Recently, I discovered over on Twitch TV that Elvira has a channel with various re-runs of her old Macabre shows. As it runs 24/7 (not sure how long), I decided to click over to see what was playing and learned that it was none other than the cult-not-exactly-but-a-classic-in-itself Manos: The Hands of Fate. I honestly can’t recall the last time I had watched this thing but it’s one of those things that you mostly forget but remember that you saw because it happened as an event in your life. Anytime, one views this thing, there’s a sharp reaction that occurs whether that manifest as a headache or a bowel movement (I just had one which might’ve prompted me to write this blog) Nonetheless, at this late stage of this thing’s existence, one would have to wonder what a person can add that hasn’t already been said about this….uh….movie?
Most people who write about Manos: The Hands of Fate barely write it as an actual review. Part of the reason is that there’s very little to say in the way of a story, characters or anything that would signify something that constitutes an actual movie. Instead, most reviews turn Manos: The Hands of Fate into the godfather of punching bags for all bad movies as it invariably enters the circle of worst movies ever produced. However, while watching this thing (because it really is difficult or even close to impossible to label it as a proper movie), you cannot help but react in a begrudging manner to how we’ve been trained to with actual good movies since this thing had been conceived.
First, whatever this was, had been created in 1966 with almost no budget (10k I read), a bunch of no-named actors and done by an insurance/fertilizer sales person (if either aren’t symbolic enough….) Thus, ridiculing this thing isn’t even like stealing candy from a baby. It’s more like taking an ant or amoeba and dunking it into a black hole when it comes to evisceration. You almost have to feel sorry for many involved as most didn’t have careers after surviving this abomination of a recording.
And I guess that’s the best way to describe how this thing felt: a home recording back in the day. Now, to be a fair, upon this view, I had been “treated” to a kind of skip ahead because I arrived at the point where the family already had made their way to the seedy motel of Manos and co. Mercifully, I had been spared the mind numbing parts of the pointless travel earlier. But I do recall in previous viewings (sometimes with the MST3K shield) those awkward,endless, sightseeing moments that were filler. I would almost want to say that in reflection on those viewings that perhaps the person in charge was using those moments as a kind of experiment because he clearly had no fucking idea what to do.
Just to avoid a typical movie recap (which could require a painful re-watch on my own), I want to move to the point for which I encountered that’s still (unfortunately) fresh in my mind. As I mentioned, I stumbled upon the moment where the family is at the motel and the father, I guess, is in search for the family pet. I read that the dead “pet” was a stuffed animal prop covered in blood. However, the scene was almost incomprehensible in terms of what I was trying to discern because the footage itself was old, grainy and dark. So they could’ve saved a few pennies and probably given the young girl in the film the stuffed animal as another parting gift because you wouldn’t be able to tell that there was blood. Regardless, that’s a simple sample of how inept the film maker was in setting this whole thing up.
The father regroups with his family minus dead stuffed animal pet while their daughter sleeps on the couch. You know the girl is going to wake up and is waiting for her cue while the parents loudly argue over what happened. The wife is incredibly melodramatic in everything she does. She seems as though she wanted to convey a classic actress from Hollywood’s golden era but came across as corny and repetitive. But as I’m trying to watch this thing I kept getting distracted by the bizarre splicing of camera shots that was very apparent. I read in the trivia on IMDB that the film maker’s camera could only shoot roughly 32 seconds worth of footage at a time, which would explain this dissonance. And I read that in some cases, the editing was so sloppy you could see very discernible continuity between shots even if the people were in the same shot together.
Anyway, the girl wakes up and her voice is clearly overdubbed. The dubbing is so bad that it sounds like someone raising their voice to imitate a child’s but the little actress apparently cried when she heard the voice being used. At this point, I’m paying more attention for mistakes than any resemblance of a plot or character development because it’s ridiculous. Also, Elvira made a cameo with some actual useful commentary that talked about the child’s reaction and the dubbing. I mean, I honestly wish Elvira had made far more cameos on this viewing because this thing would drone on and one like taking a drill and sticking it through your ear (although that could be more pleasant because there would actually be an end to the suffering whereas this thing continues to exist in some format)
At any rate, the parents argue and don’t see the little girl go through the open door that’s right next to them. When they turn around they completely miss that their daughter is gone and freak out (with the mother being exceptionally melodramatic). They go look for her but at some point the husband tells the wife about 4-5 times to get back into the room/house/hotel. I can’t remember any other point he would make because he kept repeating this line. Was this actually part of a script? Was “get back in the room” written down anywhere 4-5 times? Why didn’t the actors question house stupid this sounded?
As I mentioned since I missed the earlier portions, I don’t recall other repetitive dialog but I read from other reviews how there were more instances in this movie. Here, my additive comment is that the writer/film maker had no idea of economy in terms of producing a film. With basic editing, I bet you can condense this film down further into possibly 10 minutes where most of the slog and redundancies are stripped out so you get something semi-watchable.
