Jackson Cooper
      Staff Writer

The worst movie in the world is a funny way to flirt with someone.

“What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?”

People’s eyes light up and they become joyous.

Mine? “Transformers 2,” the most horrendous piece of trash I’ve ever seen next to GTCC’s production of the musical “9 to 5.”

That is, until I watched “Manos: The Hands of Fate.”

Some backstory: in high school, my friends and I were movie buffs. I mean making trips to catch a late night screening of “2001: A Space Odyssey” kind of buffs. One of our favorite bonding experiences was watching the parody TV show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” where three smart-ass hosts would watch bad old movies and make sarcastic remarks the entire time.

That may sound like it gets annoying, but try watching a bad movie and not being tempted to say something. After all, the people on the screen can’t hear you.

We maybe watched over 30 episodes of “MST3K,” a total of 30 bad movies, including our favorite one: “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” Then one day, on my tumblr, a friend recommended I watch the Best “MST3K” episode, which really meant that the movie was the worst—the show’s hilarity is better when the movie is an abomination. What the hell, yes I wanted to watch the worst movie ever made and three people make comments on how bad it is. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, yeah, it was “fun.” The same feeling I had watching it was when I would get a shot at the doctor’s and I would remember a good joke so as not to think about the pain. The needle still hurt and continued for an abnormally long period of time, but I was laughing so what did the pain matter?

It mattered with “Manos.”

The movie was made by a fertilizer salesman who thought it’d be fun if he got some of his friends and local community theatre actors together to make a movie. The film follows a married couple and their child (yet another reason why children should only perform in elementary school chorus and not movies or plays) who stumble onto a seemingly abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere.

They are introduced to Torgo, the handyman of sorts for the hotel, who repeats that “the master wouldn’t approve” and “there is no way out of here.” Take this brilliant piece of dialogue when Torgo is faced with the question of how to get out of here:

TORGO: “There is no way out of here. It’ll be dark soon. There is no way out of here.” The actor himself was tripped out on acid the entire time, according to sources which, if you watch the film in that frame, makes his character make a whole lot of sense.

Torgo hides something a bit creepier: he is, in fact, the second-hand (a joke because “Manos” means ‘hand’ in Spanish so the title is “Hands: The Hands of fate”) to the Master—a Tom Selick look-alike harboring a cult of Satan worshipping wives and who wishes to make the wife and daughter a part of that.

Yeesh, and I thought protestants were bad!

The atrociousness of the movie comes from the sheer fact that nothing goes anywhere, ever. It’s like wine without alcohol or porn without sex. It simply is hollow and uninteresting, but hilarious if you watch the “MST3K” version. The hosts in that show even snap midway through because of how awful this movie is. And though the film runs only and hour and ten minutes, it feels like—well, “Transformers 2” that drags its plot out for two-and-a-half-hours too long.

“Manos” has just recently been re-released on Blu-Ray and DVD, remastered in all of its grainy, 16mm glory. The film has been the source for two worthwhile articles, one in Entertainment Weekly deeming it the worst movie ever made, the other in Playboy which talks about the distribution wars of it, and has gained a cult following (yours truly, included). Although, if you were to subject your Halloween guests to this kind of horror movie, I recommend turning on the “Mystery Science Theater” version so that you can at least have tour guides on your trip to hell.

I’ve heard people say “The Room” is the worst movie ever made. Yes, that is a pretty terrible movie, but at least it is enjoyable to watch. “Manos” involves none of that “enjoying” thing. It is one bad idea after another, resulting in a finale that reeks of bad taste when the filmmakers obviously meant for it to be “chilling.” For what it’s worth, “Manos” makes Michael Bay look like Steven Spielberg. This Halloween, drink a few beers and watch the “MST3K” version of “Manos.” Don’t worry, it’s only your time that’ll be wasted.