Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast, the only podcast that dares to ask the question, this movie so bad. Why do you like it so much? We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson. With me, I have my lovely wife, Anna Anderson. Hello. And unfortunately we do not have Greg Bossi with us this week. He could not get out of work, but we do have a very special guest. You might know him as an author, as a poet, as a prolific poster, but I know him as Briar Ripley Page. Hi.
Speaker: Hello, thank you for coming on, Briar. Hi. Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm glad to be here. And you chose our movie this week, the classic, often described by many as the worst movie ever made, Manos the Hands of Fate. Yes, I did. And I really don't think it deserves the title of worst movie ever made. I think once again, we are in consensus with our guest on that one. This movie is nowhere near as bad as this reputation would have you believe. Not that it's good or anything. Right. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Certainly not. But it's certainly not like I've definitely watched worse movies than this. Yeah. Oh, yes. Something going. on here
Speaker: There are there are a few competent elements or at least elements that could have been competent in another context, I think. Interesting elements, perhaps. Yeah, yeah that's a good way of putting it. Now, for any listeners who have not seen Manos the Hands of Fate, or perhaps a few struggled to follow Manos the Hands of Fate, a brief summary to hold in your mind ah is a family of three gets lost in the desert outside of El Paso and are forced to stay overnight at a remote compound belonging to a mysterious cult worshiping a dark god called Manos. Fair enough.
Speaker: you Yeah. pretty close Yeah. That's what happens in the movie. That is if once again, if I were writing the TV guide to sentence description that appeared in that little block in the schedule, that's what I would write. ah Now, what's your history with Manos Briar? Well, ah the first time I saw this or the first version of it I saw was on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which was ah so when I was about, I want to say like 14, maybe sometime in 2004, my local rental video place went out of business because it was 2004. Yeah. And it wasn't a blockbuster. It was like this very cool, you know,
Speaker: um small place that I don't think ever had more than you know the one location. um and they They were selling off all of their video stock, just super cheap. and so yeah That was the best. Yeah. yeah so i just I went by, I picked up a bunch of like random VHS tapes, most of which I don't remember, but a couple of them were like, uh it you know little collections of like mystery science theater 3000 episodes i want to say there was like three per tape um and uh again it was 2004 and my parents had had this vhs player but i sort of inherited it and got to take it into my bedroom so Um, it had like a little screen attached so I could watch things as long as they were on VHS, uh, you know, right at a time when VHS tapes had suddenly become completely obsolete. Um, anyway, I watched these tapes a lot, but my favorite was, uh, the manos, the hands of fate episode. They were all a Joel era episodes. So that's sort of what I imprinted on personally. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a Joel head myself. Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, and ah so i I liked it a lot that way. um It never occurred to me to just try and watch the ah the movie without robot commentary until several years later. I think I was a little afraid that it would just be kind of excruciatingly dull and i dismal without it. And it it is a little excruciating in places, but it in a way, I was surprised by how, you know, without that commentary, because it's not just that it's. Like I say, a little bit slow paced. ah It's amazing how slow this hour long movie can feel. Yeah, not a lot happens in this movie.
Speaker: They really there there are a lot of scenes of Torgo just carrying luggage from location to location. There's a lot of just footage of people idly standing. Yep. But anyway, it it wasn't just for that reason that it was a little excruciating. It also has. ah like like very terrible foreboding vibes in a way that that actually does kind of align with its goals as a horror movie, I feel. I think the sources of those vibes are mostly accidental. ah Fair enough. and And the result of
Speaker: a very limited budget, and in the case of the character of Torgo, an actor who was ah drunk and high on acid for all of filming, but even so, there's just this really off -putting um ah kind of sleazy sensibility to it that that sort of gripped me um and and made me think like, you know, I think there's perhaps a little bit more to this film than just aye it's bad enough to make fun of.
Speaker: I think so. I think so. My story to that would have been very similar. I was an MST 3K guy. And I'm sure I saw it on Comedy Central at some point when I was in high school. And I'm sure I it was always one of my favorites. I would put it in probably my favorite episode and all time classic. Uh, and never engaged with it, uh, in a genuine direct sense until this watch through. So but it was very interesting to see as I watched it, how much I could like every now and then I'd be like, that's where they said that. Oh, that's, that's where Crow said this, you know? Uh, so I, I, it's a shame that I almost can't see it without that veil over it, you know?
Speaker: What about you, Anna? What's your history with Manos? oh well i Yeah, I encountered it it the same way. um i watch I watched Mystery Science Theater mostly with ah my brother, who I think is about your age, Brian. um and I actually still have a lot, a bunch of just like burned DVDs. of, you know, because he had downloaded a bunch of ah episodes. um And and so but so I have seen it, but this is actually one that I haven't seen as many times as a lot of the ones I've seen. um I can't, yeah, I couldn't tell you why. I think maybe the maybe the Joel ones weren't as um
Speaker: weren't as available at the time that I was watching them or whatever, but, uh, yeah. So I'm listening at once, maybe twice. Well, with our personal history out of the way, it's probably time for me to do a transition. Do you know, guys, I'm really good at transitions. for right now I'm transitioning to our context. so you can It was so smooth. it was This is why I'm the best in the biz. I don't know very much about transitioning, so you'll have to walk me through that sometimes. Don't worry, I'm here to demonstrate. For instance, now I will transition to the context section by playing the context bumper.
Speaker: I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Street director actors on set. What was going on on screen? I wanna hear some details, cause I'm scared of all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
Speaker: So Manos the Hands of Fate came out in 1966 and I want to say up top, this is going to be ah a relatively brief primer on Manos compared to what you can find out there. This film has a very large cult following and has been studied pretty extensively. So I'm going to try and just hit the big bullet points. But if this is something you're interested in and want to learn more about, there's more out there for sure. So it was written, directed and produced by Harold Hal Warren. Hal Warren was an insurance and or fertilizer salesman, depending at who you ask at this point in his life and career. And he was living in El Paso, Texas. But more importantly, he was an actor working in the local community theater scene. Who doesn't love a community theater guy? Like your dad. Yeah, you love to see a guy like that succeed.
