for this role (e.g. Pleasance, Donald, and McDowell, Roddy).
Back in Whereversville, Anton pushes a shopping cart full of groceries through his foggy neighborhood. Ah, let’s hear it for ambience. Two dorky cops (Sean Whalen and Nick Sadler) take time out of their busy law-enforcement schedule and hassle Anton for possession of a marijuana-infused baggie. Anton later uses the littering ticket (long story) to roll a nutmeg-oregano joint; after listening for a few moments for no particular reason, he smokes the joint, chokes, and then makes himself a sandwich. One of these things is not like the others. Of course, it’s not just any sandwich, but a BLOODY KNIFE SANDWICH! Umm . . . alright, so the knife he used to spread his mayonnaise was bloody; he wasn’t actually eating a bloody knife. Although that would’ve brought this movie to a quick and grisly end. Meanwhile, the family cat eats an eyeball. Yum!
Anton, unsurprisingly freaked out, scours the house while armed with an umbrella. The Penguin would be proud. After a few minutes of cursory searching, he chickens out and hides; moments later, he finds his dead parents . . . and, as if on cue, as if it were planned and rehearsed that way, his stoner friends come over to visit and they dance. Umm . . . yeah. After some Scooby Doo-style deduction, a torn piece of t-shirt implicates Anton in the foul play, as well as yet more cryptic writing. Note to killers/victims: be less cryptic, please; it’ll help keep the plot moving more efficiently. Oh, there also happens to be a severed ear in a carton of onion rings, just because. Anton, for some reason or another, has a moment of realization and unwillingly stabs Mick in the head with a broken bottle and beheads Pnub. Good – his name was stupid anyway. After the murders, Anton’s right hand goes crazy and slapstick ensues. Meanwhile, Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi visit their lawyers. Anton then sits on the couch and gets in a fight with his hand over the remote control; then he throws the cat out the window. Elsewhere, Mel Brooks joins Mr. Campbell and Mr. Raimi at the law office.
Sometime afterward, the evil hand forces Anton to bother Molly; it seems that she’s intrigued by his antics while he apparently has a seizure. Because nothing’s more interesting then epilepsy. His bouts of schizophrenia must be pleasing to Molly so she lets him into her house. He endears himself to her by confessing that he has the lyrics to one of her awful songs memorized; this, in addition to his sinister hand’s uncouth advances, causes Molly to become overwhelmingly sexually aroused. Um . . . yeah. Because every girl is secretly lusting over their marijuana-addicted neighbor/stalker. Of course, because character development and blossoming romance are totally unneeded, Molly and Anton make out. Anton, to control his hand’s violent tendencies, ties himself to the bed; Molly approves of this foray into bondage. Wow. She must really have some exciting psychoses . . . then again, she is a musician. Next thing you know she’ll have Anton do dirty things to himself with a mud shark after she snorts a line of ants and urinates on the Alamo.
Meanwhile, HOT CHICK #2 drives her motor home down the highway. OK then. I guess the film felt we had to check up with her; thanks for the reminder, movie! Back in the wonderful world of teenage passion, Molly’s parents arrive to break up her and Anton’s lust. Anton responds to his sexual frustration the only way he knows how: by burying everyone he’s killed. Aww . . . isn’t that nice of him? Actually, it must not be that nice, since Mick and Pnub return from the dead! Over in Los Angeles, John Landis reads a book on copyright infringement. Oh, and then Anton wakes up again. Ah, good . . . it was all a dream. Anton finds his friends chilling in his living room; one problem, though . . . they’re his UNDEAD friends! Dammit, movie! Why couldn’t it have been all a dream!?! Of course, just as before when they were helpful exposition-spouting comic relief, Anton’s buddies serve a purpose: they’re like Anton’s zombie conscience. Oh, and they came back because they were too lazy to die. Um, I don’t know about you, but dead is pretty much as lazy as you can get. Other than Elvis and Tupac, the deceased aren’t very productive.
Over at an unspecified burger joint (which is very different from a nutmeg-oregano joint), some ’80s metal guy (Jack Noseworthy) hits on a mourning chick. Anton arrives to break up the flirting because he needs to know about Satan and Randy, our Iron Maiden-loving stud, is the only one who knows about these things. Gee, and I would think your local priest, minister, rabbi, or mullah would know just a little bit more. Color me impressed. Randy, because he’s too cool for such things, is annoyed by Anton’s inquiries while Anton attempts, mainly in vain, to explain his seeming demonic possession. Unsatisfied with the headbanger’s aid, Anton takes up knitting to keep his hands busy while his zombie stoner friends mock his newfound hobby.
Later that night, the two nerdy cops bust into Anton’s house and there’s TENSION!
Cliché watch #3: The authorities are either clueless or in denial regarding EVERYTHING that’s going on around them.
