Manos: The Hands of Fate

Plot synopsis:
While on vacation near El Paso, Texas, Michael, Margaret, their young daughter Debbie and their dog, Peppy, drive through the desert in search of a hotel called "Valley Lodge." Margaret insists they are lost, and Michael claims they are not. They are then pulled over by a local deputy for a broken taillight, but are let go after Michael asks them for mercy since they are on vacation. After long shots of driving through farmland and the desert, intercut with scenes of two teenagers making out in a car and being caught by the deputies, the family finally reach a house, tended by the bizarre, satyr-like Torgo, who says he takes care of the place "while The Master is away." The house seemed to appear out of nowhere, and Torgo acts very strange. Apprehensive, Michael and Margaret ask Torgo for directions to the Valley Lodge; Torgo denies having knowledge of such a place. Frustrated, Michael asks Torgo to let him and his family stay the night, despite objections from both Torgo and Margaret.
Inside the house, Michael and Margaret find a disturbing painting of a dark, malevolent-looking man and a black dog with glowing eyes; Torgo says the man it depicts is The Master. Margaret becomes frightened upon hearing an ominous howl; Peppy breaks away from Debbie and runs outside after the howl. Michael investigates, retrieving a flashlight and revolver from his car, and finds Peppy lying dead on the ground. Michael buries the dog in the desert, and goes back to the house. Meanwhile, Torgo reveals his sudden attraction to Margaret and tells her that although The Master wants her to become his bride, he intends to keep her for himself. Torgo then spends the next few minutes trying to grope her shoulder. Margaret threatens to tell Michael of Torgo's advances, but Torgo convinces her not to say anything by promising to protect her. Michael returns and is unable to start the car. Torgo tells them there is no phone in the house, so the family reluctantly decides to stay the night.
After another scene of Torgo peeping in on Margaret changing clothes, Michael and Margaret find Debbie is gone and go to look for her. Debbie returns, holding the leash of a big black dog, the same dog from the painting. Following Debbie, Michael and Margaret stumble upon The Master and his wives, sleeping around a blazing fire. The wives are dressed in diaphanous nightgowns, The Master in a robe with two red hands on it. Margaret and Debbie run back to the house to get their things and escape. As Michael runs behind them, Torgo appears and uses a stick to knock him out and then ties him to a pole. The Master awakens and summons his wives, telling them that Michael must be sacrificed to the deity Manos, and Margaret and Debbie will become his new wives. He then leaves.
The other wives argue among each other about whether Debbie should become a wife or be sacrificed as well. This turns into a catfight, where the wives tumble around in the dirt. The Master returns and breaks up the fight, and decides to sacrifice Torgo and his first wife instead. Meanwhile, Michael wakes up and unties himself, going back to the house to collect Margaret and Debbie. The family leaves the house and runs off into the desert to escape. The Master summons Torgo and hypnotizes him, ordering the wives to kill him. The wives "kill" him by running their hands over his face, The Master then severs and burns Torgo's left hand. Torgo runs off into the darkness, and The Master then sacrifices his first wife.
As Michael, Margaret and Debbie run through the desert, Margaret falls and says she can't go any farther. A rattlesnake appears in front of them and Michael shoots it, the noise attracting the attention of the deputies, who think the noises come from Mexico and leave it at that. Margaret convinces Michael to return to the house, as the cult would never think to look for them there. They go back and find The Master and his dog waiting for them. As The Master comes towards them Michael fires several shots into The Master's face at point-blank range, but they have no effect.
The film then cuts to another pair of travelers, two women starting their vacation. They drive through a rainstorm, searching for a place to stay. After more driving they end up at The Master's house. An entranced Michael greets them, telling them "I take care of the place while The Master is away." The ending scene shows Margaret and Debbie have become wives of The Master, and all are asleep.

Tags: good versus evil, cult, psychedelic, murder

Review:
That's what makes a film truly bad: the fact that despite its overbearing weaknesses it isn't even entertaining!Many people look back at the sixties and think, with obvious resentment for today's cinematic output, that "they don't make them like this anymore!".
Every so often, someone comes onto IMDb (or a similar forum) and declares that such-and-such a film is, and I quote, "THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!" Usually the culprit is the latest big-budget, little-story extravaganza, or some popular work receiving its expected share of backlash.
Clearly, these innocent souls have never seen an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Specifically, they have never been exposed to the horror that is "Manos: The Hands of Fate." Sure, plenty of movies are bad, but usually if you look hard enough, you can see some evidence that someone on board had at least a vague idea of how to make a film work.
