Osamu (Takahiro Fukuya) is a poor chump just barely scraping by on the lowest rung of society. He is convinced by the slimy and manipulative Akira (Yota Kawase) to commit a robbery which goes horribly awry, resulting in Osamu getting his arm chopped off. Osamu is rushed to a back alley doctor by Koyuki (Misa Wada), a woman who had been living in sexual subservience to Akira. The doctor, unable to restore Osamu’s arm, replaces it with a strange appendage that proves to have a mind of its own. Will Osamu get revenge upon those who wronged him, and will he get his ‘happy ever after’ with Koyuki?

The Beast Hand is clearly an extremely low budget movie. The titular hand looks somewhat ridiculous, more like some kind of lumpy blob of papier-mâché that only vaguely looks like an oversized claw. If this film from director Taichiro Natsume (who has made a career in the lowest of low budget V-cinema with ghost stories and movies about a squad of psychics among other things) was just trying to be a visceral shocker, it would be an utter failure. But amidst the spurting fake blood and cheap sets is a pretty interesting portrait of desperation and despair. Natsume doesn’t direct this like a fun monster romp as one would expect of a pseudo adaptation of Maurice Renard’s Hands of Orlac. Instead we follow miserable characters with few redeeming qualities finding themselves being pulled even deeper into the gutter they aspire to dig themselves out of. Koyuki is the closest thing we have to a sympathetic character, and she is humiliated to such an extent at times that it’s hard to take. After all the abuse and misery heaped on her, we want to see her get a happy ending. But this isn’t that kind of movie. And the ending that she and Osamu get is possibly even worse than death.

While the source is clearly limited in resources, Cleopatra brings The Beast Hand to blu-ray in a nice, clean digital transfer that looks quite good for such a low budget film. The audio is presented as a Japanese 5.1 Surround Sound mix and comes across pretty solid with nice separation during the more violent, gory sections. Although much of the film really doesn’t take advantage of the rear channels. The disc is fairly barebones on the extras front with just a couple of promos and a slideshow.

Peel away the low budget, schlocky monster movie trappings of The Beast Hand, and what you will find is a surprisingly interesting character study of desperate people on the fringes of society trying to claw their way out of the gutter but only digging themselves deeper. If you can look past the cheap effects, this one is actually recommended!