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| Curse of the Stone Hand | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jerry Warren Carlos Hugo Christensen Carlos Schlieper[1] |
| Screenplay by | Marie Laurent F. Amos Powell |
| Produced by | Andrew Edwards Carlos Gallart Jerry Warren |
| Starring | John Carradine Chela Bon Carlos Cores Katherine Victor |
| Cinematography | Ricardo Younis Alfredo Traverso |
| Edited by | Jerry Warren |
| Music by | George Andreani |
Production companies | A.D.P. Pictures Chile Films S.A. |
| Distributed by | A.D.P. Pictures Inc. |
Release date |
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Running time | 72 minutes[2] |
| Countries | Chile United States (framing story) |
| Language | English |
Curse of the Stone Hand is a 1965[3][4]horror film created by movie producerJerry Warren by editing together two 1940s Chilean films,La casa está vacía (The House is Empty), a 1945 film directed byCarlos Schlieper,[1] andLa dama de la muerte[3] (The Lady of Death), a 1946 film directed byCarlos Hugo Christensen[3] (based on Robert Louis Stevenson'sThe Suicide Club).[3]
Warren combined sections of each film, and padded out the running time with newly filmed footage he shot with actorsJohn Carradine,[5] Bruno VeSota (as narrator) andKatherine Victor.
It was released theatrically in 1965 on a double-bill with Warren's similarly constructedFace of the Screaming Werewolf.[4]
The film is a two-story anthology sandwiched by a framing story that attempts to place the events of the two shorter stories as having all happened in the same house. An avid gambler moves into a cursed house in which he discovers a set of sculpted stone hands in a wall niche in the basement. The hands somehow put a curse on the occupant of the house, and the gambler comes to a bad end financially. The gambler joins what he thinks is a gambling club, only to learn it is actually a suicide club.
The house passes down to a different family in time, and the new owner's son becomes obsessed with the stone hands in the basement. He begins acting sadistically and develops hypnotic abilities, which he uses to control his brother's fiancee. She manages to free herself from the spell, and the hypnotist is killed.
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Critical reception for the film has been mostly negative.Author and film criticLeonard Maltin awarded the film a BOMB, his lowest rating, calling it "incoherent".[7]On his websiteFantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings, Dave Sindelar panned the film, criticizing the film's direction, writing and cutting; the latter he criticized as making the film incomprehensible.[8]TV Guide noted that the film was worth seeing "if only to get a look at a Chilean horror film".[9]
