Manos: The Hands of Fate: 31 Days of Horror
For all of October, we will review horror films. Submit your requests here, and you may see your picks selected!
So, here’s a little story. Harold P. Warren was a businessman who liked to take part in the local theatre scene of El Paso, Texas. He had a walk on role or two, and then stumbled upon Stirling Silliphant, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay of In the Heat of the Night. So, Silliphant wasn’t a scrub by any stretch of the imagination. Still, Warren bet a professional screenwriter to his face that anyone could make a horror film; naturally, it may have seemed that way with the low budget B pictures that get lambasted on the regular. The dare was on, and Warren assumed his business acumen meant he could just parlay his way into making a good feature. Quickly, on set, his reputation dropped catastrophically with cast and crew, who were all aware that he had no idea what he was doing. Manos: The Hands of Fate was called Manos: The Cans of Fruit. By the film’s own team.
Manos: The Hands of Fate was almost like The Room of the ‘60s, but without any of the accidental charm or prolonged hilarity. Some moments can warrant a laugh because of their awfulness (I personally adore the painting below, which is meant to look intimidating but instead feels goofy), but the entire feature is excruciating to watch (this is an especially fantastic achievement, given that the film is only an hour and ten minutes long). Like The Room, Manos is one of those features where virtually everything in it is bad, down to the editing that contains poor splicing, scenes that hop from daytime to nighttime, and other fundamental gaffs that can only be made by someone who has zero concept about how films are made.
Mistakes here and there are common; no film is perfect. In Manos, the entire film is a parade of mistakes; repeated lines by cast, credits being neglected to be placed on top of opening footage left in for credits, abysmal pacing due to atrocious editing, and countless other abnormalities. There are filmmakers that break the rules on purpose. Warren didn’t even know there were rules. He wasn’t aware of the rulebook. He misplaced the library that contained the book. He wound up in the nearby Dave & Buster’s instead, and thought he figured it all out both at the bar and the arcade machines. That is how bad Manos is.
The film freezes on this picture for lengthy periods of time, and it’s honestly the silliest face to have to stare at.
I could go on about the nonsensical story about how The Master preys on unsuspecting victims lured to be his next spiritual and sexual sacrifices, but the boring, lopsided story is barely even worth talking about. In most films, the story or purpose is the focal point of the entire feature. Here, it’s almost like a footnote because prioritizing a story that barely makes any sense or is interesting is missing the point of watching this film. The truth is, Warren had zero idea how to make a horror film. None of it is scary. None of it is engaging. None of it is mysterious. Instead, Manos is painful, hysterical, and an enigma that no one wants to solve. There have been high school projects — not even film class related, but movie projects for maybe drama, history or something else — that have been better than this. Family recording outtakes, where another take had to be made before being posted or sent out, have been more entertaining than Manos. The main source of horror here is watching this garbage at all.
And so, because the film itself is so vapid that it implodes by its own emptiness, the mythology surrounding Manos is greater than the film in every single way. The bet that Warren clearly lost. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that resurrected this film. The unfortunate connections to this film, including the suicide of actor John Reynolds before the release of this film, amongst other woes. Unlike The Room, which feels pleasant to carry on to loved ones to share, or other terrible films like Trolls 2 or Plan 9 From Outer Space, there is absolutely no reward in Manos, mainly because people like Tommy Wiseau and Ed Wood love films and tried their delusional bests with zero resources or funds (also they weren’t great to begin with). Harold P. Warren felt like he came from a place of malice; anyone could make horror films. Clearly not, Warren. Clearly not. Manos: The Hands of Fate is not a horror, and it’s barely even a film.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.