Watching this movie for the first time must have been the longest 60 minutes in John Agar's career -- and making it must have been the longest week of his life. From co-starring with John Wayne in 1949, in 13 years his career had come to this low-budget horror picture that was the definition of what a B-movie was (in all of its worst meanings) in 1962. As it happens, Hand of Death is also one of the rarest movies in the entire 20th Century Fox library, and has long been regarded as a "lost" film. Whether it seems worth finding depends upon one's fondness for the sci-fi/horror films from which the plot seems to have been derived -- in equal measure, Hand of Death appears to have been assembled from elements of Robert Clarke's The Hideous Sun Demon and Irvin S. Yeaworth's 4D Man, but without the cleverness of either of those predecessors. Floyd Crosby's photography is about the classiest element of the movie, as all of the acting seems rushed and flat at the same time, as though the performers had familiarized themselves with the dialogue only minutes earlier. Future Oscar-nominated cinematographer John Alonzo can be glimpsed in one of his odd acting roles from early in his screen career, not contributing too much beyond sincerity. Paula Raymond is pretty enough and tries hard, but none of Agar's work evokes even the least sympathy because he is so cold and flat in the role of Marsh, and the part is so badly written. What's more, little can overcome the fundamental ludicrousness of a creature with a vaguely lizard-like face, wearing a hat and trench-coat, staggering around suburban Los Angeles and stealing a cab. Actor-turned-director Gene Nelson obviously did what he could with the script, budget, and cast he had to work with, but except for one moderately suspenseful and atmospheric scene with a little boy (future Munsters co-star Butch Patrick) on a lonely beach, there is just not a lot of good to be found in this 60 minutes of cinema. And one seeming effort at comic relief, involving ex-Three Stooges member Joe Besser as a hapless gas station attendant, ends up coming off as singularly unfunny.