Speaker: Uh, he did once land a walk -on role in the TV show Route 66, which he, which he parlayed into an acquaintance with series creator slash writer, Sterling Siliphant. What a handle, huh? Yeah. Sounds like a cartoon elephant. Yeah, yeah, Silophant is pretty solidly in the silly elephant zone. He won Oscars though, right? He did. He wrote In the Heat of the Night? Yes. And he also wrote the Poseidon Adventure, Shaft in Africa, the Towering Inferno, and the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling vehicle Over the Top. Oh, wow.
Speaker: So Warren and Siliphant were having coffee, and Warren insists that it would be very easy to make a horror movie. For me, this would be easy. I could just do it if I wanted to. And he insists that he could do it himself. ah And if Siliphant, who had considerably more experience in filmmaking, bets him that you probably can't do that. I don't think you could. You're just some guy. You don't know what you're doing. This is actually quite complicated. Hal Warren takes that bet and starts working on the movie right there, writing down the basic outline of the plot on a napkin in the cafe. He self -financed the movie with $19 ,000. Fertilizer must have really been booming back then, which is just shy of $200 ,000 in today's money. So Fertilizer was really booming back then. Yeah. He was, you know, he was a sales guy, you know, he was out, he was probably like a regional guy, you know,
Speaker: I mean, I feel like that'd still be, I don't know where the cutoff, I know there's a cutoff between that underneath which it's micro cinema, but yeah I think that's still I would still classify this as an independently produced. Yeah. I mean, Wikipedia ah seems to categorize it as a no budget movie. And I wouldn't say that's no budget, but it is a low budget for, yeah you know, feature film. You do kind of wonder now that I see that figure where all that money went, especially considering the fact that he did not pay any members of the cast or crew.
Speaker: Uh, promising them instead a percentage of the profits, uh, which never came, uh, partially because, uh, the film fell into the public domain due to his failure to properly copyright it. However, uh, the little girl received a bicycle and the Doberman received a 50 pound sack of dog food. But not the poodle, just the no the poodle. and I believe the poodle was the director's dog. So I guess he got room and board. OK, fair enough. Let's see. It was also, yeah, not properly copy written. Let's see. Oh, ah he did hire ah the cast mostly from local theater actors and from a local modeling school slash agency called Mannequin Manor.
Speaker: oh stick with mannequin manor ladies, they'll get you in manos. This is very alliterative sentiment. ah Now, the film premiered. Oh, no, hang on. I'm jumping ahead. I haven't even talked about my filming knowledge. The film was shot on a hand wound 16 millimeter camera. So the kind of thing you'd have to crank and then you'd hold the button and it would sort of unspool to roll out the film. The kind of thing that my My grandfather had it as a home movie camera, so I'm surprised this is the kind of thing he had to rent, but apparently he did. ah But it also makes it mechanically impossible for it to shoot any take longer than 32 seconds. So that sort of limits you creatively, but not that as much. It does explain some things about this movie. Yeah, yeah it really does.
Speaker: I think, frankly, if he didn't have that, the takes would probably have been a lot longer. I feel like im going to just the camera there and i know it's true. Like we've seen how slow paced the movie is in its current form. I'm not sure yeah it doesn't need lower monitor take how much slower it could have been. Yeah. and And honestly, yeah, he was doing as little work as possible. I'm sure if he could just done it like one camera take for each scene, that's what he would have done. um Let's see. They also didn't record any onset sync sound, ah but instead recorded all sound and dialogue in post -production using a much smaller cast, including ah there was just one woman that voiced all the women and also the little girl.
Speaker: ah I mean, you can really tell. yeah Yeah, that is sort of why all their performances seem very similar. I mean, not that they're written very differently, but still the film premiered at the Capri theater in El Paso on November 15th, 1966, with the profits from that screening going to a local cerebral palsy fund. So that's nice. Yeah. Uh, Warren hired a limousine to bring the cast to the premiere, but he only hired one. So he had to have everybody hang out on the other side of the block and the limousine took turns bringing groups up to the theater deficiency. Well,
Speaker: No, it's not efficiency, it's economy. Yes. That's a way to stretch a budget. That's thinking like an independent filmmaker. It was distributed by Emerson Film Enterprises to a few drive -ins in West Texas and New Mexico. Can only imagine the fun of seeing this at the drive -in. From there it fell into the hands of the public domain film distributors who would try to make money selling decent prints to TV stations, trying to fill holes in their schedule. ah In 1992, Frank Conniff of Mystery Science Cedar 3000 was looking for movies. And he found this in a package of public domain films from just such a distributor that had sent them on to Comedy Central. And from there, it sort of exploded into the modern consciousness. There have been ah two attempted either sequels or reboots that may have been partially completed, or actually completed through and
Speaker: I'm not going to watch those. That's fine. No. ah Just to put a thing in its place, other horror films of 1966, you've got Dracula, Prince of Darkness, starring Christopher Lee as Dracula. Oh, you got Kill Baby Kill, Rasputin, the Mad Monk, John Frankenheimer's Seconds. Ooh, that one was great. Yeah, yeah, really solid. ah The diabolical Dr. Z. And of course, one of only two films ever made in Esperanto, Incubus. Really? One of the only two films ever made in Esperanto is a horror movie. Yes. And it stars William Shatner. Oh, wow. i I did not know that. I feel like, I mean,
Speaker: horror fear is one of the things that unites us all. So I think that that makes perfect sense. Is the other one a comedy? Because that's to me that would. Or a porno. One of those. Yeah, I'm I was unable to retain the information of anything about that film. I apologize for that. ah But that that comes in my contacts. So it looks like it's time for me to once again transition to the next segment. by playing the plot bumper.
Speaker: We open on a highway in any town America. Middle -aged married Well, in probably El Paso, it's El Paso. Uh, middle -aged married couple, Mike and Maggie, along with their young daughter, Debbie and black poodle, Pepe are driving to the valley lodge for much needed vacation. Mike gets lost and is definitely not the type of guy to ask for directions, not from the cops who would pull up for a busted tail light or the teens who make out by the side of the road. Mike is kind of a dick. That's my big impression of Mike. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, he's kind of a classic mid -sixties movie dad, though. Yeah, I also, I think the thing for me about the character, and and this is just an impression, it could be fallacious, but i I definitely get the impression, both from the movie and from everything I've read about Hal Warren, that ah he did not know that this character was a douchebag. That this was kind of like his self -insert, which makes him all the more irritating to me.
