Skin transplants, aristocratic madness, and Gothic horror in a Euro-cult laboratory.
THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD
Under strong influence from his burn victim wife, a wealthy aristocrat does skin transplants from young women, who were captured, operated on against their will and then killed, to fix his wife's burnt body.
Proof that Gothic horror gets even stranger when you let Kinski run the lab.
Klaus Kinski brings his signature intensity to the role of Professor Nijinski, a mad scientist driven to grotesque lengths for love and vanity. With a laboratory filled with skeletons and a plot dripping with Gothic atmosphere, this is Italian-Turkish horror with a decadent, sleazy edge. Not for the faint of heart or the squeamish.
— SassyFlix Programmer
The Hand That Feeds the Dead is a 1974 Turkish-Italian horror film directed by Sergio Garrone about a professor who conducts gruesome skin transplants on young women to restore his wife's disfigured face.
- Director
- Sergio Garrone
- Writer
- Sergio Garrone
- Release
- 1974
- Runtime
- 1h 27m
- Country
- Turkey, Italy
- Language
- Italian
- Genres
- Horror
- Also Known As
- The Hand that Feeds the Dead, Evil Face, Klaus Kinski: Evil Face, Original title: La mano che nutre la morte
Synopsis
Why Cult
Klaus Kinski stars as the obsessed Professor Nijinski, delivering a performance that's as unsettling as the film's surgical experiments.
Expect all the trappings: aristocratic decay, veiled figures, and a laboratory where science meets horror, all wrapped in Gothic style.
The plot revolves around terrifying skin grafts and unwilling victims, making body horror central to the film's nasty pleasures.
This is a film unafraid to mix horror with explicit scenes, featuring nudity and exploitation touches characteristic of 1970s Euro-horror.
Cast & Crew
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Scene Gallery
Trailers & Clips
Questions from the Vault
What is The Hand That Feeds the Dead about? +
The Hand That Feeds the Dead follows Professor Nijinski, who performs skin transplants from young women onto his disfigured wife in a bid to restore her beauty, with deadly consequences.
Who directed The Hand That Feeds the Dead? +
The film was directed by Sergio Garrone.
How long is The Hand That Feeds the Dead? +
The Hand That Feeds the Dead has a runtime of 87 minutes.
What genre is The Hand That Feeds the Dead? +
It is a horror film.
When was The Hand That Feeds the Dead released? +
The film was released in 1974.