‘The Beast Hand’: Splatter movie has more soul than guts

You probably know what to expect from a film with a title like “The Beast Hand.” One of the posters for Taichiro Natsume’s low-budget pic features a lurid, blood-flecked montage straight out of the 1970s, with ad copy promising a “pure love splatter horror masterpiece.” But the movie itself is a curious creature, closer in tone to downbeat dramas like Hiroshi Shoji’s “Ken and Kazu” (2016) than to gonzo cinema.

Osamu (Takahiro Fukuya) is an ex-con, scraping by as a day laborer while living in a dilapidated shack that’s falling apart. In a familiar film noir setup, he gets an unwelcome visit from a criminal acquaintance, Akira (Yota Kawase), who is on the run from his parole officer and eager to pull off another job.