Speaker: Yeah, like I think he's trying to portray him as like some sort of man of action, some sort of, you know, ah decisive head of family. But he just seems and maybe maybe this is just from my modern eyes, maybe it would have come off differently 1966. He does seem just like a dickhead that just yells at people. Yeah. And he's just stubborn and doesn't listen to his wife. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He kind of sucks. Now, after driving in circles for roughly one tenth of the film's runtime, ah this opening driving sequence allegedly ah was maybe going to have ah opening credits over it, which would have helped make more sense.
Speaker: But it doesn't really still justify the really long time that it's happening. ah But it does have some great jazz going over it. Yeah. I love the jazz. The soundtrack is the soundtrack is surprisingly good. Yeah. It's like jazz and yeah almost kind of lynching into when they get into the scarier parts and there's like this really abrasive saxophone that keeps coming in. Yeah. Yeah. I unironically like that a lot. Yeah, I'm going to have a little bit of the jazz as the outro for the episode listener, so make sure you stick around for that. ah Now, after driving around in circles for roughly one tenth of the film's runtime, they eventually pull up to some sort of building. I don't know what sort of building because we never get a shot at it, but I know that there's a building.
Speaker: standing at the daco It It looks like a yeah classic but West Texas, New Mexico. It's it's a place. Yeah, i love playing yeah yeah there's there's some sort of thing there, some sort of thing in it as a front door and a driveway and standing outside is a man with giant swollen thighs. tattered clothes and just incredibly bad vibes. His name is Torgo. He's the breakout character of the film in a lot of ways. Everybody loves Torgo. Torgo is ah ah the actor who played the film allegedly drunk and on acid.
Speaker: And I think you can pick that up in his performance. I think he gives the best performance of the film, regardless of process. Like before I knew that he was um kind of suited for the whole thing, i i I was actually a little bit impressed. I was like, wow, this guy maybe isn't the greatest actor on Earth, but he's making some very interesting intentional choices with this character. add to his creepiness and his aura of menace. But i yeah, it may just have been that he was confused and having a little bit of trouble staying in an upright position, especially with the the giant thighs. Yeah. Yeah. I think I i ah read that the the actress who played the little girl ah who wrote a book about it at some point. um But she remembered him as being just kind of like
Speaker: like ah kind of happy -go -lucky, like like she had she she liked him at the time, and but like looking back on it, it was like, Oh, that's where that was coming from. Yeah, I know the the actor also, um I think for reasons completely unrelated to this movie, committed suicide shortly before its premiere. So I think he was just kind of like a a person who had a lot of stuff going on that, unfortunately, he wasn't able to resolve for himself.
Speaker: um But he does leave a legacy of a great performance. Yeah, he sure does. um I think I do think he sort of almost reminds me of Jack Nance in Twin Peaks or even in ah in a race. And he gives a very Jack Nance performance. Oh, or in like Blue Velvet. Like when. Yeah. at Like he's doing more of the menacing thing. Yeah, that's a good call. Like it's I'm very squirrely. Jacknits was also very drunk for a lot of those. But yeah, I'm sorry, this is just like my my dumb trivia powers is knowing which actors were drunks. Well, I would not be surprised. i I should have written down his name, but the actor who played Torgo. Yeah, he John. I don't think his I don't think his eyes focused at any point in any scene on anything, but
Speaker: it It really looks great. You did a great job. I also love and I didn't pick this up until I watched the actually really good looking like restored version of Manos for this. podcast Yeah. ah He has two sets of eyebrows. He has his normal eyebrows and then he has a big old pair of secondary fake eyebrows glued on like ah like kind of at an angle to his regular eye. Sort of my near his eyebrows. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And, but piercing blue eyes, I gotta say, you could tell somewhere in there was a handsome man. Uh, now Torgo explains that he takes care of the place while the master is away. He talks a lot about the master, but he doesn't really say anything particularly specific. Just sort of the master is everywhere. The master is dead. He likes your wife. Uh, Mike bullies everyone into accepting his idea that they all crashed there until morning because he's lost as hell and also wants to stop driving. Fair enough. Driving all day with a kid and a dog and you're lost. I'm done. I'm done. We're going to sleep here, Torgo. I'm sorry. Uh, so, uh, he also bullies Torgo into bringing in their luggage, despite the fact that he is pretty clearly severely physically disabled.
Speaker: There's a jaunty little musical theme yeah to it. I love it. But I love is the moment a little bit later where ah the husband and wife are like talking and Torgo shuffles on screen and like one second later his theme kicks in and then he just kind of proceeds across the room and goes through a door on the other side and the theme abruptly cuts off and it's like In any other movie, I would say that had to be an intentional joke. But because it's Manos, I'm not really sure.
Speaker: Yeah, it really it operates almost like a Peter and the Wolf style theme, like a light motif. Like, oh, that character's here, except Torgo's the only character that gets one. And it's a great little dude. ah Preston Spurlock, our guest on episode four, if Footman tire you, what will horses do? ah Produced a rap song that appeared on that sampled Torgo's theme. I got to ask him if he's got a copy of that somewhere. It was about a reptile dysfunction. ah So ah Mike and Maggie get too distracted to follow Torgo back to their room when they hear an eerie howling coming from outside. Mike runs out to the car and grabs a flashlight and revolver from his glove compartment, but he is unfortunately followed outside by Pepe, the dog who was promptly killed by something. All right. That he's dead. Yeah, too bad.
Speaker: Uh, Maggie and Debbie are both very upset that the dog is dead and Mike is annoyed that they're upset. So everyone decides to leave. Yeah. He's really, really annoyed that they're upset by the the death of their dog and the general. Mike is really just yanking this family all over the place. Uh, yeah. Everything kind of happens according to his whims. No, he is the head of household. He is a traditional family's values, Mike. And Mike orders Torgo to carry their luggage back to the car. At some point Maggie must've unpacked because she needs to pack her clothes back up. Must've unpacked them maybe while Mike was out looking around for the dog. I don't know. But anyway, Torgo's in the bedroom with her and sort of gesticulates at her face a little bit in a vaguely sexually menacing way. Uh, he insists that while the master wants Maggie for his bride, Torgo called dibs.
