Manos the hands of fate5/2/2023 Out-of-focus or badly framed shots that obscure the action, stilted line deliveries, editing that leaves the audience confused as to what’s happening in the scene - these things can be discussed and critiqued from a somewhat objective stance.īut I wonder if that’s a cop out - if the ease with which we castigate and excoriate movies like Manos: The Hands of Fate, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Hobgoblins, and Birdemic: Shock and Terror (which RiffTrax is tackling on October 25, by the way) primarily because of their ineptness prevents us from having better discussions about movie “bad-ness”. (I know, I’ve been in plenty of those discussions before.) It’s easy, then, to see why technical incompetence is so often used as the criteria for judging a movie’s “bad-ness”. Those criteria force us to consider such things as an individual’s conscience and convictions, authorial intent, and the point at which the depiction of something becomes its glorification and glamorization, and they can easily lead to a lot of philosophizing and pontificating. The discussion of movie “bad-ness” is a tricky one when you use criteria with a moral/ethical dimension (e.g., levels of sex and violence). But does that make them bad movies? Is there something immoral about them, assaults on good filmmaking techniques notwithstanding? What kind of “bad-ness” are we really talking about here? Many of the movies at the top (or bottom, as the case may be) of these lists are, like Manos: The Hands of Fate, no doubt horribly made and difficult to watch without an MST3K-esque treatment to help ease the pain. So… does Manos: The Hands of Fate really deserve the title of “worst movie of all time”? What does that term even mean? What standards must one reach (or fail to reach) to earn such a title? Scanning through Wikipedia’s page for worst movies ever and IMDb’s “Bottom 100” doesn’t really offer any answers there. There are currently efforts underway to digitally restore and re-release the movie (as “a fascinating bit of 1966 ephemera”) and produce a sequel. ![]() Considering how easy it is these days to make a movie with an iPhone and a YouTube account, that’s got to count for something, right? Indeed, such is its charm that the movie’s cult following only continues to grow. They were so obviously in over their heads and yet - call it “perseverance”, “dedication”, “stubbornness”, or what have you - they went out and made an honest to God movie, darn it. Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, another “worst movie of all time” contender, you end up admiring the filmmakers’ pluck. The dialog is stilted (it doesn’t help that all of the voices were dubbed by six people, including Warren), the framing and blocking wooden, the performances awkward, and the horror - remember, it was supposed to be a horror movie - entirely nonexistent.Īnd yet, a certain awkward charm shines through all of those things. Even when you know about the technical limitations faced by the filmmakers - e.g., their camera could only record 32 seconds of footage at a time, and without sound, natch - there’s a stunning level of ineptness on display here. Yes, Manos: The Hands of Fate certainly deserves a lot of the riffing that it receives. However, in between fits of laughter, I was struck by something during this most recent viewing. Suffice to say, the RiffTrax crew had me and the rest of the audience in stitches throughout the event. As someone who dearly loves MST3K and thinks the Manos episode was one of its finest hours, I was worried as to how RiffTrax‘s take would stack up against my nerd nostalgia. It received another riffing on August 16, 2012, when RiffTrax - an MST3K spin-off - excoriated the movie via live simulcast. ![]() Manos: The Hands of Fate‘s cult status was solidified in 1993 when Mystery Science Theatre 3000 gave it a solid riffing (which you can watch above). (Richard Brandt’s “The Hand That Time Forgot” is a fascinating “behind the scenes” look at the movie.) He wrote a script, raised $19,000, found an old camera, set himself up as director, producer, and leading man, rustled up a cast and crew of locals (including some ladies from a nearby modeling agency), and made Manos: The Hands of Fate, considered by many to be the worst movie of all time. ![]() Warren bet that he could make a horror movie on the cheap. ![]() In 1966, an insurance salesman in El Paso, Texas, named Harold P.
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