If you cast your mind back to the shoot of ‘The Screaming skull‘ you may recall that all of the Penraddon manor bedroom sequences were shot at the beautiful ‘Two Bridges hotel‘. Yet, as one ghostly legend was being crafted therein, a little further down a nearby Dartmoor road, a quite different supernatural visitation was believed to befall the unsuspecting traveller…’The Hairy Hands‘.
Comic asides, since the early twentieth century, drivers and cyclists have reported suffering unusual accidents whilst travelling the stretch of road (the B3212) between Postbridge and Two Bridges. In many cases, the victims reported that their vehicle had swerved violently off the side of the road, as if something had taken hold of the wheels and wrenched it out of their control.
In most instances, the victims ran into a verge and survived. Their experiences remained a local curiosity, until June 1921, when Dr. E.H. Helby, the medical officer for Dartmoor prison was actually killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and sidecar. His two daughters survived. Shortly after Dr Helby’s death, there was another incident in which a coach driver lost control, injuring several passengers who were thrown out of their seats. Then, on August 26 1921, an army Captain reported that a pair of invisible hands had taken hold of him and forced his motorcycle off the road. After such a bout of such bizarre ‘attacks’ it didn’t take long before the story was picked up by the London newspapers and the story became a nationwide 
sensation.
Though horror cinema has had its share of disembodied creeping hands (Amicus studios ‘Doctor Terrors house of Horrors’ and Oliver Stone’s ‘The Hand‘ starring Michael Caine are but two notables) the actual story of ‘The Hairy Hands‘, and its core myth (often linked to a mining explosion or a local murder on the particular stretch of road) has hitherto largely been ignored outside the region that spawned it….until now.
Whilst ‘Spring heel Jack‘ continues its ambitious pre-production, Ashley Thorpe will shoot ‘The Hairy Hands‘ until finance is secured. “Don’t fret, ‘Spring heel Jack’ is absolutely in pre-production, but it’s the most ambitious one yet and it needs more time and love than the previous two to make it work and really do the script justice.”
‘The Hairy hands‘ will star Carrion film regular Ed Berry and aims, according to its director, to be “a chilling horror short that takes place entirely within a moving vehicle…”