Space Operations has sent astronaut Lockhart to the moon, landed him, and gotten him back to Earth’s atmosphere, but on reentry, they lose contact with him and calculate that, as his oxygen supply ran out 20 minutes ago, they've lost him. Steve (Peter Breck) and Max (Kent Taylor) are mystified, as this is their second moon mission mishap and they're afraid the administration will give up on future trips, thinking of space travel as a "conveyer belt to oblivion." Suddenly Lockhart's face appears on their monitor. He's drenched in sweat, he has huge dark circles around his eyes, and he's begging the two men to push a self-destruct button at Mission Control that he himself cannot press on the ship. He's mostly ranting, implying that he is possessed by something, and the men reluctantly put him out of his misery, blowing up the craft over the Pacific Ocean near California. That night, science major Paul (Rod Lauren, at right) and his girlfriend Marta (Sirry Steffen), the granddaughter of his mentor Prof. Farnstrom, are having a moonlight frolic on the beach when they discover a severed arm. She screams hysterically, but Paul, noticing the space suit sleeve on the arm, returns to the beach later that night and takes the arm back to his room in the home of Mrs. Hotchkiss. He hides it in a cupboard, but it comes to life, crawls around the house (hence the movie's title), and strangles the landlady. Whatever force has reanimated the arm slowly begins to possess Paul, turning him into a sweaty, hollow-eyed fellow with an urge to kill. Meanwhile, the local sheriff (Alan Hale Jr.) discovers that the fingerprints on Mrs. Hotchkiss's neck belong to Lockhart, the dead astronaut, and Steve and Max arrive to help the cops figure out the case.
I first saw this widely ridiculed B-movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and quite enjoyed it for its badness, but seen on its own, it's actually not all that awful—it's not very good, but it has its moments. The story is a decent one, even if the whole "possession by alien life form" plot, a staple in 60s sci-fi TV shows and movies, isn't fleshed out very well. The acting is all over the place. Breck (at left) plays every scene with balls-out bombast, which is fun at first but gets tiresome. Taylor, clearly thinking he's slumming, doesn't make much of an impression. Hale, the skipper on Gilligan’s Island, is stuck doing both comic relief and serious acting. Rod Lauren, however, is good as the possessed college student. Like Breck, he sometimes goes over the top in a James Dean "You're tearing me apart" kind of way, but he also gives a grim tone to the movie that makes you feel for the character. The effect of the arm is a little amateurish, and the direction is lackluster. Mrs. Hotchkiss's long scene of being stalked by the hand is silly, and a later scene in which Lauren is trying to spell a person's name over the phone to an operator is unintentionally laughable. There's some minor fun to be had with the character of the old soda shop owner who, early in the movie, tries to stop his young customers from dancing, though in a hypocritical moment later, he warns them all, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!" A later scene in which Lauren attacks him and he falls against a jukebox which plays the novelty hit "The Bird’s the Word" is one of the few (intentionally) comic moments that works. Rob Lauren has an interesting backstory. He had a top 40 pop hit as a teenager, appeared in a few B-movies, married a famous Filipino actress, and was later charged with her gory murder—go to IMDb for more details. Some may see this as scraping the bottom of the Chiller Theater barrel, but if you’re in the right mood, it's more than watchable. [YouTube]
Space Operations has sent astronaut Lockhart to the moon, landed him, and gotten him back to Earth’s atmosphere, but on reentry, they lose contact with him and calculate that, as his oxygen supply ran out 20 minutes ago, they've lost him. Steve (Peter Breck) and Max (Kent Taylor) are mystified, as this is their second moon mission mishap and they're afraid the administration will give up on future trips, thinking of space travel as a "conveyer belt to oblivion." Suddenly Lockhart's face appears on their monitor. He's drenched in sweat, he has huge dark circles around his eyes, and he's begging the two men to push a self-destruct button at Mission Control that he himself cannot press on the ship. He's mostly ranting, implying that he is possessed by something, and the men reluctantly put him out of his misery, blowing up the craft over the Pacific Ocean near California. That night, science major Paul (Rod Lauren, at right) and his girlfriend Marta (Sirry Steffen), the granddaughter of his mentor Prof. Farnstrom, are having a moonlight frolic on the beach when they discover a severed arm. She screams hysterically, but Paul, noticing the space suit sleeve on the arm, returns to the beach later that night and takes the arm back to his room in the home of Mrs. Hotchkiss. He hides it in a cupboard, but it comes to life, crawls around the house (hence the movie's title), and strangles the landlady. Whatever force has reanimated the arm slowly begins to possess Paul, turning him into a sweaty, hollow-eyed fellow with an urge to kill. Meanwhile, the local sheriff (Alan Hale Jr.) discovers that the fingerprints on Mrs. Hotchkiss's neck belong to Lockhart, the dead astronaut, and Steve and Max arrive to help the cops figure out the case. 
I first saw this widely ridiculed B-movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and quite enjoyed it for its badness, but seen on its own, it's actually not all that awful—it's not very good, but it has its moments. The story is a decent one, even if the whole "possession by alien life form" plot, a staple in 60s sci-fi TV shows and movies, isn't fleshed out very well. The acting is all over the place. Breck (at left) plays every scene with balls-out bombast, which is fun at first but gets tiresome. Taylor, clearly thinking he's slumming, doesn't make much of an impression. Hale, the skipper on Gilligan’s Island, is stuck doing both comic relief and serious acting. Rod Lauren, however, is good as the possessed college student. Like Breck, he sometimes goes over the top in a James Dean "You're tearing me apart" kind of way, but he also gives a grim tone to the movie that makes you feel for the character. The effect of the arm is a little amateurish, and the direction is lackluster. Mrs. Hotchkiss's long scene of being stalked by the hand is silly, and a later scene in which Lauren is trying to spell a person's name over the phone to an operator is unintentionally laughable. There's some minor fun to be had with the character of the old soda shop owner who, early in the movie, tries to stop his young customers from dancing, though in a hypocritical moment later, he warns them all, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!" A later scene in which Lauren attacks him and he falls against a jukebox which plays the novelty hit "The Bird’s the Word" is one of the few (intentionally) comic moments that works. Rob Lauren has an interesting backstory. He had a top 40 pop hit as a teenager, appeared in a few B-movies, married a famous Filipino actress, and was later charged with her gory murder—go to IMDb for more details. Some may see this as scraping the bottom of the Chiller Theater barrel, but if you’re in the right mood, it's more than watchable. [YouTube]
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