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Fate Saves Workprint of Manos: The Hands of Fate

Posted by samzenpus on from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-torgo? dept.

SEWilco writes "One of the worst horror movies, Manos: The Hands of Fate, has come back from the grave. The work print was rediscovered during a move, and an attempt has begun to transfer it to digital HD medium." If you've never had the joy of watching MST3K's treatment of Manos: The Hands of Fate you're missing out on 90 mins of magic.

10 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. yay! by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This film is the only movie ever to make me physically ill (except maybe ones that cause motion sickness).

    It was literally made by a manure salesman.

    It was made with a wind-up camera that could only take a shot for about 60 sec. or so (which is why there is constant jump cuts).

    Several people involved with the shoot (including the guy who played Torgo) later committed suicide.

    You can go on and on. It's a bit of cinematic history.

    (I think Tarantino owns one of the prints of this, however...)

    1. Re:yay! by hag3r · · Score: 5, Informative

      Several people involved with the shoot (including the guy who played Torgo) later committed suicide.

      AFAIK, the only one from the cast who committed suicide was John Reynolds (Torgo). It is speculated that the things he wore on his legs permanently injured his knees during the shoot, and that the pain later on drove him to commit suicide.

      That anyone else involved in the shoot killed themselves afterwards is most likely just a myth.

    2. Re:yay! by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've read that poor John Reynolds was a troubled person to being with. It's a shame he committed suicide.

      Also, according to the same article the camera could only shoot 32 seconds of film at once, which is a pretty amazing limitation to deal with.

      Yes, "Manos" is a terrible, boring and disturbing film, but it is not entirely without merit. For one thing, the music is pretty decent, even if repeated too much. The whole thing is a weird story and this new discovery of a workprint is an equally weird coda.

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      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    3. Re:yay! by uigrad_2000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, most people have only seen this film through the edits made by MST3K.

      I normally love all MST3K stuff, but in this case, they complain about how the whole movie just doesn't make sense. The reason it doesn't make sense is that a lot of the important scenes were cut out, to make room for all the MST3K content. They chose to cut out plot-important scenes so that they could be sure to preserve all the "driving in silence" scenes at the beginning of the movie.

      Essentially, MST3K edited it horribly, and then proceeded to make fun of how badly it was edited.

      --
      Free unix account: freeshell.org
    4. Re:yay! by Sporkinum · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's the ring tone I have assigned to my wife.

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      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
  2. Heritage by mattie_p · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not that this movie is any good, but such works SHOULD be transferred to digital/HD media before they are lost forever. How many classic silents are lost forever? If only the studios hadn't lost their copies... Anyway, continuing a trend to digitize movie archives? Nothing to see here, move along.

  3. The original thread by ConaxConax · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Manos find was documented on the Something Awful forums, here is a link to the original thread if anyone is interested, it is an interested work. May be NSFW. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3450845

    1. Re:The original thread by ConaxConax · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I should probably note that the thread was made by the guy who is doing the restoration work, and he created the website in TFS and has a load of cool pictures and stuff.

  4. Re:Why buy it alone when you can watch the MST3K? by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you look at TFWebsite, you'll see that part of the reason for doing this transfer to HD is that the original theater print was made by taking the original 16mm print, making a 35mm negative from that, and then making positives from that for theatrical distribution. In essence, the footage seen in theaters and on MST3K was two copies away from the original, and they skimped on the transfers, resulting in horrible film quality.

    But the guy doing the restoration found an original 16mm work print, and he's doing the HD transfer from that.

    In terms of cinematic quality, this will be a huge improvement. On the other hand, in terms of entertainment quality, this movie was so god-awful that Joel and the Bots were only barely able to salvage it. What I'd love to see happen is for someone to transfer the silhouettes, audio, and sketches from the old MST3K version into the new HD release of this movie, so we could all enjoy (or run screaming from) both versions in HD glory.

  5. Manos, Manos, Manos.... why? by Dripdry · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a collector and aficionado (of sorts) of B-movies, Manos seems to have merely been in the right place at the right time with MST3K.
    There are many movies that could be lumped in with "worst of all time". Some are awful, some are hilariously fun, but there are definitely other contenders (mst3k hardly scratches the surface).

    Try Guru The Mad Monk, Mama Dracula, War of the Robots, or anything shown at B-Fest in the last 30 years (manos was finally shown last year).

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