Breaking News: DEADLINE // Cleopatra Ent. Takes North America On Japanese Horror ‘The Beast Hand’ Ahead Of Sitges

Breaking News: DEADLINE // Cleopatra Ent. Takes North America On Japanese Horror ‘The Beast Hand’ Ahead Of Sitges

Cleopatra Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Japanese director Taichiro Natsume’s body horror The Beast Hand ahead of its international premiere at the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival.

The film, which premiered in Japan in early 2024, has also been acquired by Barcelona-based Wild Duck Productions for Spain ahead of its Sitges screening in the Midnight X-Treme next week.

The low-budget picture stars Takahiro Fukuya as petty criminal Osamu who is possessed by a strangely deformed hand which is grafted onto his body by a mysterious doctor after he loses his left arm in a kidnapping job that does not go to plan.

Fukaya is joined in the cast by Yota Kawase as his partner in crime, who is killed in the botched kidnapping, as well as Misa Wada as a woman from Osamu’s past who has undergone extensive plastic surgery to disguise her identity and takes the wounded man to her underground surgeon to fix his arm.

It soon becomes clear that the hand has a monstrous will of its own as Osamu seeks revenge against the gang which killed his friend and severed his limb.

Tokyo-based filmmaker Natsume’s specializes in low-budget horror movies with previous credits including Convex Attack!! Psychic Research Team Kachikomi (2017) and Love Shark (2023)

“Cleopatra Entertainment is thrilled to acquire The Beast Hand, a unique film by the uber-talented Japanese Director Taichiro Natsume,” said the distributor.

“We feel the timing is right for western audiences to view and experience the vast array of quality genre films from Japanese film-makers like Natsume-san and so many other talents from Asia.”