10 movie characters who didn’t need hands

You don’t appreciate what you’ve got until you haven’t got it anymore. Hands, for example, make tea-making a joy and writing is an absolute pleasure. But what happens when, in the place of hands, you have weapons? 

With A Nightmare On Elm Street and Freddy Krueger returning to our screens, we’ve been picking our top ten movie characters whose hands aren’t used for doing the dishes…far from it…

Freddy Krueger in Nightmare On Elm Street

The deadly Freddy fingers are, of course, wielded to great effect and the extra reach those bad boys give Mr Krueger means escape is hopeless, so you’d better not fall asleep. It’s probably best not to offer to shake his hands either, just on a practical level.

Robert Patrick in Terminator 2

If only the next generation Terminator had been a good robot. Can you imagine all the wonderfully useful solid metal items his hands could have become? A traditional iron perhaps (obviously, this too can be a deadly weapon should nothing else be to hand) or a wine goblet? Sadly, he wasn’t nice, and bladed weapons were his hands of choice to kill poor little John Connor. A pity: he’s have gone down a treat a parties.

Captain Hook in Hook  

An untimely encounter with Tick-Tock the croc gave the infamous Captain his famous appendage. My question is what was Captain Hook called before he lost his hand? Either way, he was left with a hook that had Peter Pan’s name on it. Of course, Captain Hook has appeared in many films over the years, but we figured that Dustin Hoffman in Hook doesn’t get much exposure – granted with good reason – so we thought we’d give him a bit of a break….

Edward Scissorhands

He doesn’t mean to do any harm but, unfortunately, it is a bit difficult when your hands are scissors. I understand that Edward was left in a pretty awkward situation, but surely there was something else lying around Vincent Price’s mansion that he could have used when it came to give Edward his hands?

Mad professors always have loads of pens and pencils. Edward Pencilhands…Tim Burton could work wonders with that title. Heck, even a yoghurt pot would have been a better bet…

Christopher Lloyd (Judge Doom) in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

He may have only been a cartoon and thus only had cartoon hands, but they were the deadliest cartoon hands ever, threatening ol’ Eddie Valiant with chainsaws, hammers and even anvils. It helps too that Judge Doom is one of the finest villains to ever stalk his way through a family movie…

Ash in Evil Dead II

A pump action shotgun and a chainsaw. Ash’s hands are like a veritable ‘snap on’ of deadly weapons. Think a Swiss Army Knife of offensive weaponry and you’re just about there…

Hellboy

I suppose as a demon you would expect to have a decent weapon for a hand.  Hellboy’s weapon even looks like a hand, even if it’s clearly impractical for turning the pages of the paper. It also helps here that it unlocks a gateway which unleashes all kinds of hell. Our hand can’t do that.

Tee Hee Johnson in Live And Let Die

Another man with a deadly hand. If you include the mechanism it is really a deadly arm, but who’s counting? He wants to get his hooky metal hand into James Bond, but, as with all before him and since, he failed. Check out the paper walls in this fight clip, too. He’d be able to bash through that with a straw, never mind what he’s got on the end of his arm…

Candyman

It appears that when it comes to swapping your hand for a weapon, the hooks have it.  That’s the main lesson here. Take a look at the picture, though – Candyman’s hygiene is well off. Does he never wash?

Mr Igoe in Innerspace

Okay, it ended up being a very, very, very small weapon, but it was a weapon nevertheless and would have put pay to Dennis Quaid had the indigestion not got in his way. Plus, we don’t mention Innerspace often enough, and we really, really should…

A Nightmare On Elm Street is released in cinemas today, 7th May.