Anyway, like some slave owner, the father calls out Torgo, the most beloved character in this drek by all viewers, to help his family move their stuff back into the car. Obviously, the family is already freaked out by missing their pet, even though that’s the only real event that might somewhat frighten away from this place. But wouldn’t this weird Torgo with his freakishly large legs, spaced out look and unnatural manner of speaking cause them to feel a little suspicious of this guy to want to deal with him ever again?
Also, on a side note, apparently the father carries with him a random pistol while going on a family vacation. I get this was shot in Texas but come on now! Anyway, as Torgo does whatever Torgo is supposed to do, the father goes to his vehicle and tries to start it up. The vehicle predictably has problems (which hasn’t been explained) and the wife is approached by Torgo (since this movie lacks flow if I’m missing the exact sequence go fuck yourself and do me a favor and watch the original for your own malcontent). I think he wants to hypnotize her and there’s these bizarre blurred shots back and forth but mostly on the wife to show what a great looking gal she is. And he further admits that the Master wants her as a wife but already has many and decides he wants her for himself.
I can’t recall if the wife slaps Torgo but she obviously has no wish to be around him. Anyway, the husband eventually gives up on the car and maybe the daughter running off happened. But the daughter does come back to find the Master’s doberman. Where the fuck did she find that thing? The parents make the connection that the dog looks like the one in the painting and I’m amazed considering the sheer incompetency of this film that even that limited amount of (film) logic surfaced. I don’t recall what exactly happened to the dog thereafter (I might’ve got distracted) but at some point the family decides to run away because the car had become inoperable INTO THE FUCKING DESERT. This part makes me recall Oceans 11 where Reuben reminds Pitt and Clooney that if they managed to snag all of a casino’s cash that they’d still have to contend with the Las Vegas heat. Here, the film maker doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal even if the family were attempting to escape at night.
A bunch of weird shots happened of the family trying to escape through foliage rather than a barren landscape but it does I think allow for a moment so that the Master finally makes his appearance (again forgive me if my ordering is wrong but at this stage who gives a shit). There’s an argument between the Master and Torgo and maybe the wives about Torgo failing. The Master is about as melodramatic as the wife except that if someone were to tell me the guy playing the Master was an actual Satanic cult leader, I’d believe them because this guy is a goof. Now, nothing really against the church of Satan or that type of stuff (we’ve come to love Satan because of South Park and Silicon Valley) but this guy just has most of his pebbles loose over a cliff. He tries to give some sort of Shakespearean old English or whatever speech in talking about Manos, some ritual and whatever and he’s not really compelling as a character as much as fascinating as you think he’s just some nut. There’s no real motivation behind this guy and he tries to play the one dimensional mwahaha Vaudeville villain but I think he’s more like some guy who sniffed too much glue by living next a factory and showed up randomly one day along the sidewalk of Hollywood with his getup.
So I’m going to parse through my memory as things just start blending together and I’m going to hit the, uh, “high” points (meaning someone was clearly high while making this). At some point, the wives wake up from their slumber. We have absolutely no clue whom these beings are beyond them being some wives the Master had picked up. One even mentions in a startling sense of self awareness that they have no will and cannot escape the Master. But they can bitch argue which is what the Master contends with. Eventually, the center of the argument is whether or not the daughter should be killed. We have no idea why the daughter should be sacrificed. One of the women said something like, “The daughter must grow up to become a woman.” Um, that’s what little girls do eventually. Did the actress here even think about the line she was saying? Apparently, these wives were all part of an agency so I’m wondering given that no one except the little girl got anything back from the film if these people got a cent from their agency.
There’s the whole multi-wife fight wrestling segment. If someone told me that this movie was the inspiration of the current multi-women wrestling matches, I’d believe them. A dirt ugly fight that was some people rolling around in togas and I guess a red belt or design under the toga that was supposed to represent a devil-like tail. You’d see one woman “selling” on the ground after being choked out then popping up like these modern wrestling no-sell goofs to get back into the action. I can’t even recall anything coming out of the fight in terms of an actual result. It just happened and went on forever. Was this supposed to be some sort of low budget, cheesecake, soft core pr0n part for tickling the director’s taint?
Then there’s the ritualistic sacrifice of Torgo. The funny part is that Torgo got onto the stone slab kinda like how pro-wrestlers “fall” onto a table to setup a splash type of spot. I mean it goes to show just how bad pro-wrestlers are these days in their own acting when I’m able to compare them to any part of Manos: The Hands of Fate. But it’s such a bizarre and stupid scene here because the Master “hypnotizes” Torgo with Torgo’s own staff. Like Torgo was the one bearing the staff and it made it seem that he was hypnotized himself. Worse yet this is another highly repetitive, unending scenes that could’ve been handled more succinctly. Maybe the director was into method film making where he wanted the audience to get lulled into being hypnotized by this god awful product in the same manner as Torgo. Either way, this probably was the only real “horror” element to me in this movie but the burning hand looked comedically terrible and made me wonder if this was the butt of a joke as per the title.