Speaker: Yeah. Meanwhile, uh, Mike has discovered that the car won't start. Uh, Maggie has been screaming this whole time after having this sort of freak wave his hand at her. Uh, Torgo apologizes for being so forward. Maggie says she'll forgive him. He doesn't do it again. Mike comes back in and says the car won't start and orders Torgo to bring their bags back in. Mike and Maggie take a moment to admire a portrait of the master. This portrait is incredible. Yeah, it's great. I would hang that up. That is a sick ass painting. Yeah, I would be over the moon if I found this in like a Goodwill or something. It has yeah rancid vibes. It's it's amateurish, but in a way where there's something extremely compelling about it. ah Yeah, the film in a microcosm.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah, like the folds of his cloak are just way too dark. The dog is basically like a black shadow blob thing. It's very impressionistic. Yeah, the hands on his cloak really look like, you know, somebody put paint on their hand and smeared it. Dragged it down, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love it. um Now, let's see. but but but but Debbie, who has been hanging on the living room the entire time, more or less, flopping around on the couch, sneaks off. she She finds what I think is supposed to be a hidden door because she opens a door and then everyone else acts like there's no door there. So it must be a hidden door.
Speaker: Mike and Maggie, find Debbie outside after debating very long and hard about whether or not she could possibly be outside. They decide let's go look and they go outside and she has a doberman on a leash and it's the doberman that's from the portrait with the master. I mean, just I do think that's a generous interpretation, given the clarity of the Doberman in the portrait. But I mean, that's fair. Yeah, it it could have been some other dog, but I feel like this is the master's dog. I can understand why Mike wouldn't put it together, but we the audience know. Oh, that's the master's Doberman. They're withholding that information from the characters, but we get it. um
Speaker: See, she says she found it. She found the Doberman in a big place full of people and she'll take them there. It's weird to just say, I found it in a place. Yeah. Obviously you were in a place. There's no place you could be. That's not a place. Now, uh, we never see this place as a whole, but we get the vibes that it's sort of a temple to manos. it's even It's not even very clear whether or not it's inside or outside. You just see some columns, and the floor is sand, and there's an altar, and there are ladies unconscious standing um like by the columns, and there's also the master, and he's lying on an altar, and the Doberman's there.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. ah One thing I really like about this and this is um ah definitely contributes to the thing where you can't tell if it's inside or outside. And also to the terrible vibe is that in all of the nighttime scenes, ah the blacks of of like outside or of certain areas in rooms even are just solid black. It's like a wall of darkness that nothing can penetrate. And it could be, you know, a surface or it could just be the night. But it it gives it a really strange, almost claustrophobic feeling. ah Yeah. Like you don't you don't know where you are spatially in this movie. That's a lot of moth. Yes, you are constantly inundated by moths.
Speaker: ah Let's see. Uh, Mike decides this is a bit much. I'm going to head down to the desert to see if I could find some help or head back to the crossroads where the phone is. Anyway, I'm just going to leave Maggie and Debbie are going to wait there. Maggie decides I'm just going to go to bed. Okay. Uh, sure. Uh, so she starts again addressed. Uh, well, no, wait, I'm jumping ahead. Torgo shows up in the temple and he yells at all the sleeping people, tells them he's sick of being a second -class citizen. He wants a wife. I'm getting dibs. You got all the wives. I mean, fair enough. Six wives. That sounds incredible. Yeah. He's got points.
Speaker: uh now uh torgo then leaves the temple and he peeps on maggie as she is disrobing down to a knee length slip possibly the least revealing disrobing i've ever seen on He does literally do the like sicko's yes face in the window, which is pretty fun. And then the master does it later too. Like you could choose your sicko. She's got at least one, maybe two layers underneath that flip too. Yeah. Yeah. She is bundled up.
Speaker: Uh, Torgo then tracks down Mike in the desert and assaults him, even though Mike had a gun. So Mike, come on brother. Uh, and, uh, he leaves them unconscious in the desert, possibly tied up. I wasn't sure. Back at the temple, the master wakes up. Hey, it's the master. Hey, now we're talking. The master, I think, gave one of the better performances in the film as well. Oh, yeah. I do think he suffers a little bit next to Torgo because Torgo is just so genuinely eerie.
Speaker: Whereas the master, i the ma what the master gives the impression of to me ah is, and here I will like ah reveal that I have also been heavily involved in community theater in my life, although I havet ah haven't done it for like several years. But you know when I was in my teens and early 20s, yes. yeah same mind He really reminds me of like a 28 year old HVAC technician who's the understudy for Prospero in The Tempest. And he like finally got his shot at performing this role. Yeah. Because the usual actor got sick. He's giving in his all for sure. um He's he's given his I mean, he doesn't have a lot to work with in the script. He apparently improvised an entire monologue that was actually one of the better monologues in the film.
Speaker: I think ah he did not embarrass himself. Yeah, no, he's got a great mustache and he's got. Yeah, he's got a really solid. Fantastic costume. Yeah, he apparently his wife's made his costume. Aw. Yeah. Yeah. And his performance is just very like he's never phoning it in. He's trying really hard to be menacing and to inhabit this character. And you've got to give that a lot of credit.
Speaker: And now he's in the film. Now the movie's cooking. Uh, he does a quick prayer to Manos and then he wakes up his six wives who instantly all start yakking at once. Classic wives, am I right? ah good yeah ah Now in their defense, they do have a lot to talk about regarding this family that just showed up in their house. Uh, some of them want the whole family to be killed. Some of them want Maggie and or Debbie to live and to be brought on board. There's a hot debate. Master says, kill the kid. And the wives, they continued to debate amongst themselves. It's interesting the amount of like autonomy that the wives had, that they sort of had this sort of ability to discuss amongst themselves and their discussion would carry some sort of weight in their cult, I imagine. Yeah, on the other hand, their discussion does extend to
Speaker: cat fighting in the sand in their they're sort of brief, apparently, mannequin manner was very straight about like how revealing the costumes could be. This movie is incredibly horny for some of the like least sexual underwear I have ever seen in my life. ah But but yeah, what I think is interesting about The Wives is it it is implied that, it you know, they have ah a degree of say in what goes on. um But the the movie does also sort of imply that most, if not all of them are are basically like they've basically been kidnapped. So I. Yeah.
