While I'm trying to get better about it, I've seen vastly more movies from the last 25 years than I have from before that. One of the problems I run into is that I'll often see remakes, makeovers, or rip-offs of movies before I actually see the original. For example, I have to assume that the people behind 1999's Idle Hands had to be aware of Mad Love.
I remember hearing a story that when J.R.R. Tolkien first read in Macbeth the prophecy that the forest would move, he was so disappointed to learn that the trees didn't actually get up and walk, that he created the Ents and put them in Lord of the Rings. I assume that was a joke, but it may actually be the logic behind Idle Hands. Mad Love tantalizes the audience with the idea of murderous hands, but really doesn't deliver them, The Idle Hands people could've been like, "Let's take this a step further". This is all conjecture, of course. I'm still having fun thinking about it though.
Mad Love is a pretty unintentionally campy movie*. Peter Lorre makes the movie. His performance barely even belongs in that era, let alone next to the rest of the cast. He's so intentionally creepy that he leaves the rest of the cast looking wooden and dull. The story has a lot of place-setting to put Frances Drake in the room with Peter Lorre at the end so that her husband, and his murderous hands can save her. In a longer movie, that would bother me more. This one is quick and to the point. I especially like how quickly it ends, although I suspect some of that was so they could avoid having to resolve the matter of the husbands hands. It's confirmed that his hands now have the tendency to throw knives at people when provoked. Is that just a thing he has to live with now?
*Which reminds me. Can anything really be camp if it's intended?
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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