If you have an hour and ten minutes to waste, you can watch Manos: The Hands of Fate in its entirety. But be forewarned, you really will waste an hour and ten minutes of your life watching this travesty of a film. The acting is terrible, the sound is terrible, the plot is terrible, the editing is terrible, the cinematography is terrible, the music is terrible… the whole movie is terrible. But you can’t stop watching. And scientists are still struggling to find a valid reason why.
The man responsible for the movie was a guy named Harold P. Warren, and he bet his friend that anyone could make a horror movie. The end result was this piece of shit. Harold P. Warren wrote, directed, produced and starred in this cult classic.
Michael (Harold P. Warren), Margaret, their daughter Debbie, and the family dog are on a lengthy road trip and stumble upon an isolated house inhabited by a crazy cult. They meet the housekeeper, a goat-like creeper named Torgo. Seriously, this guy is supposed to be a satyr (half-goat man from mythology), but no one seems to acknowledge his goatishness. Michael needs shelter for his family and Torgo seems reluctant, because the Master wouldn’t approve.
Nonetheless, Michael and his family leave their car and enter the creepy house. They see a portrait of the Master and his Doberman, and they are creeped out a little more. Then they hear a noise and Michael discovers that their family dog has died somehow. It becomes apparent that something is not quite right.
The family is forced to stay the night because of a combination of a broken-down car and a lack of telephones. Torgo does some things to advance the plot, like hitting on Margaret and tying Michael to a pole.
Then the mysterious Master is reanimated and he has a bunch of wives dressed in nightgowns. They have a brief discussion over what to do with the family and it culminates with the wives having an awkward fight over whether or not to kill the child. They roll around in the sand, leaving you scratching your head as to why it was included in the final cut. The only viable reason is to kill some time and pad out the running length a little bit.
The Master has his wives beat up Torgo. Then he cuts off Torgo’s hand and sets it on fire. Then the Master kills his first wife as a sacrifice to Manos, the god that his stupid cult worships.
Michael and his family have one last stand against the Master, but the Master wins. And the ending is so stupid that I won’t reveal it, because I’m just hoping that you might actually watch this garbage like I did.
This movie is bad. There is nothing good about this movie. You could not try to make a movie this horrible. It just sort of happens. This is the cinematic equivalent of using a camcorder to film a middle school play and projecting it onto the big screen. It’s beyond amateur. All the sound was recorded in post-production. And you can tell.
There are two contenders for the worst movie of all time. This movie and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Just let that sink in. This is the worst color movie of all time. That’s not opinion. That is fact. Watch it. Just don’t get mad at me later.
Critically Rated at 4/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
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