Its got to be coming up to 15 years since I first sat down and ‘Tail to snout’ watched ‘Manos: the Hands of Fate’ a film quite unlike anything that had come before it, and a film thats infamy proceeds it in almost any and all film discussions.

Yes, ‘Manos’ is widely considered a stinker, a much beloved movie (thanks to the MST3K/Mads/Rifftrax crowd) but a stinker non the less. But, and I dont want to be controversial here, I dont really think its THAT bad…or rather, people who cite it as one of the worst films ever made, I feel are rather overexaggerating it.

I absolutely wont defend this thing as a ‘good’ work, or even really a ‘fun’ work…but as something rather unique and exotic in terms of testing the limits of ‘the rules of cinema’ I find this picture really quite watchable.

The plot? follows a young(ish) family as they head out on a vacation, however they experience car troubles along the way and end up at a rundown house where they’re greeted by a dishevelled and goat-like caretaker by the name of ‘Torgo’ who is VERY reluctant to help or get involved with the family, warning them to leave as soon as possible as ‘The Master would not approve’ before somehow being swept up into letting them stay the night and head out in the morning.

During the night the tone and vibe shifts quite drastically as Torgo corners Margaret (the mother of the family) insisting that the master wishes for her to become his new wife…and what follows is a further 30 minutes of not quite horror, not quite satire, not quite psychological piece, as the family consult the master and his otherworldly realm that houses his many MANY wives…

And you know your in for an interesting time when its easier to describe what the film ISNT than what it actually IS.

The script has a VERY basic plot line underpinned in 3 acts thats pretty clean to follow…How it manouvers through those 3 acts however to GET that basic plot across feels like ‘Concussion cinema’ to me. Scenes just run on and on and the conversations feel like the kind had when your trapped in a motel suite with people you dont really know or like that much 6 pints of beer in. It feels awkward, like the cast are trying to socially navigate the scenario, but not in a naturalistic way that you could reasonably EXPECT a few strangers trying to read the room to feel like. This is awkwardness explicitly BECAUSE whats written in the script only really made sense in the mind of the writer, and he didnt really bother to direct the cast on set all that much.

The pacing and tone are all over the place, it has moments of very dry dated comedy, it gets VERY bleak in places quite quickly, but when thats married up to the BEYOND strange dialogue and the woozy and unsettling pacing, it ends up at times feeling more like a work of AI than something an ACTUAL person paid money to make.

Its a nippy 73 minutes of a movie, but that puts it in the awkward situation where, im not entirely sure whether this thing should have been 10 minutes longer and REALLY, TRUELY given us the detail needed to make the plot a bit more clear and layered (rather than what they’ve ended up doing, which is just throwing everything they’ve got at the screen.) Or whether they should have cut the thing by 20 minutes and TRUELY made it a surrealist art house piece where the basic plot was really all there needed to be.

I also cant quite figure out whether the characters not really having any depth works in the films favour or not either…on the one hand that lack of depth keeps things a little more mysterious and ‘otherworldly’ we never really truely know what ‘The Master’ and ‘Torgos’ FULL mission was here…nor do we really get to know the rest of the cast in any menaingful sense barring the scenes they occupy. Which I think does help give the film a bit more appeal.

But then on the other side, that lack of character depth makes everything feel really shallow and strange. made even STRANGER by the BIZARRE decision to dub all the casts voices over in post because the ‘on set’ audio was unsatisfactory…but to redub ALL the womens performances with a single voice actress who doesnt even TRY to differentiate voices…It really doesnt do the film any favours…

On the direction front, everything is gently out of focus, the colour schemes are either overly vibrant and heavily lit (due to the exposure rating on the cameras being very VERY dark) or pitch black. shot setups had to be ‘guessed’ at because the cameras used only had VERY rudamentary viewfinders. its clear there was some creative vision behind how this film should have looked and behaved. But given this was the directors first feature film outing, and that he did it really just because he ‘could’ rather than having any kind of burning drive to make something specific. Its unsurprsing that sequences here are undisciplined, experimental and often badly framed.

When Harold P. Warren had a shot in mind, he CLEARLY had a vision in hand…but if he didnt, well…the assumption based on the extras is that the DOP was just given free reign to ‘fill in the gaps’ on the script.

It also became apparent from the extra features on the ‘Manos’ bluray that the cast were chronically left in the dark in terms of how to perform. Harold didnt direct them or give them any advice. I assume either because he didnt know he had to, or if he did, he decided to leave it up to the cast to communicate their interpretation…this simultaineouly worked in the films favour AND backfired spectacularly…as I feel, had their been a more seasoned director at the healm, we’d have never got to see ‘Torgo’ as a character in all his strange and unusual glory, and the awkward stiltedness that has really helped cement the films infamy probably would have been a smoother experience. So I guess shoddy direction actually kind of saved this one.

As mentioned the cine is hit and miss, when it hits (I.E a cleanly composed shot thats massively overlit and full of rich vibrant colour) I absolutely fall in love with it, it feels like an absurdist piece in those moments…when it ISNT that (which is the majority of the film) its blurry, smeary and beige up to the elbows. Your milage almost certainly may vary. But I think if you have a keen eye for visuals, there are at least half a dozen shots in this thing that may effect you in a profound way.

In terms of the editing?..Well, again we go to the special features of the ‘Manos’ bluray, where they described the editing process as ‘Three drunk guys hashing it out over a weekend’…THAT, is EXACTLY how it feels to watch, cuts are inconsistent, badly timed, they use way too many fade ups and downs to and from black when it isnt needed, splices are badly made, there is noticable print damage that was dubbed into the master copies of the film during the edit process…its a mess, effective in places when combined with everything i’ve said above…but a mess.

Performance wise, the core cast had little to no guidence, The actor playing Torgo was on drugs for most of the shooting period and comitted suicide a couple of weeks before the premiere. Its a real mixed bag. Probably the best performances in this are Tom Neyman as ‘The Master’ bringing a genuinely commanding performance to the role, he really had an animated presence here, and while I do think he didnt *quite* nail enough menace for ‘adult horror’ here? I think he’d have been an amazing kids tv and film villain.

John Reynolds as Torgo is as iconic a performance as the riffer would have you believe, he was a method actor, which meant ACTUALLY huritng himself with prosthetics in his knees and shoes to help him hobble for most of the runtime. while he may not give the best performance of the film, he’s almost certainly the most memorable with some amazing physical turns here, and dialogue deliveries that range from unsettling to hilarious.

The rest of the cast…im gonna be honest, are a little dull. They all have their own moments to shine…but when you’ve got performances from ‘Torgo’ and ‘The Master’ to compete with, it’ll always seem a little less thrilling.

Score wise? its weird. a hybrid of chilling piano pieces, and music that sounds like it belongs in a nudist camp movie. some of this suits the film, some of it REALLY doesnt…but I cant really imagine the film without it.

‘Manos: The Hands of Fate’ is not a good film. it struggles on a technical level, the lack of coherent direction is palpable, the perforamances beyond notable exception leave a lot to be desired and the score is unusual. But it does have some upsides, with a script that is really truely ‘unique’ for the time, some BIZARRE and mesmorising performances, choice cine and directional turns when everything lined up properly, and ultimately we did get arguably one of the best ‘MST3K’ episodes out of the deal as well…

I can absolutely understand why folks love AND loath ‘Manos’ for me? I think I may stick to a ‘riffed’ version in future…but seeing it unriffed from time to time DOES make me appreciate the few times it actually does go above expectations. i’d say this was worth catching at least once.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/manos-the-hands-of-fate/1/