Joined at the hip since they first appeared as a double feature in 1963, the monster movie duo The Crawling Hand and The Slime People have haunted the airwaves, VHS shelves, the screening room of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and eventually DVD and then Blu-ray from VCI. Cheap, ridiculous, and obviously designed to fill up theater space for an undemanding audience, both of them have retained a lot of charm ever since with their strict adherence to the creature feature formula of the era that made them ideal fare for horror hosts on TV.

The Crawling Hand kicks off in outer space over the main titles as a panicked astronaut sends out a distress call during his crash landing back to Earth and demands that his ship be destroyed. Ground control complies and has to grapple with what might have happened, which involves an alien life form and much pontificating from scientists Steve (Beck) and Max (Taylor) and assistant Donna (Hayes, the 50-Foot Woman herself). One part of the astronaut does make it back intact and lands on the beach: his severed arm, discovered by sorta-teenager Paul (Lauren) and his Swedish girlfriend, Marta (Steffen). Naturally Paul decides to cart the arm home where it promptly takes over his mind and embarks on a murder spree, with the local sheriff (a pre-Gilligan's Island Hale) deciding Paul is responsible. It all ends as such things must at a city dump where feral cats offer the only hope of saving humanity.

The decision to mix the detached killer hand idea (a la The Beast with Five Fingers) with a possession story is an odd one to be sure, likely taken on to save money since it's easier to just have Paul getting darker circles around his eyes than to show the killer hand too much. The thrills are fun when they hit though, kicked into a higher gear by no less than three brief but potent uses of The Rivingtons' jukebox hit "The Bird's the Word" which later got mashed up into "Surfin' Bird." Extra points for the use of scrappy kitty cats at the end, including random stock footage of them fighting each other for no reason, and in the best AIP tradition this tries to go for the teen audience with lots of bikini prancing and a great scene in a soda shop. In other words, it's exactly what you'd expect.

The Slime People, or more accurately The Slightly Glistening Reptile People, gives you a good look at its title creatures right in the opening seconds -- which is just as well since much of the running time is famously submerged in so much real and optical fog you have to squint to see anything. Said fog gets blanketed into an impenetrable wall all over Los Angeles and traps it when the spear-wielding monsters are forced into the open due to atomic testing disrupting their habitat. Enter intrepid pilot-reporter Tom Gregory (played by one-shot director Robert Hutton from The Colossus of New York) who lands in the city and has to tangle with the monsters while teaming up with scientist Professor Galbraith (Burton) and his daughters Lisa (Hart) and Bonnie (Morton), with a few other survivors crossing paths along the way.

For much of their existence, these films have both looked pretty awful on home video with very smudgy, cropped TV prints used for the VHS releases, most broadcast airings, and the first DVD editions from Rhino. A better option came when they were paired as a Creepy Creature Double Feature by VCI on DVD in 2013, though they were interlaced and had some visible squishing for the 1.78:1 framing. The widely resented Hart, who has kept many key films by late husband James H. Nicholson off the market for decades, appears for an audio interview on the disc with Tom Weaver (55m44s) after a lengthy intro, talking about making her first appearance in The Slime People and her experiences in Hollywood. Trailers for both titles are also included.

The same "Creepy Creature" banner was used when both films hit Blu-ray as a double feature in 2026 from VCI and Kit Parker Films (with a remastered DVD edition as well), featuring radically superior transfers from the camera negatives featuring more image info, better 1.85:1 framing, no more squishing, clearer audio (LPCM MA 2.0 mono with optional English SDH subtitles), and finer detail. The only drawback is paler black levels, but in motion it looks fine and you'll get used to it quickly. The Hart-Weaver interview is ported over here, and you also get an AI-generated featurette, "Rubber Monsters, Real Fears: Mid-Century Sci-Fi" (3m2s), quickly surveying these films along with Gorgo. (ChatGPT gets a writing credit, which has to be a first.) Also included is a 7-minute '50s sci-fi poster gallery, and though you can't access it through the menus at all for some reason, there is one commentary here you can get to by switching the audio channel on your remote. Rob Kelly does the honors on The Crawling Hand, worth a listen as he touches on a musical connection to Full Metal Jacket, a supposed nude scene shot for The Crawling Hand's international version, and lots more.

THE CRAWLING HAND (Blu-ray)

THE CRAWLING HAND (DVD)

THE SLIME PEOPLE (Blu-ray)

THE SLIME PEOPLE (DVD)

Reviewed on April 14, 2026