"MANOS" The Hands of Fate (1966) on Netflix
Michael, Margaret and their daughter Debbie search the Texas desert for the Valley Lodge. At a house watched over by the caretaker Torgo, they ask to stay the night.
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- Netflix0.4/5
- IMDb1.7/1038,589 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes0%
Trailer
Plot summary
Michael and Margaret are on vacation with their daughter Debbie and their dog Peppy, driving through the desert near El Paso, Texas toward a place called the Valley Lodge. Margaret is certain they are lost; Michael insists they are not. A deputy stops them over a broken taillight and lets them go. The family reaches a house whose caretaker, Torgo, says he looks after the place in the Master's absence and knows nothing of the Valley Lodge. Michael asks to stay the night despite Margaret's objections. Inside they find a painting of the Master, with a dog whose eyes glow. Michael cannot start the car and the house has no telephone, so the family stays.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about "MANOS" The Hands of Fate (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Harold P. Warren claimed in a local coffee shop that making a horror film was not difficult and bet screenwriter Stirling Silliphant he could make an entire film on his own; he began the script's first outline on a napkin right there.
- The film stayed obscure until Mystery Science Theater 3000 mocked it in 1993 in what became that show's most iconic episode, giving it a cult reputation as one of the worst films ever made.
- John Reynolds, who played the caretaker Torgo, killed himself with a shotgun on October 16, 1966, one month before the premiere; he was 25 and it was his only film appearance.
- Actress Joyce Molleur broke her foot early in production, so Harold P. Warren kept her by rewriting the script to add a young couple kissing in a car on the side of the road, unconnected to the plot.
- During filming, Harold P. Warren signed actress Diane Mahree up for a West Texas beauty pageant that could lead to Miss Texas and Miss America to publicize his film, without telling her until she was accepted; she appeared as a finalist.
- Director Harold P. Warren's small crew, bemused by his amateurishness and irascibility, derisively called the film Mangos: The Cans of Fruit behind his back.
- Most equipment was rented, so Harold P. Warren rushed to shoot as much as possible before the rental deadline, and the hand-wound 16 mm Bell & Howell camera held only up to 32 seconds of footage, creating unresolved editing problems.
- After a fan restoration surfaced, Harold P. Warren's son began investigating whether the film was really in the public domain to stop others profiting from his father's work; he found the script had been copyrighted in the Library of Congress in 2013, and the film's legal status is uncertain.
