October is the month for terror, and at the Weekly Triple Feature we have you covered. Each week we’re offering up horror selections from throughout film history that range from spine-tingling to bloody, to downright hilarious. Whatever your particular flavor of horror is, you’ll find it here this month.

THIS WEEK: FIVE FINGERS OF FRIGHT!

THE FILMS: The Hand (1981, Oliver Stone), Demonoid (1981, Alfredo Zacarías), Carnival of Sinners (La Main du Diable) (1941, Maurice Tourneur)

No body part has proven more consistently terrifying throughout film history than the severed hand. It’s often a character in itself, thinking and acting seemingly of its own volition as it crawls across the screen, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. The hand is all powerful as appendages go: it helps us drive a car; it holds our babies; it can punch a man in the nose. So maybe the idea of something so strong being untethered from its safe place at the end of our wrist its what makes it such a frightening idea. Like we’re preventing it from acting on its true, murderous nature—like a tiger in a cage. Or maybe it’s just an easy trope because it’s the simplest thing to lop off in a film.

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