Usually, when I suggest a “bad movie” to someone, I’m met with some sort of surprise. Over the years it has become apparent to me that many people are inexperienced when it comes to the joys of watching a terrible movie filmed in complete seriousness. I’ve found through years of exhaustive research on topics ranging from homicidal snowmen to chainsaw-armed, shotgun-toting heroes and movies from Plan 9 From Outer Space to Soul Plane, that many of the most enjoyable movies ever made are absolutely terrible. So, in the interests of culturing all you loyal Poly readers, I present the ultimate bad movie experience: “Manos” The Hands of Fate.
Written, produced, and starred in by a fertilizer salesman from El Paso, Texas, Manos was originally intended to show all those Hollywood big shots that a small guy could make a movie just as well as they could, and failed miserably at this—failed more than miserably. Completely missed the mark. From completely nonsensical characters and dialogue to scenes where people drive in silence for minutes on end, Manos is simultaneously the worst film ever made and the most entertaining to watch.
The plot is simple: a family takes a wrong turn following a scenic route in the desert and winds up at a rickety old shack taken care of by what seems to be a mentally-disabled gentleman with extraordinarily bad knees who goes by the name Torgo. They convince him to lodge them for the night, but this draws the ire of “The Master” and his harem (who worship a god named Manos), and the horror begins—if you define horror as sitting minute after minute through confusion, pain, and hilarity.
For a movie with a production budget of $19,000 in 1966, the movie came out pretty well. The camera was spring-wound such that the maximum length of any shot was 32 seconds, and there was no audio equipment on set, so everything had to be dubbed in later. Only the main characters did their own dubbing; every other character was done by the same two people. The crew had limited lighting equipment and the camera couldn’t focus well, so no one could walk too far out of shot, as you can see from one scene where the police jump out of their car to investigate a gunshot they heard, only to walk three steps, sweep around with their flashlights, and return to the car.
The police are a perfect transition to the completely irrational scenes that pepper the movie. Throughout the movie, the police heckle a young couple for making out in their convertible on the side of the road. This never has any impact on the rest of the characters, yet was included multiple times. In addition, there are more than a few gaps of complete silence where no one is talking and nothing is happening. On the other side of things, we are given a complete and unedited look at some things that don’t matter in the slightest, like twenty seconds of dialog-less time where the daughter climbs from the back seat into the front seat because she was cold.
The “suspenseful” scenes will leave you gripping the edge of your seat, if only to keep you from falling out while laughing. Hokey theme music follows the characters around, and reactions that are delayed to the point where you have to wonder if they were waiting for someone to shout “Your line!”
The acting in the movie is atrocious, the special effects terrible, and the dialog almost painful. But wrap it all together and you have true cinematic gold. Manos cannot truly be described in words, so you have to experience it for yourself. I guarantee you that it is worth the effort of tracking down (some video stores in the area may have it, and it’s gaining such a cult following that the internet may, too). No time spent enjoying Manos could possibly be said to have been wasted. Long story short, this movie is terrible, and belongs at the top of any list of best movies ever made.