Tool cop #1 wants to cuff Anton while tool cop #2 has an itchy trigger finger while Anton refuses to put down the ever-so-dangerous knitting needles. This goes on for an interminable amount of time until Anton’s zombie friends interrupt, a shot gets fired, and Anton finally stabs cop #1 through the head with a knitting needle. He then utilizes the cat-like reflexes that only a possessed hand can imbue and kills the other cop with a remarkably powerful tazer. Honestly, I never knew that tazers could cause charring of the skin, much less death; methinks someone has been messing with reality here, but I won’t point any fingers (hear that, screenwriters! I’m not pointing at you!).
Anton, finally frustrated by his hand’s murderous ways, attempts to lop it off with a bagel slicer; hilarity ensues. While Mick has fun with an electric knife, Anton finally removes the hand from his arm. As Anton jumps around the kitchen with a profusely bleeding and very fake stump, Bruce Campbell weeps at the blatant unoriginality. Unsurprisingly, mainly since it happened in Evil Dead 2, the evil severed hand gets loose and a scantly-clad Molly arrives at the front door ready to accompany Anton to the Halloween dance. Gee, that isn’t totally predictable; no, not at all. While a very perturbed Molly waits outside, Anton has a fight with the hand and then microwaves it, complete with such lovely things as bubbling and squirting and such. That’s always a pleasant visual. After cooking his troublesome hand, Anton joins Molly and proceeds to the dance. Moments later, as if it were planned that way, zombie Mick and zombie Pnub return to the kitchen and accidentally release the hand, because the movie would be so much shorter if they didn’t. Bored with the excitement that frozen microwaveable burritos can bring, Mick and Pnub decide to go to the Halloween dance themselves, so Mick reattaches Pnub’s VERY FAKE ROBOTIC HEAD and off they go!
Anton, because he has more pressing issues than a scantly-clad HOT CHICK who is mysteriously enamored with him, leaves Molly behind at the dance. He later catches up with Mick and Pnub and questions them about the renegade hand’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, the hand, in what would be a pathetic scene if this were a French movie, slowly crawls down the street. At a bowling alley for no particular reason, Randy the metal-head bowls and hits on the HOT voodoo CHICK. Ah, isn’t it a helpful coincidence that the two of them would meet so the plot can be furthered? Back with Anton, he pulls a “Giggly Tits” and freaks out, which leads to yet another moment of realization. It’s almost as if he were sitting under the bodhi tree 24/7. After his mild epiphany, he and his two undead compatriots steal Randy’s tricked-out pickup truck and run over the HOT voodoo CHICK, who I henceforth shall refer to as Debi. Luckily for all of us, Randy’s attempts to revive her are unsuccessful as she is actually (and unsurprisingly) PERFECTLY UNHARMED! I guess it was the cushioning she has on her chest which dampened the blow. She and Molly obviously have something in common, then. Randy, living up to his name, notices said cushioning and love blooms between the rocker and the priestess. Isn’t that sweet?
In the high school parking lot, a couple (Steve Van Wormer and Playboy’s Miss April 1997 Kelly Monaco) dressed up as Paul and Gene from KISS make out and jubblies get freed just so that the “freed jubblies” quota is fulfilled.
Cliché watch #4: There will (almost) always be naked breasts.
Cliché watch #5: This running gag sucks.
Because the thought of two rock legends getting it on is far too horrible to bear, the demonic hand sneaks into the scene and kills them both post haste. Oh well, at least we got a few moments of jubbly fun. Inside the high school at the dance, a still scantly-clad Molly dances badly while The Offspring plays onstage to provide some shameless cross-promotion. Meanwhile, Molly’s HOT CHICK friend Tanya (Katie Wright) hits on Pnub for no discernible reason. I guess it’s that young necrophilia again . . . and here I thought it was just limited to backwoods Canada. Elsewhere inside the school, Anton searches for the hand while the school principal puts in some overtime by calling a phone-sex hotline from his office. Um . . . is that supposed to be funny? There is nothing funny about phone sex, people! Oh, and I’d be remiss in not mentioning just who the principal is: TV’s Notch Johnson himself and the pride of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Tim Stack! Since no one appears in this film without the hand directly affecting them, Principal Notch gets killed; thanks for showing up to the set today, Mr. Stack!
