With Dead Man’s Hand Charles Band has pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

Several years ago, it seems you couldn’t escape a Full Moon picture.  Full Moon Productions, Full Moon Entertainment, whatever they were calling themselves, or Full Moon Features as I think they are called now.  They were home to Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Dollman, what have you.  Some of their movies were pretty good, some weren’t; like any movie studio and production company really.  Honestly, I didn’t know they were still around until I saw Dead Man’s Hand.  Rest assured the world is still in balance:  Charles Band is still going strong.

Dead Man’s Hand concerns itself with a young man who inherits his uncle’s old vacant casino that is haunted by the ghost’s of the traitors his estranged uncle killed.  Sid Haig is the leader of the ghastly ghouls, and while he and Michael Berryman stand around with very little to do, their presensce classes the place up a bit.

If you’re at all familiar with Charles Band and Full Moon movies, you know what to expect.  Dead Man’s Hand is a good example of Band’s work, and, surprisingly, it’s not too bad of a low budget tale.  I liked it.  I thought it was a fun little movie.  The beginning was a little slow, but it wasn’t boring; it’s laughs made up for it, the cast was likable.  For its small scale, the movie actually looks pretty decent.

For as much as this movie cribs  The Shining, don’t expect anything of Kubrickian proportions.  But for an entertaining hour and a half, check it out, you could do a lot worse.

3 out of 5
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