#6 - Idle Hands (1999)

At the end of a long day, there's nothing more relaxing than plopping your fat ass down in front of the screen, sipping a cold brew and enjoying some comfort foods.  To me, there's not much more comfortable than watching an old horror movie you know and love.  The Shining's a good one for that, or maybe Dog Soldiers, or even Idle Hands.

Idle Hands (1999) is mostly the story of teenaged Anton, a slacker who wants nothing more in life than to eat, sleep, and smoke a bong, while simultaneously lusting after his neighbor, Molly.  Anton wakes up early one morning to find his parents missing, and seeks out his stoner buddies, Mick and Pnub.  Looks like just another day of getting high for Anton, but there's a problem.  Mick and Pnub are out of weed, and there's a serial killer on the loose!  Can Anton successfully score some herb while avoiding a psycho killer, and still work up the nerve to tell Molly how he really feels about her?

Just like that first hit of marijuana after a long day, Idle Hands is comfort horror for the weary horror-movie fan.  Devon Sawa was pretty huge when this movie came out, but I don't think anyone even knows who he is, nowadays.  He does a bang-up job playing Anton, and Seth Green and Elden Henson play his stoner buddies, Mick and Pnub.  And wth kind of a name is Pnub, anyways?  Seth Green is still around, behind and in front of the camera, last I heard.  Vivica A. Fox plays a Druidic Priestess, sent to kill the evil spirit that is (CENSORED to prevent spoilers), who shows up early on in the movie. Of course, there's also Jessica Alba in this movie, who was 18 when she appeared here, briefly shown in just a bra and panties.  Damn, I'd like to (CENSORED because of explicit sexual language).  Sigh.  Yep, I'm a dirty old man who's going to hell.  :-)  See you guys there!

Idle Hands isn't a horror movie that takes itself very seriously, but it flows along very well.  At no point does the story lag, and Anton's misadventures while trying to score weed can be pretty amusing.  Then there's the whole horror-movie sub-plot, that's also actually quite entertaining, and scarier than some of the serious horror movies I've seen.  All of the characters seem to be pretty well fleshed out, entertaining in and of themselves.  I caught Idle Hands on one of the premium channels, but I just deleted the movie from my DVR, and I forgot what channel it was on.  Dangit!  Yeah, it's been one of those days.  Moving on.

Somehow, I even found Anton to be amusing to watch, even though we have absolutely nothing in common.  All he wants is to eat, sleep, get high, watch TV and hang out with Molly, and all I want is to eat, sleep, watch horror movies, play video games and hang out with Jessica Alba.  See?  Totally and completely different people, who have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever.  I'm surprised I identified so well with the guy.  I'm sure it's a testament to how hard Devon Sawa tried to nail this role, and the writing and dialogue were just pretty awesome.  So, if you can catch Idle Hands at some point this month, go for it.  It's a fun bit of horror, and did I mention, 18-year-old Jessica Alba?  Yeah.  Yeah.

I was going to review the next episode of Inhumans and let you guys know how it's going, but I finished early for a change, and Inhumans isn't on for another 20 minutes.  Oh well!  I'll watch it and let you guys know how it's going.  Til tomorrow night, have a nice weekend, and enjoy the horror while you can!  :-D