Speaker: I guess maybe they're brainwashed or like they've just been there so long. They've kind of gotten on board with ah the cult of manos and the master's whole deal. um Yeah, it's just kind of an an interesting aspect of the movie where I think the real answer is nobody thought about this. Right. but Yeah. Yeah. it But it is, it is sort of a fun set of tea leaves that you can read into. I'm not saying that anyone else is putting it in there, but it's fun for me to put in there. And sometimes that's enough for a movie, you know? Yeah. Right. You know, I don't need to have a whole Wikipedia inside your movie when I can make one up in my head. Um, and I think the other thing that needs to be said about the wives, mannequin manor as a quite a few hotties on their right.
Speaker: Those wives were all hot. I'm going to give them that. Uh, and they do start wrestling in a sand pit. Gotta be some of the least erotic, all lady wrestling I've ever seen. Uh, meanwhile, the master tracks down Torgo and tells him he's going to kill him for his insolence. So he sort of stares at him for a little while and gives him some bad vibes and then Torgo dies. Sort of. Meanwhile, One of the brides has snuck away from the fracas and found Mike out in the desert. She starts nuzzling him for some reason and then leaves and tells, uh, she goes to tattle to the master about the brawling wives. So he brings Torgo with him. Torgo's alive again for some reason. Uh, the master tells the wives to stop fighting.
Speaker: They've been fighting this whole time. Torgo has been killed and brought back to life and the wives are still fighting.
Speaker: He blames his first wife, who's been, obviously, been around the longest of all the wives. And he says he's going to sacrifice her to Manos because she's not on board. She's like, yeah, because you suck now, the master. And I think Manos is lame. ah And she's like, all right, ah ladies, tie her up to a column. But meanwhile, some of you, the rest of you, I need to take care of this Torgo situation. Torgo has to lie back down on the altar where the master sleeps. And then some ladies sort of rough house him to death. They kind of like jostle him with their hands, I guess. I've heard it called a massage, but to me that implies something like more
Speaker: involving more direct contact than what this seems to be. They're just sort of like ah lightly tapping him and waving their hands over him. It looks like it's a little bit like the second level meditation in Zardas. Little bit. It definitely reminds me very much of like community theater when you'd be like, okay, now you guys go beat him up and they don't like, don't figure that out. like ah ah It's got that kind of vibe. Um, let's see. The master then revives Torgo again and grabs him by the forearm, shoving his hand into the fire in the center of the temple. This causes Torgo's wrist to explode.
Speaker: Torgo runs off in pain. He can run now, so that's good. ah But the master holds aloft his flaming hand and laughs the whole time. And that's the last we see of Torgo. He lives though. He survives the film. Meanwhile, Mike has woken up in the desert. Luckily his flashlight and gun are right where he dropped them about five feet away. Oh, and this whole time, uh, the cops that hassled Mike at the beginning have been hassling the teens that were making out, but they never directly interact with our main characters ever again. Um, let's see. Uh, he runs back to the master's place and bus through the bedroom door and a very unconvincing bust through. And, uh, Maggie and Debbie are there and they form a new plan. They're going to run away and they're going to hide in the desert.
Speaker: It's a great plan. Yeah, yeah, no problem. A plus, perfect. Nothing could go wrong here. Well, let's just go squat in the middle of the desert for the next, I'm going to say at this point, six hours, and then we'll hopefully walk back to somewhere before it gets too hot. I'm going to say we go to the desert, walk through the night. I think what he actually says in the movie is something to the effect of like, oh, people will like be looking for us. They'll find us. And it's like, why would you think that? Right. yeah like i Just like they're missing. They have a reservation. Mike never misses his reservation.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, every summer, you know how the days in it always like pulls out all the stops looking for you yeah if you don't show up to your um appointed room at the last minute. Yeah. So back in the temple, the master slaps around his tied up wife. It's a very, ah ah you know, impact play kind of vibes going on. Yeah, she's a little freaky. Yeah, she's a little into it. A lot freaky, honestly. Yeah, it's actually like I think that's the only scene in the movie where I was like, oh, there's maybe some genuine sexual tension here or like ah just some general sexuality. Yeah, yeah. or Or at least like an erotic thing that could could be compelling into different contexts, because the other eroticism of the movie is just like
Speaker: ah the camera really enjoys leering it again. I have to stress like the least sexual granny panties you have ever seen in your life. Yeah. ah
Speaker: and nowhere near enough closeups. Like anytime you get a closeup of one of these gals, they look great. You know, I don't know why he was leaving that tool on the shelf. ah Now, yeah, slapping around his wife, he sends the rest of the wives out, say, go find that family. We need to kill that family. Go find them. Meanwhile, oh, and the the wife that's getting tied up, she wanted Debbie to live. She wanted the daughter to live. She's the head of that faction. And Manos is like, no, the daughter has to die. Or rather, the master says that. So meanwhile, stumbling around blind in the desert isn't going very well for Mike and the family. They agree they should go to the last place the cult would ever look for them back at the house. oh Yeah, that that's using the old grape. Mike is such a good planner.
Speaker: I mean, he's he's crazy like a fox. ah They successfully avoid being detected by any wives on the walk back, but as soon as they enter the house, they run to the master in the last place they ever expected in his own living room. Mike shoots him and we fade to black. Epilogue. The master didn't die. He's fine. Although, I guess the Don't Kill Debbie faction did end up winning because Maggie and Debbie are both now wives. Yay? Yay for child brides.
Speaker: And Mike is the new Torgo. Mike watches the house while the master is away. Done, done, done. The end. I do think it would be fun if in the final scene, Mike had inherited Torgo's giant thighs and kneecaps, but no, yeah he looks normal. He looks the same way he did. Yes, he didn't even have his staff with the cool hand on it. No. I guess it turns out that wasn't like ah a thing that Torgo had because of his job or because of his involvement in the cult. That was just he's disabled and he needs to walk away. Yeah, fair enough. And he's like only tricked it out with a hand because he's like, yeah, I love manos. Exactly. The hand on my walking stick because I like manos.
