With Tim Burton's Ed Wood lending an air of semi-respectability to the infamous director of Plan 9 From Outer Space, long considered the worst film ever made, a pair of new cult favorites are currently vying for the title: Manos: The Hands Of Fate and Troll 2. To your corners, gentlemen. Let's get ready to rumble!
Tale Of The Tape
Manos: The Hands Of Fate (1966)
• Popularized by a classic episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, whose writers lent it further bad-movie legitimacy by calling it the worst film they ever covered. This from a group that witnessed such cinematic atrocities as Monster A Go-Go, Hobgoblins, and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.
• Produced for $19,000 by writer-director-star Hal Warren, a fertilizer salesman from El Paso, Texas.
• Shot on a spring-wound 16mm camera that only allowed a maximum take of 32 seconds in length. This explains the many jarring cuts and continuity errors, which make Manos uncannily resemble a Michael Bay film.
• All of the dialogue was overdubbed in post-production, with most of the voices done by the same two people.
• Introduces the lovable "Torgo," an Igor-like figure with a quavering voice, peculiar knock-kneed gait, and ragged Confederate uniform. He'd also like a wife one day, too, if only his polygamous master would let him.
• Current IMDB rating: 1.8 stars out of 10 (Bottom 100: #26.)
Troll 2 (1990)
• The nominal sequel to the 1986 Gremlins knock-off Troll, even though it was originally titled Goblins and features no trolls or any other connection to the first film.
• Co-written and directed by Claudio Fragasso, an Italian exploitation filmmaker hiding under the nom de crap Drake Floyd.
• Features a dim-witted nuclear family vacationing in a rural outpost called Nilbog, which they're late to discover is "Goblin" spelled backwards. For their next trip, perhaps they'll consider the charming hamlet of Redrum.
• Has been touring as a Rocky Horror Picture Show-type midnight-movie road show, complete with merchandise, guest appearances by the filmmakers, and audience participation.
• Current IMDb rating: 2 stars out of 10 (Bottom 100: #42)
Whenever somebody refers to a movie as the "worst" of anything, I'm naturally inclined to seek it out, because those estranging qualities that put people off are also what make most of them compelling and singular. For example, The Brown Bunny and Southland Tales were both dubbed the worst films ever to screen in the Competition section at Cannes, but like them or not—I'm a defender of the former, and other critics are passionate about the latter—they don't play by the rules. So when publications declare Plan 9 From Outer Space "the worst film ever made," what they really mean is that it's the paragon of so-bad-it's-good turkeys, and thus a treat for bad-cinema aficionados. The real "worst film ever made" isn't anything you would ever want to watch, which is why Wood's enervating Orgy Of The Dead isn't in any danger of wresting the title away from the far superior Plan 9.
With that caveat out of the way, it's clear that a new generation of cultists are looking to champion their own gloriously inept entertainments, with contenders that include Battlefield Earth, Howard The Duck, Mac And Me, From Justin To Kelly, and the complete filmography of German tax-loophole-exploiter Uwe Boll (Alone In The Dark, Bloodrayne). Manos: The Hands Of Fate and Troll 2 may be fairly construed as arbitrary choices, but both films have emerged as ground-up, grassroots cultural phenomena, rather than studio-financed stinkers that have benefited (if that's the word) from wider exposure. When the two stars of America's most popular television show make a bad movie together, everyone knows about it; when a fertilizer salesman from El Paso drops a bomb at a backwater West Texas drive-in, it's much more likely to disappear without a trace.
Though Manos and Troll 2 have nothing to do with each other, consider these eerie coincidences: Both follow a wholesome American family heading off to the countryside for some R&R, each to places that don't exist on any map and definitely haven't been rated by Zagat. Both feature fathers who are Clark Griswald-like in their clueless insistence on forging ahead with the vacation, no matter what strange, ominous signs they confront. And even more remarkable, both road trips begin with the families singing along in a forced chorus of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." So I feel safe in declaring that the official nursery rhyme of bad cinema:
Spanish speakers (and most others, I suspect) will recognize the redundancy in the title Manos: The Hands Of Fate, but I'll offer the translation just in case: Hands: The Hands Of Fate. "Manos" is a deity worshipped by The Master, a mustachioed pagan polygamist who sleeps on a stone slab and has half a dozen bickering zombie wives at this disposal. After a long, long, long driving sequence ("Let's pretend we're watching A Trip To Bountiful," says one MST3K-er), stern family man Michael (played by Warren), his wife Margaret, their young daughter Debbie, and her ill-fated poodle finally see the sign for the Valley Lodge, which is located deep in Leatherface country.
The road to Valley Lodge leads nowhere, literally. Lost travelers don't have the option of, say, turning around and heading straight back to the main road. In fact, during one of several scenes where the local police stop to break up "the necking couple" (more on that later), they all seem perplexed that anyone would head in that direction: "We know this road goes nowhere," one of them says. It was at this moment that I paused briefly to consider the possibility that Manos: The Hands Of Fate is some sort of accidental surrealist/existentialist horror film. Here's a movie that begins with mismatched footage of a family driving east, then west, then east again across the screen, only to wind up stuck on the road of no return. It's like Sartre's No Exit, as staged by a shockingly inept regional theater troupe.
However, any proper conversation about Manos: The Hands Of Fate begins and ends with Torgo, the hitch-stepped bellhop of the damned. Actor John Reynolds, whom the MST3K guys cite for his uncanny resemblance to a Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait, reportedly designed a homemade metal apparatus to get Torgo's movements exactly right. This explains why his legs are disproportionately chunky compared to the rest of his body, and why he often drifts out of the frame like a drunken hobo. (He's also given his own special music cue, so you'll know to be extra-spooked.) Torgo explains, "I take care of the place when the master's away," but it's not much of a place, just a single room with a couch that opens up into two other rooms—one that leads to a bedroom and another that leads… well… I'm still not sure exactly. Outside, I think, or maybe to another dimension.
In any case, it ain't the Valley Lodge. But amusingly enough, Michael treats it like it is, and starts angrily barking orders and insults in Torgo's direction: "Put the luggage back in the car!" "Hey Torgo, where's the damn phone? You know, telephone, like Alexander Graham Bell?" "I'm going to find Torgo. He's got some explaining to do!" All of which made me feel kinda sorry for Torgo, in spite of his creepy overtures in Margaret's direction, like this notorious scene where he tries to seduce her with the ol' shaky-manos love hex:
Setting aside Torgo's social awkwardness—and yes, his somewhat predatory coveting of Michael's wife—we find out soon enough that he's getting abuse from both sides. When the guests aren't complaining about the amenities, they're calling him "a beast," and once we see The Master's harem of beautiful zombie wives, it's clear he isn't sharing with his servant. The beautiful women in modest lingerie are all there to serve The Master and Manos, and the best Torgo can hope for is a little Peeping Tom action before a new victim is enslaved.
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