Anyway, things happen, arguments go in circles, the mom of the family yells for her husband so much you wonder how she ties her shoes in the morning without him, the husband makes so many wrong decisions you wonder if he'd be any help with the shoe-tying thing, and the female cultists get into an extended wrestling match, revealing that under their diaphanous Grecian robes they're wearing modern bras and underwear.There's much more, of course, but "Manos" is like a train wreck, or a natural disaster: I could describe it to you, but you'd never understand the full level of horror unless you witness it for yourself.
Not because it's poorly done, because there are movies, like "Monster A-Go-Go", that are more poorly conceived, acted, directed, filmed, and edited.
Almost nothing happens (certainly not anything interesting) and if you survive the first ten minutes of driving around the countryside you'll just want everyone in the film to die.However, because this movie is so brilliantly and incredibly bad, I suggest everyone watch it just to know it.
I also doubt you would find a regular version of this movie, since I doubt anyone would be crazy enough to have one.Interestingly, the guy who plays the mean, stupid, and totally useless husband wrote, directed, and produced the film, and the guy who plays "The Master" did the art direction.
This ends up being a horror film with virtually no horror, an action film with the most poorly shot action sequences I've ever seen, and an artsy jazz vehicle with such poor acoustic sound quality that it would have been much better with just the groovy soundtrack and no dialog.The biggest problem with Manos is what we call "Production values".
The acting is not entirely awful - but the sound, editing, pacing and camera work are so bad that the actors all look totally ridiculous at all times.
The script is not the worst I've seen, but it is lost in the jerks and irks of the pace (dramamine recommended), and finally, the plot is no worse than some of the recent Hollywood horror catastrophes I have seen, but it to is swept up in the maelstrom of maleficence emanating from the director's chair.The result would make a great object example for a film production class in "what not to do".
The leading man is a Frank Zappa lookalike with only a fraction of the talent Zappa (being dead) has.However, the real star of the film, Torgo (a goat-man), performed in some of the best walking-from-one-end-of-the-set-to-another scenes I have seen since 1950s Corman films.Finally, the fights (or are they orgies?) between Manos' wives, which we are asked to believe to be deadly, are utterly hilarious.The MST3K version of this incredibly dreadful bit of late 60s trashola is one of Joel and the Bots' best, but even their antics fail to make this movie wholly tolerable.Rated:  For Insomniacs Only..
What can I say about a movie so bad that it makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Casablanca?
Well, after reading quite a few extremely hyped reviews and discussions throughout the internet, I decided to try my luck and buy the alleged worst film of all time: ''Manos': The Hands of Fate'.
Almost every aspect of the film is done poorly, yet as odd as it sounds, the movie generates a charming and enjoyable little atmosphere; it simply does not feel like the worst one out there.
I would know, since reading the IMDb comments, getting a load of laughs from them and feeling a complete sense of empathy with other poor souls who dared to watch this movie, knowing exactly where they are coming from, is just about the only good thing I have gotten out of MTHOF.
In Manos we basically have: driving; boredom; more driving; more boredom; a feeling of being mentally raped within the first 15 minutes (not many movies can do that, you know!); more driving; some rather purposeless necking; (did I mention the driving?); Torgo, our favorite strange person with deformed knees; a family, in whose creation Darwin's laws of natural selection seem to have been completely ignored, gladly deciding to spend the night in "the master's" house; a touching display of affection through holding hands (or is it?); a bored kid; a dead dog, i think; some melodramatic "hand-waving"; a puzzlingly out-of-the-blue all-out wrestling match amongst the ladies, thoroughly making me question my previous enjoyment in watching such activities; how massaging someone to death would look like and last, but quite least, the absolutely tasteless ending, complete with a subsequent cast introduction to give it a "campy" feel.
When Torgo describes his master as being `not dead the way you know it' and `with us always' he is speaking for all of us, how we truly live on through the memory of our words and deeds in the minds of those who follow us, be they righteous or malevolent.Hal Warran not only changed the face of the Texan film industry by encapsulating such a grand story in less than 75 minutes, it also helped usher in a whole new perspective of looking at film, discovering different forms which never would have been conceived.
This is Manos: Hands of Fate.Years ago, in the dusty desert outside El Paso, an unknown fertilizer salesman decided to craft a horror film with the assistance of friends throughout the El Paso area, and a legend was born.
It isn't as bad as Monster-a-Go-Go, but it almost manages to snatch the sorry laurels of worst movie ever made from that Lovecraftian abomination.Manos must have put good directors like Kubrick or Capra in convulsions during its production: so powerful is the elemental force of badness flowing from every stinking pore of its perverse form.
The shocking orgiastic violence and the horrifying screen presence of Torgo, the master's minion, have yet to be topped by today's unassuming and bland filmmakers.I have watched Manos several times and each time I see another facet of sparkling genius in this diamond of a movie.
The true horror is this movie's sweeping destruction of the elements of film -- direction, editing, writing, acting, etc.
The angles in the ten minute car ride, showing the Masters picture 5 times in 30 seconds, while the picture is at the other end of the screen, it really makes me wonder how it can be that bad.Directing -- Hollow.
The movie, though scarcely 70 minutes long, seems willing to devote 15 of those to POV countryside watching, random make-out scenes, and cops who harass the love birds without any seeming relevance to the plot.I will always remember Torgo, though.
Often called "the worst movie ever made", Manos: the Hands of Fate is a surreal excursion through the depths of underground cult cinema.
Over the years, this has been a piece that I go back to as a foundation for low-budget film anomalies.Shot in what looks like my grandfather's super 8 camera, Manos is the story of a family of three lost in a desert maze in search of a vacationing area.
Memorable characters include Torgo, a spastic underling of "the Master"(the ashen, mustached leader of the cult), Michael,the father/husband of the family who may well be the worst actor in history aside from being the director of the film.
Family driving through rural Texas stops at an isolated lodge where a cult of weirdos live.Legendary, bad B movie made by Texan fertilizer salesman Hal Warren was brought back into the light when it appeared on a 1994 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
If I could I'd give the movie two ratings, one--1--from what my logic and better sense tells me (it's crap), and another rating--say around 6 or 7--simply because I was entertained, I would.There are things I find frustrating, yet humorous about Manos: How all the actors seem to wait a full minute or two before saying their lines, as if waiting for some cue; the odd repetition of dialog like something out of the nightmares of Samuel Beckett (but done unintentionally, it seems); the sheer lack of anything resembling narrative consistency or internal logic.Make no mistake, this is a bad, bad, movie.
We watched it.Its is not funny, it is just so bad, I've seen some funny bad films, cyber tracker because they are bad but this is impossible to watch as it just makes you depressed.Throughout the film i was just so down and thinking why am i torturing myself by watching this.The acting is utter crap, fair enough since none were even proper actors, there is no plot and none of the characters know why they are there or if a camera is pointing on them.
From reading the reviews for this movie (which is right now #12 on the bottom 150 films), I can tell that less than 1% of the people who reviewed this have even seen the complete un-MST'd "Manos the Hands of Fate".
The bizarre music, the bad lighting, the average acting, Torgo's sickening costume, and the strange dubbing help make it one of the more intriguing low-budget films of the 60s.
You can watch the MST3K version of "Manos", but you'll lose a great deal of the movie and its atmosphere.
First I'd like to thank the guys at MST3K who made watching this movie possible...really, THANKS, couldn't have done it without you."Plot" summary: A family is driving (and driving...and driving...and driving...) through the countryside and (beleive it or not) gets lost.
It is quite remarkable though how the crew (yes, they had a crew) managed to put in so much sexuality in a movie of the 60s...hmm.I have seen a lot of bad movies in my life, but none of them came even close to the HORROR that is "Manos" th Hands of Fate.
I can only imagine they spent the entire budget on renting the cabin,so there was no money left for acting lessons, or directing lessons for that matter...If you are one of those people who gets a kick out of sharpening pencils, suffer from schizophrenia, personality disorder or have had HALF OF YOUR BRAIN REMOVED, I highly recommend you watch "Manos" the Hands of Fate.
If you have a taste for BAD movies, if you like to sample IMDb's bottom 100 list, if you enjoy watching MST3K and other hosted bad-film shows, then you MUST see this episode.
Love it or hate it, MST3K's Manos is a landmark in entertainment, one of the bad-film shows by which all others are measured.However, for goodness sakes do NOT watch Manos without Joel and the Bots - even the Kaa-Kaa Gourmet would end up screaming in the loony-bin !.
It kind of has this twist, that is OK in a way, but it is not as unique as the rest of the movie.I especially love it when the husband tells his wife to go into the house THREE times after another because of bad cutting(and she's about to enter the house in all of them).
And since there's probably about five people in the world who have actually seen the original film, I doubt anyone can really argue with that.First of all, bad editing aside, the movie has an eerie, surreal atmosphere that makes it seem more like a long dream sequence than an actual movie.