Speaker: I like that prop. It had some a few ah yeah shots using it to to frame stuff. Yeah, there was like a hole in the palm that looked kind of rotted out. It was cool. Well, final thoughts, five star ratings. Who wants to go for who wants to go first? Who thinks what about Manna's? I can go. OK.
Speaker: I'm really, it's really cool that somebody found, you know, an, an original, what was it? A 16 millimeter work print. Um, and 2011. So because this, uh, restored version is, it's really gorgeous, honestly. yeah Um, and, uh, I don't know the kind of the vividness of the colors it's got. some really great reds and some great blues. And between that and the score ah and the fact that like the plot is a lot more coherent than a lot of bad movies. Like it's, you know, a lot of it is very, very technically inept.
Speaker: um But the plot, the plot really isn't. The plot yeah is pretty straightforward and it basically makes sense. um Even if the execution isn't very good. I i actually think it's ah three stars. All right, fair enough. Three stars, I think is very reasonable. What about? Well, I'll save our guest for last. I think that's the only polite thing to do. I'll give I'll give this film. I think I'm also going to give it a solid three. I don't think that it it is necessarily fun to watch.
Speaker: I don't think that it is anywhere near as bad as the worst film in the world. I think there are lots of great things to recommend it. I think that the biggest problem is of course, there's a lot of time where nothing is happening. You could have cut this down to 40 minutes and it would have been like, Oh, okay. That's like a movie. That's like a very short movie. It's not very good, but it's a movie. And now is there is just like a lot of stuff that feels like it's in there by accident or to stretch it out for length. It feels like a lot of the takes that are cut in are like the entire take from as soon as he started rolling. Do you know what I mean? Because you see actors sort of ramp up for their lines. Um,
Speaker: So but you know what they say, ah you might say that he can't make movies, but you can't say that he didn't make a movie. So I'm going to give this one a solid three stars. How about you, Brian? I really agree with everything both of you said, um especially like, yeah, everything Anna said, the the restored version just looks surprisingly good. I mean, i Yeah, you have ah deeper colors, but that those balls of black I described earlier are are intact. And it it you can almost convince yourself that it was ah done in this way on purpose, that this is a stylistic choice, almost like an expressionistic choice. And it's just really neat. um I also. Yeah, I think if if you take the story of this, right, it's not
Speaker: Like it's not a story we've never heard before. ah But one of the reason we've heard it so many times is it's effective, right? Like right us pete a person or a group of people are traveling and they get lost and it's it's nighttime or there's inclement weather. So they're forced to stop and stay at some, you know, strange location and ah a it you know It slowly dawns on them that that things aren't right in this place. like ah One of my um ah favorite ah Robert Aikman short stories, The Hospice, has it in many ways basically the same setup as Manos the Hands of Fate, except that it's in England instead of Texas, and it's just one dude instead of a family. um Yeah.
Speaker: i And I'm not, you know I'm not putting
Speaker: manos on a level with that Eggman short story, I think it's much worse. But like like the core of it is is very solid and has the potential to be very compelling and very effectively spooky. um And that's not nothing because they're like, yeah, you're right. Like there are movies that where part of their failing is just that their core concept is ah fucking nonsense or or worse. It's like hateful. um Yeah. And and this isn't that at all. i It's not even like like like I mean, there are, again, a lot of things that are inept about the execution, but the the idea for the story is not something that's inept. And and I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say three stars as well. there's There's a lot of potential here, even if ultimately it's kind of a big mess. Yeah, and I think I feel like there are some passages of the Odyssey that fit the same sort of plot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And obviously, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the same vibe. You know, it's it's ah it's a class. Motel hell. Yeah. But I don't. want Also, it's very important to not oversell this movie. Oh yeah. Right. It really benefits from going in with low expectations and coming to it with a spirit of generosity. Do you know what I mean? Again, like Torgo spends so much time just moving luggage from place to place while his theme plays in the background.
Speaker: And you you can't go to it. It's you don't want to be like going to community theater and complaining that it's not Broadway. Do you know what I mean? Like you got to judge it on the right scale. And in terms of like absolutely nightmare garbage, it's better than that. ah Wow. Time for me to play another bumper. That's right. We're going to be going off on a little bit of a tangent.
Speaker: Sure the movie is the main event But that's not the case with this segment No need to be sad or lament Cause we're going on a tangent Yeah that's the name of this segment
Speaker: going on a tangent tangent.
Speaker: All right. It was bound to come up sooner or later on the podcast. So I think we have to talk about mystery science theater 3000. If you're not familiar with Mystery Science Theater 3000, I don't know why you would be listening to this show. But the big picture is that it is a TV show where they would make fun of bad movies. It started off on a local TV station in Minneapolis before moving on to the comedy channel, which became Comedy Central, or as a tent pole for most of the nineties. It's been rebooted several times with mixed results.
Speaker: And it sort of taught a generation how to watch bad movies. Right. Yeah. Like I think the three of us at least grew up with Mr. Science Theater 3000 doing that for us. Yeah, definitely. ah But. I've come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him. ah The time for Mystery Science Theater. This is a hot take is past. We as a society are ready to evolve beyond Mystery Science Theater 3000. It acts as a barrier between the audience and a genuine interaction with its films. I think one of the most important things that you can do with a bad movie is engage with it critically on your own and and become an active participant in your own watching. Do you know what I mean? Whereas Mystery Science Theater puts you back in the passenger seat and lets these guys do the reacting for you. And they're very funny and they're very good at what they do.
Speaker: And I certainly am not going to say that there's no place for it. But I think it's not part of a healthy, bad movie diet. Do you know what I mean? It's a sometimes treat. yeah Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. And I think especially now that we are in a culture that that that kind of built at least, you know, a particular type of like very dorky cinephile culture that that built. I think that's just fundamentally a different situation than like when the show was originally airing because now, i you know, there's this expectation that you'll come to some to to certain types of ah movies with this very um
Speaker: this remove where you're you're ready to be very snarky at it and you're ready to make fun of it ah like they do on Mystery Science Theater 3000. And I think once that becomes something that's like culturally ingrained, ah ah then it's time to push against it. you know I think when it was originally airing, it was more like it hadn't occurred to a lot of people maybe that they could ah you know seek out and appreciate these like B and Z grade movies in any capacity. Yeah. That you could watch this intentionally. And have fun.
