FORMAT: DVD (REWATCH)
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on August 18th, 2007)
In the mid ‘60s, fertilizer entrepreneur and fledgling filmmaker Hal P. Warren made a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could make a horror movie with less than $20,000. His background in the fertilizer industry is evident because the result is one of the shittiest movies ever made. If it wasn’t for its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000, it would have faded away into obscurity, but thanks to MST3K, Manos now rivals Plan 9 from Outer Space as the best-known bad movie ever made. Like Plan 9, Manos is fascinating to watch for the sheer incompetence both in front of and behind the camera, but unlike Ed Wood’s masterpiece, it’s completely wretched. The only proper way to watch it is on MST3K with Joel and the ‘bots riffing, otherwise, you’ll probably able to stand about ten minutes of it before suffering some sort of breakdown.
Warren stars as Mike, who piles his family into the car and takes them on a vacation. They get lost and drive and drive and drive (the only movie that rivals this one for the largest amount of pointless driving scenes is The Brown Bunny) until they come to a remote lodge ran by the caretaker Torgo (John Reynolds). It would be a tremendous understatement to say that Torgo is one of the most insipid characters ever to grace the silver screen. He speaks in a jittery tone, and his body movements are equally twitchy, a fact compounded by his enormous knees. Mike wants to stay the night, but Torgo warns them that “The Master would not approve”. The Master (Tom Neyman) is collecting a harem filled with women in negligees and has his eye on Mike’s wife for his next bride. Torgo also wants her too and defies the Master and he scolds Torgo by burning his hand off. In the end the Master steals Mike’s woman (and young daughter) and turns him into the new reigning Torgo.
To say this movie is merely bad is being generous. The thesaurus doesn’t even begin to help you comprehend the awfulness that is Manos. The editing is atrocious, the dialogue was badly dubbed (by no more than three actors apparently), there’s visible crew members and film slates, and don’t even get me started on the acting. A pall of unpleasantness hung over this movie long after its release when THREE actors (including Torgo himself) committed suicide shortly after filming. They were the lucky ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment