Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Produced and directed by a fertilizer salesman, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a film so lacking in any merit, that, to attribute to it the designation of being an actual film in the traditional sense may be overstating things. It's more like an absurd fever dream experienced after eating a heavy Mexican dinner.

The film was, at one point thought lost. Unfortunately, it was found again for your viewing pleasure, oh Constant Reader, and put on the old show Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show dedicated to mocking movies that are already mockeries in and of themselves. The writer, director, producer, and "star" of this picture, portraying the dad, "Michael", is said fertilizer salesman. A man that, appropriately enough, made his living selling shit. His name was Harold P. Warren.

The Plot? Pretty simple, if dream-like and illogical (but not in any way that suggests anything but artlessness), and involves the "first vacation" of Michael, his wife Margaret (Diane Mahree), and their little daughter Debbie (Jackie Neyman), through a place that looks like Puerto Vallarta but is El Paso but sometimes resembles Boise. A completely superfluous shot of a couple necking and getting pulled over by the dingbat B-Movie Sherriffs, is followed by Michael's family also getting pulled over.

They make it to a hotel, where a weird guy named Torgo (John Reynolds), who has satyr-like legs that won't bend, comes out dressed like a wandering soup kitchen derelict and gives a performance only attributable to having smoked huge bowls of skunk weed beforehand. (Actually, that's not fair, as he's far too fidgety and nervous to be stoned.)

Stutteringly and cryptically he relates that "the Master" won't like him letting the child and her doggie stay there, but that the other two are okay. He finally relents though, and walks over to the car stiffly, while some loop of a jazz solo that sounds like a musical fart gets played ad infinitum (the soundtrack is the ONLY thing here that ever gets any better), and we get a first taste of the technical ineptitude of a film WORSE than Plan Nine from Outer Space.

Inside, on the mantle, are weird onyx sculptures of long skinny arms and hands and a weird, skinny head. Also, a painting of "the Master" is a sinister man in a black and red cape-like outfit with an even scarier dog.

The Master (Tom Neyman, presumably Jacky's daddy) sleeps downstairs on a stone slab. His wives, much like Dracula's, seem to be in a state of hypnotized, suspended animation. Is he dead, or undead? He awakes, and so do the wives, who argue about killing the little girl Debbie, or making her "one of them." There is a silly-ass catfight that looks more like interpretive dancing than anything else. There is a long, skinny arm-like stick on fire. Master kills Torgo for an unspecified reason, burning off his hand (in the only cool shot), after praying to his god Manos (hence the title). (Incidentally, he wears a black robe with giant, blood-red hands upon it.)

Torgo is lightly shaken and slapped. That's how he dies. The family escapes. The Master holds up a burning hand and laughs. The wives catfight and roll in the dirt, but never get their chiffon togas dirty. Michael kills a stock-footage rattler. they decide to go BACK to the Master's house! ("I have my gun, we'll hide in the kitchen, no one will think to look for us there!") The mind boggles.

The Master steps through the door. Michael fires his gun. he laughs maniacally, yet again, and vanishes. that's the movie.

There is ONE, and only ONE, creepy shot here, and it's the final shot of the wives. In the end, two dames on vacation make it to the Torgo Arms. Michael steps out. he's now ONE OF THEM. Inside, up against the stone pillars in the tomb where the Master's wives sleep, we have a couple of NEW wives--Margaret and LITTLE DEBBIE, both dressed in white robes. But that's one shot in sixty-nine minutes that rises halfway to the occasion.

Made after Mr. Warren, who fancied himself a thespian and was involved in local theater in El Paso, made a bet with Route 66 writer Stirling Siliphant that he could easily produce and direct "an entire horror film" on his own, he won the bet. The cast, at the premiere (which, with a single cheap limo rented and a huge spotlight, must have been something like out of the movie Ed Wood), laughed at the absurdity of the picture; pretty bad when even the cast and crew are mocking the film they've just made.

Diane Mahree went on to a successful modeling career. The rest of the cast, mostly repertory theater players and women from modeling agencies, faded into oblivion. Norman himself was said to be proud of the picture, even though he considered it, with a weird sort of pride, "one of the worst films ever made." (Mr. Norman didn't need a Medved brother to decide him on that particular issue.)

The camera equipment was rented. The sound was dubbed. There are continuity errors and flubs, swarms of moths attracted to night-time lighting (most of the cast had day jobs), pointless, senseless scenes of couples kissing, no plot to get in the way whatsoever, ridiculous dialog, illogical actions, terrible visuals...nothing whatsoever to recommend it. It was presumed lost; it should have stayed lost. (I don't have to tell you, additionally, it didn't make back its budget of around sixty grand. It made, in point of fact, NOTHING. It did play a few drive-ins in El Paso.)

Instead, it has enjoyed several releases, and attained cult status. NOT because it is good, but because in the annals of film, like the celluloid atrocities proffered by Wood and some others, it is an "anti-film". technically inept, illogical, and just silly and pointless and bad. Bad dialogue, bad story; bad art.

It is another example of an "anti-film." But it is not campy entertainment. It is not entertainment at all. It is tedious, and not much happens. The Master has a cool red and black cloak-like robe affair and delivers a decent speech to the Manos head god. Yawn.

Torgo actor Reynolds, incidentally, committed suicide in October of 1966, shortly after the premier, according to Wikipedia, an unimpeachable internet encyclopedia of trivial facts. He shot himself a month BEFORE This film appeared.

At any rate, you brave this one, you take your Fate in your Hands. Ciao!

You can view "Manos: The Hands of Fate" on YouTube