This review is brought to you by Mystery Theater 3000 in that in one episode they actually skewered Manos: The Hands of Fate. The fact that the show's main badguy, Dr. Forrester
and his sidekick Frank had to apologize for forcing the show's merry band of bad movie mockers to watch this movie does not even begin to cover how awful and terrible Manos really is. This is a film that reportedly caused one of its stars-the man who played Torgo-to commit suicide after watching the final product in a theater. Whether or not that is actually true remains sort of irrelevant aside from using that story as just further proof about the terribleness of Manos. Somehow I have viewed this movie twice and emerged with my sanity intact, although I would not recommend viewing Manos outside of the MSTK format.
Seriously for your own mental safety, stay away from this film: it might just give you brain damage. Existing more so as an inanimate object than as an actual movie that was made by people (I still believe this film was actually created by aliens from another dimension), Manos: Hands of Fate doesn't really unfold. There is not a truly coherent narrative or story line here: random things happen, people react to them in the movie, and eventually the end credits roll, thankfully. Apparently there was something about how Manos is "The Master" that this weird creepy goat man named Torgo won't shut up about, and yet for being the title character he doesn't even show up until much later in the movie. This is the completely stupid and god awful horror movie equivalent of Apocalypse Now, only in that film having Kurz only show up near the end resulted in more greatness, and didn't result in me wanting to drink myself into a stupor to forget that I ever watched Manos in the first place.
Some say that bashing or teeing off on a bad movie is fun, and that is usually true. However Manos is the worst movie I have ever seen, and thus I ended up using this entire review to tell you to stay away from the movie and not even give it a chance. You know how when a reviewer or critic completely tears a movie apart and this results in you wanting to see this movie out of a rather weird sense of curiosity that should be ignored? Well, if you see Manos: The Hands of Fate sans MSTK commentary and you realize how wretched this film truly is, you will not be able to say I didn't warn you. Manos deserves a special place in the "0 Stars" Hall of Fame, and if every print was burned tomorrow I wouldn't even shed one tear. 0 for the movie, 95 for the MSTK commentary
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