Speaker: Yeah, and so so it was really cool ah at that time in getting people to expand their horizons, but I think whenever like, you know, something that's initially a source of getting people to expand their horizons becomes like, an institution and it becomes a way that some people start to to close their horizons and and limit how they're looking at things or going into things. Then, yeah, I think ah you've just got to push back at that a little bit and i try to forge your own path. Yeah, it it does sort of serve as a bad movies 101. And you don't want to spend your whole life in 101.
Speaker: you You know, you got to grow and expand, I think, if you're going to appreciate them as ah as art. Yeah. And that's that's sort of my hot MST three cake. MST three cake. Yeah, that we as a society. Yeah. Yeah. We as a society have evolved. Gosh, it's it's definitely already like 12, 13 plus. year old episode of television, but I, there was an episode of community kind of about this. I feel like they were watching, um,
Speaker: Kid Puncher. troy i but Yeah. Kid Puncher. And, uh, Chevy Chase's character, like get somebody to write him, uh, reaction jokes. Yeah. Uh, cause he doesn't understand that, you know, that you don't have to keep You don't have to keep riffing. You know, you can tell jokes to the friends who you're in the room with. And that's fine. Yeah. or And part of the fun is having together. Yeah. And part of the fun is having like a genuine interaction with the other people that you are with and not, you know, once again, becoming a passive participant that this is an active way of engaging with art. Yeah. I mean, it is true, though, that if
Speaker: that Manos, you know, no one would have ever looked for or restored it and if it hadn't come back through ah Mystery Science Theater. So like it is also, I think you're right that it did, yeah, it did teach a lot of people how to watch bad movies, but I don't know that it does that anymore. No, I think there are no further lessons to be gained. Well, I think that just means now that we're done ah shitting on one of the greatest television shows of all time. It's time for a game. I think my wife has a game. Is that correct? My dove? Yes. Is it about trends in film? Yeah.
Speaker: Trends in film, they do happen Trends in film Trends in film, that's a segment Trends in film
Speaker: Nine movies with body parts in the title. OK, do it. I'll ask one of you. And then if you don't get it, the other one can steal. um I will start with Chris. Well, let's start with a guest if there's a non number of questions. OK, OK. Give you the visitor's advantage. All right. ah First movie was came out in 1974, directed by Sam Peckinpah starring Warren Oates and Issella Vega. An American barroom pianist and his girlfriend go on a trip through the Mexican underworld to collect the bounty on a dead gigolo. Oh God, I have absolutely no idea. I'm sorry. Chris.
Speaker: That is Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, one of the greatest film titles of all time. It is a great, yeah, it's a great title. That is a good title. I don't remember liking the movie very much. I don't know anything about whether the movie is any good. I've never seen any Peck and Paws. Peck and but that one didn't resonate with me. I think it's one of his more minor ones. But I'd i'd love to revisit it. I could be wrong. Yeah. All right, Chris, yeah first up, 1949, directed George Cucor starring Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn. Two married lawyers prosecute and defend a woman accused of shooting her adulterous husband. Mm. That's going to be dancing feet. No, Briar. Oh, God, um.
Speaker: Yeah, no, i I don't know. I'm blanking. The only Hepburn movie I can currently remember for some reason is Bringing Up Baby. ah That is not a body part. No, no, it's Adam's Rib. Oh, it's a great movie. All right, Briar. 1960, directed Georges Frangieux, starring Pierre Brassieur and Alita Valli. A plastic surgeon goes to extreme lengths operating on his daughter after she's disfigured in a car accident. Eyes without a face. Yes, indeed. Ah, classic. Thank you.
Speaker: chris Tie it up one to one. Alright, 1991 directed Eric Red starring Jeff Fahey and Kim Delaney. A psychologist undergoes experimental arm transplant surgery and starts having visions of murders. Is that body parts? It sure is. Yes, Jeff Fahey. Yeah, that movie sounds rad. and and see Oh, Jeff Fahey, I'm sure, crushes it. I i think I watched it at work once, but can't remember anything about it. All right. Briar. 1953, directed by Roy Rowland, starring Peter Lynn Hayes and Mary Healy. A boy dreams himself into a fantasy world ruled by a diabolical piano teacher forcing children to practice piano forever.
Speaker: The Five Thousand Fingers of Dr. T. Yeah, yeah I actually didn't know until I looked it up but that that's what that movie was about. Sounds very stressful. Yeah, there was there was a Goosebumps book that like I wouldn't say it ripped off this movie exactly, but it had a ah strangely similar premise. Did you say it was ah inspired by Dr. Seuss? Uh, he wrote it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only non -documentary film he wrote. Okay. Uh, back to Chris. 1993 directed Tony Bill starring Christian Slater and Marisa Tomei. The star -crossed romance of a waitress and a shy busboy with a tragic flaw. Mmm. Mmm.
Speaker: Mm hmm. That's going to be Edward Pizza Hands. It is not Briar. Uh, yeah, I don't know either. I I wish Edward Pizza Hands was movie. Hollywood call me. That one is Untamed Heart. Ah, he has. He's got heart problems. He's got heart problems. Yeah, yeah. That's a shame. Okay, Briar. 1984 directed Herbert Ross, starring Kevin Bacon and Laurie Singer. A Chicago teen moves to a small town and defies a local minister. Footloose? Yeah. Friar takes the lead. It is three to two.
Speaker: 1992, Chris. Okay. Directed by Curtis Hanson, starring Annabella Skiora and Rebecca DeMornay. An embittered widow seeks vengeance on one of her husband's victims and the woman's family. The hand that rocks the cradle. Yeah. Yes. Whatever happened to Rebecca DeMornay? I feel like she hasn't done anything since the 90s. I didn't like that movie because it had Ernie Hudson playing a. ah Is it is it appropriate to say mentally handicapped? Person like an intellectually disabled person? Yeah, yeah, an intellectually disabled person. Thank you. And ah that and Ernie Hudson's character would like get blamed for things that he didn't do. And I always hate him when that happens in movies. You hate that's the worst. You really hate that. Yeah, it makes me really emotionally upset.