But the best part happens as the Master does some chant while the wives molest Torgo with a bunch of hand gestures above the camera lens. Torgo’s hand is dismembered and on flames as he runs out screaming while the Master cackles hysterically. Honestly, I was laughing hysterically too but not because of poor Torgo. Instead, I felt my sanity being completely drained each second I had to endure that scene.
There’s another scene that happened before all of this which also was hilarious. As the father was searching for something, Torgo runs up to him from behind and thwacks him over the head with that staff. It’s so conceivably outrageous because the entire time Torgo just hobbles around on his fat, giant legs. After he knocks the father out, he’s back to hobbling around again. Then we’re treated to Torgo attempting to pull the father towards a small stake in the ground. I mean, I think most film makers would make that very brief with just someone hitting the guy, making a gesture of pulling the victim towards a direction then having a separate shot illustrating that the person has been incapacitated. Here, we’re treated to the film maker potentially using the entire rumored 32 seconds to show the entire process, including tying the father’s hands behind his back. You would think maybe the actor playing the father would have helped poor Torgo out a little but he looked like literal dead weight. His head was lulling back and forth as he was tied up but the way things were done, you couldn’t expect this guy to remain restrained.
Anyway, as the film is winding down for the, uh, climax, the father returns to the hotel after escaping from his harrowing bindings and confronts the Master himself. Somehow when Torgo knocked the father out, he failed to take the gun (I saw Torgo grab something from the father but I thought it was just his wallet. I could be wrong but who the fuck can tell in this mess). So the father brandishes his pistol and tries to shoot the Master. The Master uses his technique of blurring to make himself indistinguishable to the audience and just stares at the father, completely noselling the rounds.
Next, we arrive at two new random women in a convertible about to enter a bunch of unnecessary scenic prolonged shots. We have no idea who these people are, what their purpose is nor why they’re going anywhere because their dialog is mumbled and I feel as though my brain had been injected by Novocain. Thankfully, unlike the previous extended scenic moments, this new group doesn’t linger through endless shots as long but they do pass the teenage couple I forgot about because they were practically forgettable in this thing. Eventually, they too arrive at the mysterious hotel only to be greeted by the father he assumes Torgo’s place while his wife and child have become presumably new wives for the Master.
Oh god, what a slog this was to get through. I guess part of the reason I needed to blog this was to hopefully expunge my mind of any necessary future notion to review such a thing from almost front to back. But the other reason is that after going through numerous bad movies recently (mostly horror related and some being old kung fu movies), I had to ponder this question: is Manos: The Hands of Fate truly the worst movie of all time?
And this really is a philosophical one at the core that dives into the thought about what a movie really is and what it ought to be. Given that it was made in 1966 on a shoestring budget by a bunch of unknowns with no experience, it’s almost unfair to compare this thing to other movies that I find horribly offensive (like Megan is Missing or Warcraft the movie). This is like having a track race between an Olympic star runner vs a quadriplegic. You almost can’t compare the badness in Manos against other actually bad movies.
Take The Room as an example of one with a budget but a terrible script that has become so infamous that it turned on itself into a real cult classic. With The Room, besides having an actual budget, some of the actors were more legitimate and had skills. But the plot, direction and dialog were just downright nonsensical. Or take a recent movie I watched such as that Dr Heckyl and Mr. Hype. The acting wasn’t so bad but the lighting, costume design and jokes were pretty bleh at best. Still, it was coherent enough to stumble towards a finish and had a few memorable scenes.
Then you get a movie like Megan is Missing which I found downright revolting with not only no redeemable value but made me want to nudge the Earth directly into a supernova to prevent humans from ever propagating across the universe. That movie was flat out inexcusable but tried to use poorly conceived devices to try and elevate the message into something meaningful. And the Warcraft movie was high enough budget with some experience behind it but the dreadfulness of the writing and fanbase being the target audience caused it to become another typical game movie that got lost in its hubris.
Manos: The Hands of Fate really deserves its own category by comparison. To me it’s like the root of all bad movies because it sets the precedent of how bad things can be when sheer incompetence makes its way into every aspect of the film. There’s movies like The Room or Ed Wood stuff that fall into “so bad it’s great” categories. Manos: The Hands of Fate has no real purpose outside of a very niche type of curiosity. It’s a lesson not just in how one should not make a film but that just because you can, you shouldn’t.
On the other hand, the great thing about a Manos type of film is that it makes a writer like myself feel fairly confident knowing that whatever I write, there will always be far worse things that exist.
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