A few moments later, voodoo HOT CHICK Debi catches up with Anton and, unsurprisingly, tries to kill him. You know, that’s one of the fatal flaws of this film . . . it’s so damned unsurprising. It’s almost as if director Rodman Flender picked up The Big Book of Hollywood Slasher-Film Traditions before doing this picture. By the way, is that book available on amazon.com? eBay? I’m just curious . . . for no reason whatsoever. I have no plans to write or direct a slasher film; nope, none at all. While Mick gets jealous over his deceased buddy’s sexual attractiveness, Anton busts into the room and crashes the stage to helpfully inform everyone that there is a possessed hand on the loose in the building. Damn, nutmeg and oregano messes you up HARDCORE! The crowd, apathetic due to the fact that they’re stereotypical teenagers, rebukes Anton’s warnings . . . but then the hand, which must be possessed by a demon music critic, peels the scalp off of Dexter, the lead singer for The Offspring. No word on whether or not the contents of the head were empty, though. Of course, all this leads to mass freaking out; the hand, taking advantage of an advantageous situation, kills a bunch of people for no particular reason. Because, you know, there’s nothing funnier than rampant carnage in an American high school.
Because she’s a crafty HOT CHICK, Molly escapes the aforementioned carnage through the ductwork and a hysterical Tanya follows in tow. To further escape the hand’s murderous rampage, Molly bends the laws of believability by stopping a fan with one of Tanya’s rather sensible red pumps. Yeah . . . she uses a shoe to stop a large steel industrial fan; whatever, movie. Mick and Pnub, sensing danger as well as Tanya’s pheromones, crawl through the ducts after the two HOT CHICKS. Molly, who is remarkably calm under pressure (remember this for later), climbs down between the blades of the fan and escapes into the “safety” (remember this for later too) of an empty room. Tanya, not quite as collected as Molly, freaks out, gets hanged, and then is chopped up by the fan into tiny little bits. Mick and Pnub find the gruesome remains (if we could even call it that) and Mick cracks wise about getting a piece. Hmm . . . I guess that class ends at the grave, then. Molly, UNSURPRISINGLY, gets captured by the hand, because this film wouldn’t be complete without a damsel in distress. Although . . . if the hand grows a little waxed handlebar mustache, that’d be a nice touch.
As if this film weren’t silly enough, Anton fights puppets. No, really. He, Mick, and Pnub then venture into the auto shop, which the hand has cleverly converted into a portal to Hell! Whatever you say, movie; I’m pretty much going to go along with all this at this point. You’ve numbed me into submission, damn you! Just to hammer home the fact that she is a HOT CHICK IN TROUBLE!, the bulk of Molly’s clothes are ripped from her body as she lies tied to a car lift, mainly for the entertainment of the 14-year-old males in the audience . . . and she finally freaks out. So much for that remarkable calmness. The hand, which now comically resides in a rather goofy-looking puppet, attempts to kill Molly by slowly (and I emphasize SLOWLY) mashing her against the roof of the shop; Anton, accessing the only knowledge he actually possesses, incapacitates the “hand puppet” (har har, movie, har har) by getting it stoned. Yeah, sure. Debi, the other HOT CHICK, then triumphantly runs in and, rather anticlimactically, slays the hand. Anton quickly rescues Molly but has little time to celebrate as a car falls on top of him. Gee, that was a bit of a downer! Ooh . . . sorry about that one.
Because every slasher film requires a vaguely happy ending, we cut to the hospital where Molly cares for Anton’s prodigious wounds. The nurse on duty shoos her off as it is the end of visiting hours, but Angel Mick and Angel Pnub come down from on high in her stead. They explain their heavenly duty and exit, stage left; in their wake they leave a cryptic message on the ceiling, just to mess with Anton’s head and annoy me to no end. And, speaking of ends, that’s it for this one! Thankfully . . .
Of all the believability-defying antics in this film (and, it is to be noted, I am only willing to suspend my disbelief to a certain point), one aspect of the film bugs me to no end: just what does Molly see in Anton from the start? OK, let’s break it down, shall we? It is established, early on, that Anton is essentially obsessed with Molly, perhaps to stalker-ish levels, and has been for quite a few years. Upon their first meeting in the film, Anton rather violently pushes Molly’s book into her chest due to the fact that he is socially inept and standing in front of the object of his (disturbing) affections. Things take a turn toward the bizarre at their second meeting, wherein Anton, now complete with possessed hand, receives an invitation to enter Molly’s home and, it seems, enter Molly. I really don’t get it, honestly. How could Molly go from freaked out-yet-intrigued to sexually excitable in the span of a day or two? One can only assume that, for the amount of time that Anton has been stalking Molly that she has been pining over him. That is a leap of logic of Brobdignagian proportions. In the end, we are left with Molly comforting an injured Anton, who’s hand attempted to violate and, later, kill her. I guess HOT CHICKS are very forgiving.
Anyway, stay tuned next week as we examine what happens when two heavyweights collide and cause HOT CHICKS to be in TROUBLE! And don’t forget that nominations for the 50th edition of this column ends next Tuesday . . . get your requests in now! The 50th is only two weeks away!
