424 – “Manos”: The Hands of Fate With Short: Hired Part II
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Things I liked in the movie:
Torgo’s knees.
The wives fighting.
The dialogue between Torgo and the wife.
Impressions
Short
This is a fifties-era instructional video for Chevrolet sales managers. It’s hard to believe that car makers relied on door-to-door salesmen, but apparently that’s how it was. This sequel starts off with Dad reminding the sales manager how bad he was when he started out. Dad tells him to train his staff instead of complaining. He becomes the ideal manager after that. The end is a preachy bit of advice on being a good sales manager. The riffs are pretty lame. This wasn’t funny at all. Bad start. This bundle is very similar to Robot Monster in the sense that the short was lame, but the movie is good. I recommend skipping the short.
Movie
I know I’ve said this before, but this really is the worst movie ever. I don’t know. I guess I haven’t seen Anus McGillicutty or From Justin to Kelly, nor all the horrible stuff made by Troma Entertainment. And somewhere out there I’m sure someone with a video camera has made something worse, but this is a really, really bad movie. I did some reading about how it was made, which explains some of the badness. The director was a fertilizer salesman (figuratively and literally). He decided on a lark to make a movie. He couldn’t pay the actors, so a lot of them quit. He could only film 32 seconds at a time with the camera he had and had to wind film by hand. There was virtually no editing. Even the title is a sloppy bilingual repeat, since manos is hands in Spanish. Almost none of the action has any correlation with any other action in the movie. And that’s assuming you’ll agree to call anything that happens “action.” The movie is only 72 minutes long, but the first quarter of that is looking out the window of a moving car! OK, that’s a mild exaggeration, but it felt that way. One of the most extraordinary parts of the movie is the keeper of the lodge, Torgo, who is now a legend in Mistiedom. He is supposed to be a satyr, but you really just think he’s a crippled guy who stuffed his pants with newspaper. He talks funny. He’s creepy. He seems to have ADHD and Turret’s. He twitches constantly and blurts out overly angry-sounding bits of information like, “I take care of the place when The Master is away!” He fondles the guests and then apologizes. He peeps. And he dresses poorly.
Synopsis
Short – Hired! Part II
This is actually a sequel to a short called Hired! That short is paired with Bride of the Monster (423). If you want to have the continuity of watching both parts in order, you know where to find it. Otherwise, I’d spend the 15 minutes on something more useful, like making submissions to Letterman’s top ten contest.
Movie – “Manos”:
The Hands of Fate
As the movie starts we see a family headed into the desert for a vacation. They miss a turn and end up driving to a strange house in the middle of nowhere. They are greeted by a weird, deformed, angry, twitchy guy named Torgo who tries his best to discourage them from staying. In spite of the fact that the house looks like a dump and Torgo is downright frightening, the dad, Mike, (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jack Klugman) insists repeatedly that they stay until Torgo finally lets them come in. The house is filled with frightening art. Torgo tells them The Master is “not dead in the way you know it” and “he’s always with us.” Yet the father insists that they stay. Moments later, their poodle is killed, which makes them want to leave.
Of course, the car won’t start. While Mike is clumsily trying to get it to start, inside the house, Torgo announces that The Master wants to marry the mother and creepily fondles her shoulder and hair. He tells her The Master wants her but he can’t have her because he (Torgo) wants her. She puts up with this for about a minute, awkwardly looking around or having no expression at all. After a while, she screams for her husband, Mike. Mike can’t hear so she has to talk to Torgo for a while. Torgo apologizes and she just lets him off the hook.
Mike comes in and he and his wife repeat some inane lines a few times while looking away from their daughter, Debbie. During this moment of inattention, Debbie gets bored and wanders off. (I should add that up to this point, Debbie has been sitting on a dirty couch for what appears to be several hours, her dog has been killed, and her parents ignore everything she says.) They look for her ineffectively for a while and don’t find her. After 2 or 3 minutes, Debbie shows up with the hellhound they saw earlier in The Master’s portrait. The hellhound runs away. Debbie takes her parents to where she found the hellhound. It’s in a room filled with women in nightgowns standing around asleep and The Master lying on a slab. They leave.
Torgo goes into the same room after they leave and tells the comatose Master that “She’s mine! You have plenty of wives.” Torgo seems to be planning a betrayal. He molests one of the comatose women. The husband, Mike, runs around in the desert for reasons I can’t remember. Torgo spies on his wife as she undresses. Torgo, who can barely walk in normal circumstances, sprints across a field and clubs the husband unconscious in one blow on the back. He ties him to a pole accompanied by some awful sax music. This appears to be Torgo’s attempt to get the wife for himself.
The Master wakes up from his slumber and awakens his wives. The wives fight over whether to kill the child or let her live because she’s a female. You get the idea that their general M.O. is to attract a couple, kill the husband, and make the wife marry The Master and become one of them. During this discussion, the Master goes looking for Torgo to punish him for bringing a child come into the house. The wives get into a major cat-brawl while the Master is out of the room. At the same time, The Master punishes Torgo by crowding him uncomfortably and threatening to kill him. Eventually, he wanders off and leaves Torgo to whimper. I have to say, the attempts to execute Torgo in this movie are quite ineffectual.
While The Master is harassing Torgo and the other women are fighting, one of the wives goes out in the desert and finds the husband tied up. She kisses his unconscious face and then slaps him. She returns to the fight in the garage/desert and joins in. The Master returns to the room, breaks up the fight and starts a fire. He blames the original (and oldest) wife of causing the trouble and declares that they will sacrifice her. They “sacrifice” Torgo by having two wives give him a pink belly. They push on his belly and poke at him until he dies.
