Director: Harold P. Warren
I thought I would start this film blog with a really horrendous movie, Manos: Hands of Fate. Considered one of, if not, the worst film ever made, Manos is the cliche family vacation movie gone to hell. Michael (played by the director) gets his family lost when he decides not to ask for directions. They end up at a mysterious inn and meet Torgo, who “takes care of the place while the Master is away.” The Master is a devil-worshiper, who leads a cult that includes multiple wives.
Here’s an anecdote about the movie that might shed some light on why this film is so bad. Harold Warren was an insurance salesman (and later a fertilizer salesman) who made a bet that he could make a successful horror movie on an extremely small budget (about $19,000). Thus Manos: Hands of Fate was born and would set the bar for extremely bad movies.
Here’s the first ten minutes of Manos:
The entire film was shot with a hand-held camera without sound, so all the voices in the film were later dubbed by only three people, 2 men and 1 woman. The maximum take of the camera was only 32 seconds, which explains the choppy and jarring cuts between shots. The beginning driving scenes drag on with minimal dialogue and the so-called flute easy listening soundtrack runs on loop. Not until after 8 minutes of the film, do the characters finally meet Torgo.
The script is almost non-existent and when dialogue does arrive (at a snails pace) it doesn’t even make sense or they just repeat themselves. Many times the characters end up just standing around looking at each. Because the dialogue is so slow, it’s no surprise that the action in the film moves even slower. What’s suppose to feel like ten minutes ends up feeling like a hour. It’s apparent that editing was not considered during the making of the film and I don’t think good editing could even save it.
The Master
Now there are some bad movies that are entertaining to watch, like The Final Sacrifice or Plan 9 from Outer Space. But Manos seems to skip that category and go directly to the just plain awful to sit through. Even Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that prides themselves on watching atrocious pieces of celluloid, made a point of saying how painful Manos: Hands of Fate was to watch.
So if you are feeling brave and want to willingly subject yourself to bad film making, Manos: Hands of Fate can satisfy your appetite, maybe more than you want. I’d definitely recommend the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode of Manos, the riffs from Joel and the bots make the film a little more tolerable.
