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.