I honestly believe that with a MUCH bigger budget and better actors, this could be remade into a really good movie.Now, with that said, I must admit that "Manos" has one extremely funny element that is the downfall of the entire movie, and that is Torgo.
Manos actually had a decent horror story to it and I think would have made a very good horror film but it suffered from an exceedingly low budget and abysmal production.
Hal Warren and his little Manos film shouldn't even be ranked in a worst category, simply because it didn't take much of a budget and no one was destroyed (except maybe Warren's ego.) But I do agree, this movie was bad.
I also thought that the ending, as cliché as it was, would have worked if I understood how the owner of the house survived being shot four times.Manos is a watchably terrible movie, but it's still garbage..
From a purely technical perspective, this film would be 70 minutes of blinding pain, were it not for the fact that, much like the visual quality, the sound transcends the realm of bad to the point of being comical.
This is in case you've read all other reviews and are still thinking about watching the horror that is Manos the Hand of Fate, the first thing that should warn you is the title.
I warn you, if you've little patience for really really really bad movies, you may want to skip this, or at the least watch the MST3K version.
Manos: The Hands of Fate is one those movies, which you watch and think "what the hell am I watching anyway?".
The narrative is jarring and odd, the actors are amateurish at best and the dubbed voice work is just hilariously awful.To top things of, Manos is lazed with a bizarre fusion jazz sound track, which knock the movie in an entirely different ball park among bad movies.For people, who like bad movies Manos is a must watch event.
Also only in a film like Manos would all actors be dubbed by only three people – two men and a woman – and this leads to some very inappropriate voices, such as the one given to the little girl.
That film is "Manos" The Hands of Fate, which has been deftly recycled for your bad movie enjoyment by MST3K.In 10 years and countless searches, MST3K never did find another character/performance to equal the nadir of John Reynolds' `Torgo'.
I've always thought that Manos was a great film, although it IS the WORST movie ever made!
Manos: The Hands of Fate, currently ranked #5 on IMDb's Bottom 100, is a rite of passage for serious fans of trashy horror movies, marking the transition from 'merely bad' to 'completely and utterly inept in every way imaginable.
Warren, proving that acting wasn't his forté either), his wife Margaret (Diane Adelson), and daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) soon find themselves lost, eventually pulling up to a strange desert hostel where they are greeted by twitchy manservant Torgo (John Reynolds), who looks like he stores bags of popcorn or cotton wool down his trousers.Torgo warns that his master (Tom Neyman) won't be happy if they stay the night, but they won't take no for an answer; their stubborn insistence puts them in serious peril, for the master is the head of a Satanic cult and he wants to add Margaret to his collection of brides.To list everything that is wrong with this film would take longer than it took me to watch it (including the times where I fell asleep and had to rewind), suffice to say that there are fewer examples of poor editing, dreary pacing, atrocious direction, woeful acting, and diabolical dubbing.
The negative criticisms and those slamming it as the worst movie ever do not lie, Manos: The Hands of Fate is as bad as all that.
His achievement cannot be understated.Let me offer my explanation on why so many people love Manos: By watching this film you become part of a psychological experiment in hypnosis.The countless landscape scenes serve as the passage to the hypnotic state one needs to be to appreciate this movie.
Bottom line if you don't want to watch a bad movie , then stay away from this film.
I'm talking about Manos: Hands of Fate, which is widely regarded as the worst film ever.
The acting is horrendous and to make it even worse, the dialogue, however bad it may be, is actually dubbed over itself making the movie appear even more low budget.
We want to see the mistakes, the poor editing, amateur acting errors (the actors overall were good in this film-they only made the mistakes of beginning actors) the inappropriate music and improperly timed sound edits, the incredibly long pauses and illogical cut aways.The use of a silent camera may have actually influenced the actors and directing on this movie.
It's hilarious when you watch it that way.ON THE OTHER HAND This movie has a emaciated plot, terrible sound/acting/lighting/story progression/camera.
After reading all the negative hoopla surrounding the "worst film ever", I decided to rent "Manos: Hands of Fate" to see if it was really as bad as everyone says it is.And they were right.
The pain that Torgo felt after the Master lit his hand on fire is nothing compared to watching this movie..
Manos: The Hands of Fate is a 1966 horror movie directed, produced, written, and starring farmer Harold P.
They didn't even try!Manos: The Hands of Fate has overthrown House of the Dead as the worst horror movie ever made.
When it comes to how bad a movie can be, there are movies that are made by inexperienced and untalented people who don't know the first thing about film-making ...