The Crawling Hand is a 1963 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 film directed by Herbert L. Strock

Herbert L. Strock

Herbert L. Strock was an American television producer and director, and a B-movie director of titles such as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein , How to Make a Monster and The Crawling Hand ....

, and starring Rod Lauren

Rod Lauren

Rod Lauren Strunk was an American actor and singer.As an actor, he worked mostly in television, appearing in single episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. amongst others during the 1960s...

, Peter Breck

Peter Breck

Joseph Peter Breck is an American prolific character actor of stage, who has played roles on television and in film...

, Allison Hayes

Allison Hayes

Allison Hayes was an American film and television actress and model.-Early life:Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, Hayes won the title of Miss District of Columbia and represented Washington, DC in the 1949 Miss America pageant...

, and Alan Hale, Jr.

Alan Hale, Jr.

Alan Hale, Jr. was an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Skipper on the popular sitcom Gilligan's Island. Hale was the lookalike son of popular supporting film actor Alan Hale, Sr....

 It was later featured on the television shows Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....

(MST3K) and The Canned Film Festival

Canned Film Festival

The Canned Film Festival was a nationally syndicated late night television comedy series that aired in the United States for a single season in the summer of 1986. With only a one-letter difference in the spelling, the name is an intentional play on the name for the Cannes Film Festival, the...

.

Plot summary

The hand of a dead astronaut washes up on the beach and possesses the college student who takes it home. The student is slowly transformed by the hand and begins killing people in a small town.

Home video

• The Crawling Hand was released on VHS
  VHS
  The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
  
   by Rhino Home Video
  Rhino Entertainment
  Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
  
   in October 1989. Rhino would later release the film to DVD
  DVD
  A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
  
   as well.
• The MST3K version of the film (accompanied by the uncut film, included as a bonus feature) was also released by Rhino Home Video. As of January 2010, the DVD is now out-of-print on Rhino's official website, but still available on MST3k's official website.

In other media

Rick Moody

Rick Moody

Rick Moody is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into a feature film of...

's novel The Four Fingers of Death, released in July 2010 by Little, Brown and Company

Little, Brown and Company

Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...

, revolves around a novelization of this movie, and contains a 'novelization' set in the future that is very different than the film.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

• Episode guide: 106- The Crawling Hand