Mike, the husband, wakes up and finds himself tied to the pole. He simply gets up and walks into the house. Torgo apparently dies from the pink belly while The Master gets what appears to be sexual pleasure from watching it. After he is dead, The Master summons him to a standing position and sticks Torgo’s dead hand in the fire. Suddenly Torgo runs away while The Master holds his charred, severed hand in the air and laughs.
The family runs away into the desert. Mom falls down. They rest for a minute. Mike shoots a snake. They go back to the house. Mike shoots The Master in the face but it doesn’t affect him.
The movie ends when a couple of women take a wrong turn and end up at the old Manos place. Now Mike is the doorman and his wife and daughter are “wives” of The Master.
Host Segments
Prologue: Joel has installed protocol modules that make the ‘bots overly ingratiating. He removes them and they become angry and sarcastic again. Dr. F and Frank on the ground have invented the chocolate bunny guillotine. Joel has invented “The Cartuner” which combines bad comic strips and makes funny ones. The movie today is so bad, the average person has never conceived of the horror. Dr. F uses a lot of air quotes in mockery of the title of the movie.
Second: Joel and the ‘bots pretend to be on a ride. In the background, Joel is showing footage of the drive in Manos. They all talk in Midwestern accents. They get pulled over by a hick cop (Gypsy). Crow keeps crying because he can’t stand Manos. Joel suggests that Monster-A-Go-Go is worse. Frank calls while Dr. F is in the shower. He feels guilty about sending them such a bad movie. He admits that they went too far this time.
Third: Joel massages Crow’s shoulders. They debate over whether Torgo is a monster. Yep, he has large knees. That makes him a monster. They suggest other funny monstrous deformities.
Fourth: Tom Servo is reading Modern Bride. Joel comes in wearing a cape almost identical to The Master’s except instead of giant red hands, it has giant red feet. Tom says, “Hi, Joel. You look like Maude.” Joel explains he has a hellbeast—Crow dressed up. Tom says, “You look like Maude with a hellbeast.” The ‘Bots explain that Joel isn’t evil enough. Dr. F calls to apologize for the badness of the movie.
Final: The ‘Bots re-enact the lady wrestling. Frank and Dr. F have ordered from Torgo’s Pizza. Mike Nelson plays Torgo and is slow and edgy. He fondles Frank’s forehead. The Torgo music plays through the MST3K credits.
Stinger: The make-out girl yelling at the cops, “Why don’t you guys leave us alone?”
Funny Riffs
None
The daughter is sitting in the back seat of the convertible. She complains of being cold. She moves up front between the parents to get warm.
Crow as dad: What do you want? A hug next?
The title on the screen includes quotation marks: “Manos”
Joel holds up his fingers to make air quotes.
Joel: “Manos.” You know . . . “Manos.”
The police pull the family over.
Uh, sorry, bud. You’re not filming Manos: The Hands of Fate in our town.
The first person view of the rear view mirror shows the driver’s forehead.
Tom: Gotta keep an eye on my widow’s peak in the mirror, there.
Torgo limps painfully towards the car after saying he’ll get the luggage. His knees are huge, obviously stuffed with something.
Joel: That’s not how you wear your Depends, Torgo.
Whenever Torgo appears, a strange, four-note repetitive tune is played. It sounds like the music normally used when the camera looks at a clock and the hands move quickly to show how many hours have passed since the last scene.
Crow: The haunting Torgo theme.
After the daughter, Debbie, disappears from the tiny room they’ve spent the last 4 hours in, the parents start to look for her.
Mom opens a door about 6 inches and looks for approximately .5 seconds. She closes the door again and moves on.
Crow: After a thorough search of the first room . . .
Mom: Debbie, don’t you ever run away from us.
Tom as Mom: And don’t consort with the Devil!
The Master wakes up from his sleep. He grabs the dog’s leash.
Crow as Master: Doggy go walkies? Is that a good doggie? Yes. Good hellbeast.
The cops break up the make-out couple for a second time and tell them to “git.”
Tom Servo: The loooove vigilantes.
Master: Arise my, wives, and hear the will of Manos!
After a moment, the movie cuts to The Master looking grumpy as his wives talk loudly.
Crow as Master: What was I thinking?!
Joel: You know this scene is strong enough for a manos, but made for a womanos . . . of fate.
The scene is five of the six wives of Manos fighting in the sand. Mostly it’s pairs of one-on-one wrestling.
Tom Servo: And now the Manos Women’s Guild will re-enact the Battle of Pearl Harbor.
During the lady brawl:
Tom Servo: I’m guessing this is the whole reason this film was made. Right here.
One of the wives runs out in the desert and discovers the husband tied to a stake.
Crow as woman: Hey! Who planted a man?
After the Manos-wife finds the husband tied to the stake, she kisses his face for a minute. Suddenly she stops and slaps him about 5 times.
Tom as woman: Don’t you ever try that again, ever!
Joel: It was a brief affair. And it ended bitterly.
The Master looks very severe. Then he extends his arm and points dramatically.
Tom as Master in a very dramatic and evil voice: Pull my finger!
Tom: You know, there are certain flaws in this film.
After Mike, the husband, shoots at some stock footage of a snake, the snake leaves.
Joel (dramatically): He tampered in God’s domain.
A car is driving down the road similar to the beginning.
Tom Servo: Wait a minute. Did this movie just lap itself?
During the credits:
Joel: Everyone pick out someone you want to punch.