Speaker: All right, last one, Briar. 1998, directed by Hype Williams, starring Nas and DMX. Two young friends involved in organized crime and drug dealing find that their priorities differ. That's the IMDB summary. I thought it was really funny. I have no idea once again. Sorry. That's the classic. That's belly. Yep. Never heard of it. Legitimately never heard of it. Hype Williams, he did a bunch of like hip hop music videos in the 90s. This was his only feature length film. ah It was really kind of visually stunning, but Nas and DMX are unfortunately not very good actors. No disrespect. Wonderful rappers, RIP DMX. There is a scene where they both watch Gummo, which is really funny.
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds all right. Well, that means Chris takes it four to three. Oh, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris. Okay, just me? Well, it looks like it's time for our next segment. That's right. It's the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Now you're messing with me.
Speaker: Congratulations to all the nominees.
Speaker: That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. Congratulations to you, listener. You've made it to the last segment of the show. Who wants to give out that award first? I can go. Yes. My Batty Award goes to, uh, well, you were wondering about where, you know, that $19 ,000 went. I feel like some of it went to cars because the cars that the characters are driving in the movie are all like the oldest one is a 1963. They're all like no nice cars. But so I'm just going to mention that.
Speaker: Like, uh, let's see in reverse order of importance to me at the end, the gals in the epilogue are driving a, uh, white 1964 Oldsmobile dynamic 88 mid -century car names. Um, and they are, yeah, they're all like big, nice cars and they're all convertibles. ah The family is driving a 1966 Black Ford Galaxy 500. Beautiful American muscle car. And the necking teens are in my favorite car, a blue 1963 Triumph Spitfire 4, which is a British ah sports car.
Speaker: um Yeah, just a really cool looking little little bitty zippy car. ah Yeah, some of you. Yeah, go tearing down the highway in one of them. Yeah. So your body award is for the cars. Yeah. Fantastic. Briar, do you have a body award? ah Yeah, I would just like to give an award to Torgo's eyebrow styling. um OK, it's a it It ends up looking surprisingly intentional. And I'm not sure what that intent was exactly, but it's striking and impressive. ah i I also, just incidentally, it's so weird that the convention is for everyone who talks about this movie, including me, I've probably done it on this podcast, to refer to the couple in the car as the necking teens because there's not really any indication in the script that they're
Speaker: like high school age and the actors are clearly about 30. Um, so like the, the necking, the necking young adults, maybe yeah i he's apparently wearing a wedding ring and at least one of his scenes. So you the necking cheaters. it's It's heightened reality. It's like Luke Perry playing a high schooler 90210. It's fine. I bought it. um I have two bad awards. I could not choose. ah One is a best piece of costume that I would fuck with for real. And that is the master's cloak. You had get that in a nice jersey knit. I would wear that around the house all winter long, happy as a clam.
Speaker: yeah Such great color blocking, great silhouette. I love the way that when he stuck his arms out, you could see the hands, it gave him some business. It's just a fantastic piece of costume. i like yeah but But then he folds it. Yeah. game but But then it's so neat when he folds his arms in though and they're by his sides, it just resolves into like, it it's almost like a, The priest clothes, you know, it's like he's got this sort of black cassock with this really striking like red line. Yeah, this bright red V coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The V is the the secret sauce, I think. If it was just the hands, you'd it'd be too gimmicky. The V is what makes it graphic. I think that really is what takes it over the top. My other baddie award.
Speaker: that I could not ah could not leave out just to praise MST3K. This episode of MST3K gave me my favorite line from MST3K in all history, which is, of course, every frame of this movie looks like someone's last known photograph. Uh, which is also eerily true since almost everyone in this film never appeared in anything else. A couple of them appeared in those unofficial mano sequels, but I'm going to say those kind of don't count. Uh, so, but also we did have that's that, I think that speaks to the same haunted vibe you were talking about Briar where everything just feels just sort of
Speaker: Like it's in a haze or like the kind of movie that would be playing when you walked into a classroom in Silent Hill. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like ah bad vibes coming out of it. Well, we made it through the show, everybody. Briar, do you have anything to plug? You're always writing something. You always got something going on. What do you got going on? Oh gosh, well, um, so if, if anyone wants to check out my website, it has, uh, you know, all, all my work on it links to where you can either read those or purchase those. It is just Briar Ripley page.
Speaker: all lowercase, all smushed together, .xyz. The main ah upcoming publication I have is that in January of next year, which I know is a little ways down the pipe, but um my first collection of short stories is coming out with Curse and Morsell's Press. um and I'm very excited about that. It's like a yeah a full length collection. um Some of the best stories I think I've written over the past five years that I've been like.
Speaker: writing for the other for the eyes of other people outside of fan fiction based websites. Yeah, I would love it if people checked that out, if they have any interest in sort of strange stories ah with ah heavy queer and horror elements. It's very good. You can't ask for a better endorsement when it comes to the written word than that of my wife. ah
Speaker: Well, I'm just going to plug ah our next episode coming up next week. We have another entry into a lot of people's choices into worst movie of all time. We'll be talking about Troll 2 with Kate Bellock. Very excited to have her on board. ah Also, if you want to reach out to us directly, suggest a movie you want to see, pitch us coming on your show, just say hello. ah You can reach out to us at favoritebadmovypodatgmail .com. You can also find us, uh, our Instagram and our blue sky and our YouTube all in the link tree, which I'm going to put in the show notes. So that way you don't have to listen to me read all that. You could just, you could just click that. I think that'll work out better for everybody. And Hey, speaking of clicking everything on something, I know you got your phone in your hand. Why don't you click on that five stars button? Like I always say five stars is free, brother. I give you five stars.
Speaker: He would. I would do that. And ah you could also like subscribe or leave a comment or a follow or a like, whatever way your platform has for you to interact with us. Any way that you want to do it helps us beat the algorithm, beat those computers, take our lives back, take back your freedom by giving us five stars. And until next time, be good. Goodbye. Bye.
Speaker: We're almost there, honey. Just a little while longer and your vacation starts. I'm getting cold, mother. I'm hungry.
Speaker: We should be pretty close right now. The agent said it was about 12 miles from Highway 10, and that was Highway 10 back there. But you know we should have asked for better directions at the last gas station.
