hyped garbage

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Cranky Michael (Harold Warren), Head-doily-wearing Margaret (Diane Mahree), and their whiny daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) are on a road trip, when they become hopelessly, desperately, inexplicably lost. Various incongruous music samples cut in and out, as the family overdubs their dialogue. Following a road to nowhere, that's exactly where they wind up. A house! A tramp w/ body-wide phlebitis? A drunken stagehand in steel underwear and knee-pillows? No, it's Torgo (John Reynolds)! Don't ask to stay at the house! His Master wouldn't approve! Too late! Inside, the hellish ordeal unfolds. Torgo waddles around like an octopus skating on marbles. The painting! The poodle! Don't let Debbie sleep on that couch! My god! Look at the stains, man! Torgo gets even weirder! His hatband sweat widens by the second! Debbie wanders off to find a devil dog. Meanwhile, The Master (Tom Neyman) and his brides are revived! That hair! That robe! Those sandals! The brides and their great-granny nightgowns! Peeping Torgo! The Master stares eeevily! He just woke up, after all. Who are those necking kids? What purpose do they serve? Now, The Master's nonsensical soliloquy begins! "Hear us, etc.!" The wives open their eyes. Let the endless bickering ensue! A cat-fight w/ slow-motion slapping! Dialogue, straight out of Satan's posterior region! "Man, yes! Child, No!" More dislocated, discordant music erupts. The Master is certainly not pleased! MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE is the very purpose of film itself! Warren's skills as a thespian are matched only by his camerawork! Neyman is a mega-god! Reynolds looks down from hoo hash heaven, still wobbling in perpetuity! The brides fight on. Amen!... P.S.- Oh yes, my friends! There! Is! A! Sequel!... MANOS RETURNS...

Literally if you track down the short documentary "Hotel Torgo" and the sci-fi fanzine "Mimosa" which did two articles of interviews with surviving cast and crew, that stuff is more interesting than the actual film, even the new HD version of the final 16mm Ektachrome workprint (because the movie was blown up to full-screen 35mm for theatrical showings) which is sharp and good looking.In short, this film is a spiritual predecessor of all the '70s horror films where a group of teens go out to a place away from society and get killed by a monster or a cult. In "Manos" it's a family (mother, father, small daughter, her poodle) trying to find a hotel called "The Valley Lodge"; they get lost in their black '65 Ford convertable and instead find a smallish house off a dirt road with a caretaker who might be a Satyr who is named Torgo. He is the servant to an undead magician/cult leader called The Master who worships a god named Manos, and his cult are his undead brides, all dressed in goofy white robes. The Master wears a black robe with the outline of red hands and his facial hair makes him resemble Bill Buckner. The "plot" is the family finding out just how crazy the situation is, and trying to get away. Unlike most horror films of the mid-1960s, it has a downbeat ending.Why I gave the film four stars was that they shot it on 16mm home movie cameras, on their own time, and it took SIX MONTHS to make a 60-plus minute film. That's dedication. "Manos" had a shadowy run on the Southern drive-in circuit, joined the raft of B-movies sold to independent UHF TV stations in the 1970s, and would have been utterly obscure had not Frank Conniff of "Mystery Science Theater" not found it. "Manos" is the perfect example of the self-financed, independent regional film (El Paso, Tx.), and should be shown in film schools for how not to make those sorts of pictures.

For years I've heard about this movie; being the fact that I've watched some of the worst movies ever such as "The Item" and "Monster a go go" I figured this can't be as bad - boy was I wrong.First of all, the audio was so bad you barely saw anyone actually talking on cue, and the little girl's voice was obviously done by an adult women. The first several minutes are of a couple making out and the family driving around, WTH! And what was up with that character Torgo, dude couldn't stay still, he must have been on LSD, but I guess I can't blame him, anyone would have to be high on something to actually partake in this mess.The wife was dumb and clichéd, the father was clueless, and the master was stiff and scripted. One of the characters says it's getting dark when it's bright as hell outside, I can go on and on, but I think you get the point, with that said, I have officially titled thee my new worst movie ever - congrats!

Manos: The Hands of Fate. What a f@cking horrible movie this is! The writing is atrocious, the direction goes nowhere and the actors just read the lines like they have no idea what the hell they're actually saying! Oh; and the 16mm-32-second-filming-camera REALLY shows when you watch the movie. The abrupt cuts, the ear-bleedingly-bad music, and the AWFUL white balancing makes this a TRUE pain to watch; unless you've seen the MST3K episode roasting the sh## out of this steaming turd from the past. Now THAT's the way you watch this movie: with deservedly deprecating commentary!There's nothing good about Manos: The Hands of Fate. EVERYTHING about it is horrible. And it's BORING on top of all the pre-determined awfulness! It's 1966's Battlefield Earth!Manos: The Bottom of the Cinematic Barrel! 0/10 (even though I rated it 1 because IMDb).