Bad Movie Month #27: Manos: The Hands of Fate

Lavese las manos, por favor.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Directed by: Harold P. Warren
Produced by: Harold P. Warren
Written by: Harold P. Warren
Budget: $19,000 (roughly $139,000 in 2015, according to US Department of Labor)

Starring: Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree, Jackie Neyman, Tom Neyman, John Reynolds

Michael (Warren), his wife Margaret (Mahree), and their daughter, Debbie (Neyman) are on a family vacation in Texas when Michael gets lost on the desert roads. They stumble across a lodge owned by the mysterious Master and his multiple wives, who are some sort of pagan cult that sacrifices people to a hand or something.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is the Casablanca to Plan 9 From Outer Space's Citizen Kane. Released around the same era, with roughly the same quality, the pair of them form a perfect storm of disastrously hilarious camp. This is the result of a movie which started as a bet and was plagued with production issues throughout. After whipping up $19,000 and promising the cast and crew a cut of the profits (because he couldn't pay them a wage), Warren spent a summer creating this cinematic masterpiece.

This is going to be fairly brief, simply because this is a movie I think everyone should watch once. It's pretty much impossible to divide this into good or bad, so let's just start.

The so Manos it's Manos
The first thing you'll notice about the movie is that it starts with a fade-in and several seconds of crackling microphone feedback. The audio quality will stay consistent throughout, with the regular hiss of poor pickup. This is interesting, considering every sound effect and line of dialogue was dubbed back in during post-production. This is particularly noticeable when the words coming from the speakers don't actually sync to the actor's delivery.

The second thing you might notice is that the acting is hilarious, even if you haven't noticed the dubbing issues (I doubt that's the case though). Problems stemming from the size of the sound stage and lighting setup meant that actors had very little space they could move around in. When characters have to run somewhere we see them take a step or two, then fade to a shot of them in the new location. When Michael and Margaret are frantically searching for their daughter they stand outside the front door, stock-still, shouting and waving their flashlight around.

Certain scenes look like they're from a silent-era film. The lighting used during various outside shots created what looks like an unintentional iris shot, and when combined with the lack of color it looks like something spliced in from Birth of a Nation. In addition the lights apparently attracted moths, which are clearly visible flying into and out of the camera's view. There are constant cuts to a couple making out in a car who continuously get told off by police, and nothing ever comes from it. There are multiple different shots of the Master's wives fighting each other, seemingly without any stop. At one point the movie cuts away from the fighting, we have a full length conversation, and it goes back to the wives who are still fighting. This occurs multiple times.

The score is a mix of piano and...clarinet? Whatever it is also sounds like a leftover from the silent film era, so much so that I constantly expected title cards to pop up and tell me what everyone was saying.

Apparently there weren't enough profits to compensate anyone except Neyman and her dog, who received a bicycle and dog food, respectively.

The Rest
For some bizarre reason there was a video game adaptation released in 2012 which featured retro-style graphics and sound design. It got mixed reviews, which is far better than I would have expected. Luckily there hasn't been an attempt at a remake, but I feel like it's only a matter of time before someone who misunderstands why it's entertaining will try and produce it.

Maybe it would work as a stage musical.

Should You Watch It?
Yes. Words can't quite sum up just how off-kilter this movie is.