How To Watch
"It's Shocking"
"It's Beyond Your Imagination"
—The Manos The Hands of Fate tagline
"I aM TORgo. I Take CARe oF THe pLaCE whILE the MASTer is awAY."
"So, you know, there are certain flaws in this film."
-Crow T. Robot
1966 horror film about a young couple, Mike and Margaret, their daughter Debbie, and her poodle, Peppy. The four of them go on a nice family vacation, and the audience is treated to an extended, uncut, driving sequence with very little dialogue. They can't find the way to Valley Lodge, so decide to spend the night in a
Haunted House. Can you feel the horror?
The caretaker of the house, Torgo, speAks VeRY OdDly, has extremely bulgy legs (he was meant to be a satyr), and continuously refers to someone called "
The Master". It turns out that the Master is the evil undead (or something) leader of a cult dedicated to a dark god (or is it a goddess?) named Manos. He and his wives live in suspended animation at a little chapel out in the desert. They decide to kill the intruders, but Torgo wants to keep Margaret alive so she can be his wife. The Master wants to keep Margaret alive so she can be his seventh wife. His wives want to kill Margaret and Mike, but are unwilling to kill Debbie, so they have an extended, uncut
Cat Fight to decide. Also, the Master's dog eats Peppy.
Torgo announces his intention to do a
Heel Face Turn, so The Master holds his hand in a fire until it comes off, and Torgo flees off into the night. Mike tries to shoot The Master, but he's apparently
Immune To Bullets. The car
won't start. The wives fight. All of this is done while cameras go in and out of focus, actors stare at the camera, people forget their lines, comic relief is botched, and inappropriate music is played throughout.
The final scene involves
two college girls who come to the house, asking for directions. Mike answers the door, announcing "I am Michael. I take care of the place while The Master is away." And then we see that The Master has two new wives, Margaret and Debbie. "THE END?" The credits fade in with
an out-of-place vocal jazz number.
This film is best known for its appearance on
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Its creator prophetically suggested that it could be redubbed into a comedy). Conversely, it's widely considered one of the funniest episodes of
MST 3 K. It is often considered, as is probably evident from the above synopsis, the Worst Film Ever Made, but has achieved some cult popularity. It was directed by Hal P. Warren, starred Hal P. Warren, and written by Hal P. Warren. Despite his previous experience as a fertilizer salesman, he was unable to make any money off this sack of crap.
The crew at Best Brains actually considered NOT riffing on this because they thought
Manos at first was too strange to riff on. They eventually came to the conclusion that the world MUST know about this movie.
The rest, they say is history.
Also see
Plan Nine From Outer Space. Seriously, see both of them. They're hilarious. Or, preferably, see the
MST 3 K version of Manos and watch Plan Nine with a
RiffTrax. But you can also watch Manos in its original form
here
...
if you dare.
Provides examples of:
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation has examples of:
