Idle Hands (1999) October 29th, 2023

In Idle Hands Devon Sawa leads a small but strong cast as the burnout Anton who’s so checked out he doesn’t notice his parents are missing while there’s a murderer on the loose in town. A myriad of wacky scenes and sequences ensue with Anton’s hand taking on an evil life of its own and causing unrestrained chaos. Anton’s friends and parents die as a result of his affliction but it’s not all bad news when Molly (Jessica Alba) the girl next door starts flirting with him. Now with the help of his zombie friends and Vivica A. Fox in a Van Helsing role, Anton has to destroy his evil hand to save his life.

Horror comedy isn’t the easiest combo to pull off. Too much of one throws off the balance of the other and now you’ve got a tonally messy movie on your hands. Idle Hands perfectly nails the mix between stoner humor and over the top gore and deserves all the praise it’s earned over the years. Full disclosure, my appreciation for Idle Hands could be skewed because I was its target demographic in 1999 but that can’t be helped.

The cinematography and special effects positively sing in Idle Hands with an aesthetic reminiscent of other popular teen comedies of the era like American Pie and Dude, Where’s My Car?. Idle Hands only suffers two demerits worth mentioning here. The first is Fred Willard’s criminally short screen-time. Why cast a man that funny to barely have him in the film? Cast a nobody or give him more time! The other is Molly, the horribly unrealistic preppy-pixie-dream-girl played by Jessica Alba. Her poetic rich girl with model level good looks character seems like the exact type of person to be completely disinterested in every aspect of Anton. This could’ve been solved with a simple scene where she explores the idea that he represents an escape from the pressures of her families expectations and being with him lets her let loose, but no such scene exists and we’re left with a gorgeous It-Girl who’s inexplicably infatuated with a grimy stoner with a severe case of mono-mano.

That being said, I can’t recommend Idle Hands enough. It’s a perfect example of a fun teen comedy of its era and a fun and inventive horror film to boot. Oh and it’s a slam-dunk if you like early 2000s SoCal Pop Punk as members of Blink 182 cameo and The Offspring do a full musical number that Jessica Alba can’t dance to. Very fun.